2005 Ferrari 612 Scaglietti Shooting Brake

This car, Lot 32, sold for $244,157 (€207,000), including buyer’s premium, on October 11, 2020, at the Bonhams Zoute Sale in Belgium.

Michiel van den Brink is an industrial designer with a soft spot for projects that move. In 2006 he penned the Vandenbrink GTO. Recognizing Ferrari’s 599 Fiorano shared a silhouette with the 250 GTO, a modern interpretation of the GTO was achieved with a few reasonable modifications. The project put Vandenbrink Design on the map and led to this commission, a one-off 612 Scaglietti shooting brake.

Traditionally, one-offs were built by fitting a custom body to a production chassis. Modern unibody construction blends the body and chassis into one unit, making that method nigh impossible, as substantially modifying the unibody or creating a new one is both cost prohibitive and legally sketchy. Thus modern one-off projects involve replacing a portion of the skin on a production vehicle to make it look like a new or different car.

The 612 shooting brake’s impressive looks owe more to creativity than coachbuilding. Building on the 599 GTO concept, the result was obtained with minimal modification to the base car. The hand-crafted aluminum conversion was not done in-house, and is credited to van Roomen Carrosserie of Hoevelaken, Holland.

Chop-top

The work was relatively straightforward. Starting with a stock production 612 Scaglietti, the roof was cut about two feet back of the windshield and at the top of the rear fenders. The top, rear window and trunk lid were then removed. A shooting-brake roofline was constructed in aluminum and attached where the original roof had been. The rear fenders were left intact, as were the rear quarter windows. The area between the taillights and above the bumper was cut out to make the rear hatch. The balance of the car was not modified.

The firm Carat of Liège in Belgium gets credit for the leatherwork. The 612’s stock interior is Pininfarina at its best, the design and finish being the height of functional luxury. Any redesign of the interior would be compared to Pininfarina’s original work, so Vandenbrink smartly chose to leave the interior intact from the rear seats forward. Carat merely upholstered the rear area to match the front. The new space is luxuriously lined top to bottom with beige leather. The floor is protected with chrome runners. The resulting space is perfect for a set of Schedoni luggage — or a few bags of topsoil.

Wagons ho!

Almost from the beginning of the automobile industry, wealthy clients have commissioned shooting brakes made from exclusive sports and luxury cars. Aston Martins, Rolls-Royces, Bentleys, Jaguars and even Ferraris have been converted into shooting brakes. Many of the top coachbuilders have been commissioned to design and build the models.

Vandenbrink states, “The ‘shooting brake’ body style is typically described as a sleek wagon with two doors and sports-car panache; its image is entangled with European aristocracy, fox hunts and baying hounds.” The exclusive coachbuilt examples from legendary manufacturers have long captured the imagination of shooting-brake enthusiasts.

The most expensive and luxurious of Ferrari’s production cars have traditionally been 2+2 models. They rival the performance of their 2-passenger brethren, but with more space, more features and more usability. Vandenbrink’s choice of a 612 Scaglietti for its project was thus a natural. The 612’s physical size was perfect for a utility vehicle; it’s luxurious appointments ensured a worthy result.

Pininfarina went back in its history to design the 612 Scaglietti. The design was based on a one-off 375 MM, commissioned for the actress Ingrid Bergman by her then-husband, Italian film director Roberto Rossellini. The car was one of its greatest triumphs. The elegant GT featured an elongated nose and scalloped sides. The 612 Scaglietti shared these same traits.

Vandenbrink expanded on that theme, complementing the 612’s scallops with similar features on the side of the roofline and around two glass panels fit in the roof. The scallop effects are the highlights of the Vandenbrink design, adding the touch of elegance needed to keep its car from being just a Ferrari station wagon.

One and not done?

This 612 shooting brake was commissioned in 2017. The shock value of a Ferrari station wagon may now be diminished by the many luxury utility vehicles manufacturers have recently introduced, but I would argue that none match the beauty of Vandenbrink’s creation.

Vandenbrink says it wants to build 12 of these shooting brakes, quoting a conversion cost of $265,000. Add to that some $80k–$120k for the donor 612, and $350,000–$400,000 is your replacement cost. Bonhams gave this car a wide pre-sale estimate of $180,000–$290,000, with the hammer price falling a little north of the middle of the range at $244,157.

There are maybe four true coachbuilt Ferrari shooting brakes, unique, one-of-a-kind bodies on Ferrari chassis. Most serious Ferrari enthusiasts can name all of them. The Vandenbrink is more of a conversion than a coachbuilt car, but like the Sultan of Brunei’s Ferrari 456 GT-based Venice Estate Wagon, it will be included in most discussions on the type. Should a major concours decide to display Ferrari shooting brakes, it will make the short list of invitees.

Ferrari replaced the 612 with its high-utility hatchback FF, and it will soon be going even further down that road by introducing the Purosangue SUV. Given the 15 months it took to build the Vandenbrink 612 and the soon-to-be easy availability of a purpose-built utility Ferrari directly from a dealer, I suspect this is the end of coachbuilt Ferrari shooting brakes.

The seller only put 2,000 km on his car in the few months it was in his possession. He lost some money but got the excitement of building a unique Ferrari. The buyer got a high-profile Ferrari and admission to an exclusive club for under a quarter-million dollars. That’s as good as it gets in the Ferrari world. ♦

(Introductory description courtesy of Bonhams.)