BRABUS Shadow 1200 Sun Top Phantom-Grey Signature Edition

Truly impressive are the massive social spaces: the foredeck and the front lounge with the gullwing doors, the helm and cockpit area with large seating space centered around a wet bar, foldable balcony doors and various optional aft deck layouts to choose from.

The innovative layout allows for seamless movement all around the boat, making a day out fun and relaxing, especially with larger groups of people, charter guests and such like.

The massive social areas include up to two wet bars – one in the center of the boat and another, optionally integrated into the fender box in the back of the boat.

There is plenty of room to entertain, thanks to the extra-wide sociable sofa that wraps around the cockpit wet bar, a large dining area, large fold-out table, and optional u-sofa seating arrangement on the aft deck. Alternatively, a simple aft-deck bench, leaving the remainder of the aft-deck fully open can also be specified.

Such is the open-plan layout and intelligent use of deck space, it’s not untrue to say that if this boat was moored in a marina, it could host 20 or more people, who could all easily find somewhere to sit, with a drink in hand, while enjoying the last of the day’s sun. Or simply fold down the side-opening balcony doors in the hull and extend the onboard relaxation space even further. The ability of this boat to ‘swallow’ people and their gear is truly remarkable.

As standard, the front cabin interior space is ideal for carrying guest luggage, or watersport and lifestyle gear, with the option of at least doubling the carrying capacity by way of adding the Aft-Cabin Accommodation Package, which adds a second en-suite cabin, if that is the priority you feel you might need.

For setting the perfect mood and soundtrack, the guest experience can be enhanced with optional features, including an upgraded JL Audio systems and dimmable LED illuminated balcony doors, a carbon LED roof light module, underwater and deck lighting with optional full RGB lighting throughout the boat is available as well.

 

German luxury auto-engineering and performance experts, BRABUS, had formed an alliance with Finnish boat builder, Axopar, only 12 months or so before the first boat was due to be launched.

Since its inception in 1977, BRABUS had forged a hard-earned and highly respected reputation within the high-end automotive market and, in 2018, boats were a new departure for them at the time.

Boat number one utilized the underpinnings and shared hull platform of the, by then, commercially successful Axopar 37, that was already well on its way to establishing Axopar’s global reputation as a disruptor of the marine industry, and founder and creator of an entirely new genre of ‘adventure-orientated’ day boats and sports-weekenders.

The new business was called BRABUS Marine, and doubters within marine and automotive industries were wondering if this was ‘just’ another car / boat manufacturer’s styling exercise, that would be unlikely to progress much further than hull number 1, or hull number 2 at best, but how wrong they were!

Strong early sales of the concept, both to existing boaters and to those who were looking for that higher level of luxury, individuality, and outright performance, meant sales gained significant traction and doubters were silenced almost from day one.