1972 Range Rover ‘SHOOTING BRAKE’ expected to fetch circa £100k

A very rare 1972 Range Rover Shooting Brake – originally built by Land Rover – is up for grabs at Bonhams for around £100k.

It’s more than 50 years since the Land Rover Range Rover (to give it its full title) arrived as a more upmarket, although still ‘hose-out’ practical, 4×4 as Land Rover sought to expand its offerings beyond the very utilitarian ‘Defender’ and, in the process, lay the foundations for the modern, very luxurious, Range Rovers.

Back then, when Range Rovers were still more practical than luxury, Land Rover was seeking other avenues for sales and produced six long-wheelbase prototypes, not to give more room to party in the back, but to deliver a Range Rover ambulance, or for other ‘practical’ purpose. 

That might sound more like a Top Gear stunt than a real proposition, but real they were and featured a steeped roof and kitted out to do medical stuff in hard to reach areas. And now one of them (thought to be one of only two still in existence) is up for grabs. Although it’s a bit different to when Land Rover built it.

Of the six original prototypes, one was actually built as a multi-seater shooting brake for Sir Alfred McAlpine, and this former Range Rover Ambulance (reg. no. ‘FXC 831L’), which served with St. John’s Ambulance for 44 years, was bought from them in 2017 and converted to a Shooting Brake by Bishops 4×4 of Yaxley.

Now up for sale in its converted Shooting Brake guise, Bonhams has estimated it at £80-120K, which does seem a lot.

But there isn’t another one, at least not one originally built by Land Rover, and although it’s a pretty ugly thing with its stepped roof (17 years before the Discovery arrived with its own stepped roof) and ‘built in a shed’ looks, it wouldn’t be out of place as a practical way to transport wealthy clients on an Estate shoot.

This 1972 Range Rover Shooting Brake crosses the block on 18 September at the Goodwood Revival.