Alpine Shooting Brake?

[Bill Blue]

Wow, that's really all I can say. An April fool's prank that has spread across the internet being quoted and used to write articles as if it was fact. Does anyone know the year Ian posted the article?

I don't know for sure, I'd guess about 2000. In the early years, Ian published a monthly internet magazine, which became the Marque. So definitely before 2002. I have no idea how they could be retrieved.

Bill

 

[Ken Ellis]

That's always been the gold standard of internet shenanigans for Alpines. Completely plausible, well-presented in-character with Ian, with logically-terminated blind alleys in the search and everything. The only 'tell' is the gas filler neck appears on both sides of the car. With photoshop the way it is today, the images could be made to be completely photo-real.

Did a quick search under AlpineIan but did not find evidence of publication date. The Wayback Machine may know...

 

[greenbeam]

On this very site, under 'Feature Articles', use the 'next' hyperlink at the bottom of each page. Both Shooting Brake and Series VI are there.

http://www.sunbeamalpine.org/index.php?categoryid=82&p2_start=16

The Series VI is April 1st 2001, so I'd guess the shooting brake is 2002.
Cheers,
Paul.

 

[Alpine 1789]

I just Googled "sunbeam alpine shooting brake" to see what came up. While the first entry - at least based on what Google thinks is important to me - is Ian's original article here, there are lots of other references, some quoting Ian and some not. My favorite, which certainly gives credibility to the story, is this one from Hemmings Lost & Found, April '08, written by David LaChance:

IN SEARCH OF THE SHOOTING BRAKE ESTATE WAGON
Back in 1960, not long after the successful introduction of its Alpine sports car, Sunbeam apparently toyed with the idea of creating a shooting brake version of the car. As few as three examples of the Shooting Brake Estate Wagon, as the car was known, were built before the Rootes Group, Sunbeam's parent company, chose to go in another direction with the Harrington Alpine. Now, Ian Spencer, the webmaster of the Sunbeam Alpine Owners Club of America, is trying to track down one of these fabled cars. "In an effort to shed the Alpine of its growing image as a ladies' car, Rootes officials decided to target a different market by offering a Shooting Brake, or Estate Wagon version to the most proper of English gentlemen," Ian explained. "Evidently, the Shooting Brake was very expensive to produce. The body consisted of a die-pressed sheetmetal top that was welded directly to an Alpine body. Once the necessary bodywork was completed, the Shooting Brake was loaded down with leather interior and real walnut trim. Dripping with luxury, this estate wagon priced out at over twice that of a stock Alpine. So, it's easy to see why Rootes dropped the project for the Harrington." The Sunbeam design seems to anticipate the Volvo 1800ES and the Reliant Scimitar sports wagons by a good ten years. All that remains today of the Shooting Brake Estate Wagon are the drawings, a blurry factory photo, and an ad from the April 1960 issue of Modern Motoring. If you know the whereabouts of one of these cars, let us know.
https://www.hemmings.com/magazine/hsx/2008/04/Lost--amp--Found/1610366.html

A nice reminder of why you should never believe something just because you read it online!