Connect with us

Lifestyle

Here’s another Tesla Model S Shooting Brake wagon, by Italian tuner ARES Design

Published

on

Italian sports car design house, ARES Design, is working on its own version of the Tesla Model S Shooting Brake. The all-electric wagon will boast a redesigned carbon fiber and aluminum bodywork, a custom interior, and is expected to be available for purchase later this year.

According to a press release issued by the Italian firm, the idea for the electric car’s modification came after ARES Design CEO Danny Bahar noticed some areas of improvement for his Tesla Model S. While Bahar loved the technology and performance of his car, he was limited by the vehicle’s hatchback design. The CEO also noted that the excellent car is massively let down by its interior, which is nowhere near on-par with the best in the auto industry.

With ARES Design’s announcement, there are now three separate aftermarket firms creating their own versions of the Tesla Model S shooting brake. So far, only one company, Qwest Norfolk, has managed to show off a working version of the car, and as we noted in a previous report, the vehicle has already been seen multiple times in the wild. Another company working on the concept is Dutch coachbuilder RemetzCar, which has shown off sketches of its own Model S shooting brake design.

Tesla Model S Shooting Brake by ARES Design

Among the three aftermarket firms that are creating Model S shooting brakes, however, ARES Design might very well be the company that could pull off the most remarkable vehicle. The Italian tuning house, after all, boasts years of experience in refining cars from across the world. In its official website alone, ARES’ projects with the Mercedes-Benz G-Class, the Porsche 911 GT3 Targa and the Bentley Mulsanne all show the tuning house’s mastery in modifying and enhancing the level of luxury in the vehicles they work on. It would be this experience and attention to detail that the firm will be applying to the Tesla Model S shooting brake.

With this idea in mind, ARES Design went on to design a shooting brake modification for the Tesla Model S. Similar to the carbon-fiber construction of Qwest Norfolk’s one-off vehicle; the Italian tuning house will utilize both carbon fiber and aluminum to create the redesigned rear of the electric car. Based on the press image that the aftermarket firm has released of the vehicle, the changes it plans to implement on the car are quite extensive, and they look really good.

Quest Norfolk’s Tesla Model S ‘Shooting Brake’ spotted Supercharging in the wild

Advertisement

Perhaps the most notable aspect of ARES’ Tesla Model S shooting brake, however, is its completely redesigned interior. Being a tuning house that works on some of the world’s most luxurious vehicles, the Italian aftermarket firm plans to completely redesign the interior of the Model S with handcrafted artisan interior panels in carbon fiber and leather. Custom-made Nappa leather and Alcantara will also be utilized for the car’s upholstery and inserts.

Unlike its previous projects, the Italian tuning house will not be performing any upgrades on the Tesla Model S’ electric drivetrain. ARES’ Tesla Model S shooting brake will be sold for $247,000 to $309,000, which, while pricey, is considerably more affordable compared to the company’s other offerings. The ultra-luxury electric car is expected to be on sale early summer of 2018. 

Simon is an experienced automotive reporter with a passion for electric cars and clean energy. Fascinated by the world envisioned by Elon Musk, he hopes to make it to Mars (at least as a tourist) someday. For stories or tips--or even to just say a simple hello--send a message to his email, simon@teslarati.com or his handle on X, @ResidentSponge.

Advertisement
Comments

Elon Musk

Elon Musk’s answer to Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey got way more specific

Published

on

By

Elon Musk escalated his monthslong feud with Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey this week, pledging that his own AI video tool will produce a competing version before the year is out. Responding to a fan-made, AI-generated clip of the ancient epic, Musk wrote on X, “Before this year ends, Grok Imagine will make a full-length movie of The Odyssey that is historically accurate and true to the art of Homer.”

In June, Musk quoted an xAI-shared trailer built entirely with Grok Imagine Video 1.5, a two-minute-plus reimagining of The Odyssey styled after a 1970s classical Hollywood epic, and predicted “full movies by the end of the year,” as Teslarati reported at the time. That trailer, built from 36 consistent shots by a single creator, was Musk’s proof of concept. This week’s pledge turns that prediction into a specific commitment, tied directly to Homer’s text rather than a generic demo.


When a fan separately proposed that Musk fund a live-action alternative, to “give Mel Gibson $100 million to film an Odyssey adaptation with painstakingly historically accurate ships, armour, weapons, and casting, with all dialogue taken straight from the original poem and delivered in Homeric Greek,” Musk replied with two words: “I’m down.”

