Automotive question...

Sedan=four doors Coupe=two doors

two door convertible

Sedan usually gets pronounced Suh dan rather than a long e. Since we're talking about a fictional car I don't see a problem with the roll up windows; most cars had them by then. hth

The Keeper (of too much crap)

WinBear,

For starters, nearly all automobile body names originated from horse-drawn vehicles. But as automobile body types here goes: (keep in mind, this nomenclature would be appropriate throught at least the middle 1930's, in the US)

Phaeton: Also called "touring car", an open-bodied car with both front and rear seats, folding top, but depends on side-curtains in inclement weather. This sort of body having roll-up windows along with the folding soft top was called a "Convertible Sedan".

Sedan: A closed body, having both a front, and a full back seat, with seating for 5 or more people. Sedans can have of course, 4 doors, but 2-door sedans existed also, sometimes called a Coach.

Coupe (correct pronunciation "Koo-pay") is a normal length body with a short, fixed roof, two doors only, and seating for 2 or 3 people (including the driver) side-by-side. Coupes are always considered to be closed cars, with roll-up windows.

Landaulet: Takes its name from the Laundau (a closed body 4-dr sedan with a folding top over the rear seat, the folding top having an S-shaped, hinged bar on the outside on each side, which provides the folding action. Landaulets came in about 1905 or so, and disappeared by the late 1920's for the most part. A landaulet had a short roof, fully framed door glass, and the distinctive folding S-shaped exterior top irons. By 1930, the same body style became more popularly known as a Cabriolet, the forerunner of what we call today, a Convertible.

Roadster: A 2-door open car, having side-by-side seating for 2-3 including the driver. Roadsters are distinguished from the Cabriolet, Landaulet, and convertibles by having no roll-up side windows, relying instead on snap-on side curtains in rain or cold weather.

Speedster is a somewhat all-inclusive term. A true Speedster is considered to be a body with a tapered, or "boat-tail", thus looking very much like the open-wheel race cars of the 1920's and 30's. However, some luxury car makers, notably Packard in 1930, attached the name Speedster to several lightweight bodies, powered by their largest straight-8 engines, producing a Speedster series of 2-door sedans, Phaetons and both a conventional and a boat-tailed Roadster (early Muscle Car idea maybe?)

Town Car: Town cars were perhaps the very earliest closed-car bodies, beginning around 1903 or so in Europe, a year or so later in the US. A true town car is distinguished by its closed rear body, pretty much the same idea as a 4-door sedan, but with an open front seat for the chauffeur (the old idea of a wealthy person or royalty riding in closed comfort, while the servants rode exposed to the weather. Early town cars had a fixed roof over the driver's seat area, with no doors, no windshield, no side curtains even. By the late teens, however, town cars were being built with side doors and windshield up front, and a snap-on soft roof and side curtains for the driver's seat. Some town cars were built with folding soft tops at the very rear, in the same manner as a Landau, and were termed "Town Landau's" Town cars began falling out of favor during the Great Depression in the US, due to the reluctance of wealthy people to "show off" their money and/or status, and were generally confined to larger cities (hence the name, Town Car"), used for travel to social occasions, such as the opera, or for a wealthy woman to be transported downtown for shopping, that sort of thing. by the beginning of WW-II, only Chrysler, Lincoln, Packard and Cadillac in the US offered this body style, after the war, the old-line US custom body company Derham being just about the only source for this style of body, for a fast-shrinking "old money" clientele. Perhaps the last US-built town car with a fully custom-built body was the 1952 Lincoln, with an extremely tall (over 5' tall inside!) body built by Derham for Mrs. Eleanor Ford (widow of Edsel Ford, grandmother of the current Ford Motor Company CEO William Ford Jr).

In the US, however, Town Cars weren't always the province of Luxury Car makers. Ford built over 1000 Model T Town Cars in 1914-1915, and more than 500 were built as Model A Ford Town Cars in 1929-30 as well. Counting that Ford also bought up Lincoln in 1922, it is very possible that Ford may have produced more town cars than any other US car maker, even Packard. Town cars were never a plentiful body style.

For your "rolling grocery store" idea, why not take any model kit of a large luxury car of the 30's (Duesenberg, Cadillac, or Packard, and simply replace the stock body with one constructed as a walk-in body, very much like a house-car, or RV? It sounds very much like what they were discussing in that show?

AA

Not quite universal in their application of course. In terms of say a '36 Ford Roadster my dad told me years ago the difference between the roadster and the convertible Ford was that one had a folding windscreen and the other was fixed. I'm pretty sure the side windows on the '36 Ford roll up.

WmB

To reply, get the HECK out of there snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.net

Roadster my

Ford was that

side windows on

Judging from the source material I've looked at AND the old AMT '36 Ford kit, the roadster didn't have roll-up windows. The top of the doors didn't seem conducive to it. Also, the convertible's windshield was an integral part of the body much like the closed cars. The roadster's windshield folded down because it wasn't integral with the body.

Bill Banaszak, MFE

Coop-ay?! Shades of Chickenman!! Call Miss Helpfinger!

Bill Banaszak, MFE

The WWII Dodge command cars and predecessors had "phaeton" bodies, i.e. were open-sided.

Excellent informational posting.

John Hairell

So apparently were those Dodge Bros. cars accompanying Pershing in Mexico.

Bill Banaszak, MFE