The Grok Imagine pledge lands as the tool’s underlying infrastructure has changed hands. Grok is no longer a standalone product, it folded into SpaceXAI after SpaceX’s acquisition of xAI closed in February, meaning the compute behind any Odyssey production traces back to the same Colossus supercomputers now bundled into SpaceX’s pitch to investors. Musk has separately said SpaceX’s own engineering data is being fed into the next major Grok training run, a two trillion parameter model he’s called the “2T run.”

Advertisement

Whether Grok Imagine can sustain a feature length narrative, rather than a series of impressive individual shots, remains the open question.

Continue Reading

Cybertruck

Tesla Mobile App gets a new feature that wrap fans are going to love

Tesla’s Summer Update removes the USB drive step from customizing your car’s digital wrap design.

Published

on

By

Tesla’s latest 2026 Summer Update quietly closes out one of the more tedious steps in personalizing a Tesla’s digital appearance. Uploading a custom wrap design used to require a USB drive. Now it doesn’t.

The feature is listed in Tesla’s release notes as “Send Custom Wraps from Mobile App.” The company described it plainly: “Skip the USB drive and upload a custom wrap of your car from the mobile app. Instructions for creating a custom wrap here: github.com/teslamotors/custom-wraps.”

The digital wrap tool has been around since Tesla’s 2024 Holiday Update, when it launched for Cybertruck owners first, as Teslarati reported at the time. Getting a design onto the car meant formatting a USB drive, creating a folder named exactly “Wraps,” dropping in PNG files sized between 512×512 and 1024×1024 pixels and under 1 MB each, then plugging the drive in and applying the wrap through Toybox. Tesla expanded the tool to other models and renamed it from “Colorizer” to “Paint Shop” with the 2025 Holiday Update, while also adding license plate and window tint customization alongside the wraps.

Advertisement

The latest Summer Update removes the USB step from that process. Owners will be able to pull a design from wherever they saved it, whether that’s a download from social media or something built from Tesla’s own GitHub templates, and push it to the car directly through the app.

Tesla reveals 2026 Summer Update with crazy fixes to Nav and more

It’s a small fix relative to the rest of this latest release, which also included expanded Grok voice commands, automatic navigation that learns regular routes, and self-driving stats inside the mobile app, all detailed in our rundown of the full Summer Update. The USB requirement was one of the more common complaints about Paint Shop since it launched. Tesla did not say when the wrap upload change would reach individual vehicles, only that the broader update is rolling out now in waves.

Continue Reading

Elon Musk

Tesla Diner is throwing a birthday party with a Franz-signed special treat

Tesla Diner turns one on July 21 with Optimus, roller skates, and a Franz-signed hat.

Published

on

By

tesla diner

Tesla is throwing its Hollywood Diner a first birthday party on July 21 and the celebration comes with a guest list of unique items, including a limited run of Tesla Diner birthday hats personally signed by Tesla Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen for the first 50 customers who place an in-car order at midnight.

One year after lines wrapped around the block on Santa Monica Boulevard for a diner that most of the restaurant industry did not take seriously, Tesla is making the case that the concept was worth the years it took to build. The concept had been in Musk’s head since at least 2018, when he floated the idea of “an old school drive-in, roller skates and rock restaurant” on X, describing it years later as “‘Grease’ meets ‘The Jetsons’ with Supercharging.”

Tesla Optimus Gen 3 is coming to the Tesla Diner with new ambitions

 

What made the diner genuinely different from any restaurant that came before it was not the menu or the nostalgia. It was the ordering model. Tesla owners could place food orders directly from their vehicle’s touchscreen before arriving, a small feature that hints at something much larger on the horizon. As the Cybercab and unsupervised FSD expand across major cities, the diner model becomes a template for an entirely new kind of commerce. A robotaxi pulling in to charge does not need a human to walk up to a counter. The vehicle places the order, the food is ready on arrival, and the passenger never interrupts the experience of being driven somewhere else. It is the first glimpse of what drive-through commerce looks like when the car is doing the driving.

Advertisement

As Teslarati has reported, Musk signaled immediately after opening that the Hollywood location was only the beginning, posting that Tesla would expand the concept to major cities worldwide and along Supercharger corridors on long-distance routes if the first location proved successful. One year in, the birthday celebration on July 21 makes a strong case that it has. Tesla announced a full day of events including a Cybercab on display, a birthday menu, Optimus in attendance, face painting, a photo booth, roller skating servers, a light show, a Skypad DJ, and complimentary collectibles.

If Musk’s ambition holds, the Hollywood diner is year one of something much bigger. The birthday party is the proof of concept. The robotaxi fleet is the business model waiting behind it.

Advertisement
Continue Reading