Coupé de ville

thumb|1908 Thomas 4-20 town car

Coupé de ville—also known as town car or sedanca de ville—is a car body style produced from 1908 to 1939 with an external or open-topped driver's position and an enclosed compartment for passengers. Although the different terms may have once had specific meanings for certain car manufacturers or countries, the terms are often used interchangeably.

Some coupés de ville have the passengers separated from the driver in a fully enclosed compartment while others have a canopy for the passengers and no partition between the driver and the passengers (passengers enter the compartment via driver's area).

Origin

thumb|Coupé carriage

The separate exposed area for the driver followed from horse-drawn carriages.

The term "coupé de ville" came into existence in the 19th century before the invention of the automobile. The initial usage of the term was for a variant of the coupé carriage that is very similar to the British clarence carriage.

The term "de ville" is French for "for town" and indicates that the vehicle is for use in town or for short distances. When added to the end of a body style (saloon, coupé, landaulet, etc.), "de Ville" indicated that the top over the driver's compartment could be folded away, retracted, or otherwise removed. As a vehicle for town use, the coupé de ville usually had no facilities for carrying luggage.

Design

thumb|1925 [[Hispano-Suiza Type H.6 with collapsible rear compartment roof, also called a Landaulet]]

Early cars had the driver fully exposed to the weather with no cover, no doors, and sometimes no windshield,. As speed and distances travelled increased, windshields were added to protect the driver from dirt from the unpaved roads and dung from draught animals. Later models also included doors to the driving compartment.

Early roofs for the driver's area were made of a single skin of leather without any structural support, and were held in place between the passenger compartment and the windshield by poppers to allow for easy removal or rollback when the weather allowed. From the late 1920s onward some designs used a metal two-skin roof which retracted into a void above the passenger compartment, either manually or electrically.

Due to its use as a chauffeured vehicle, the passenger compartment was normally luxurious, A coupé de ville is alternatively defined in North America as a drophead coupé with a three-position top which may be fully closed, fully open, or partially closed, leaving rear passengers covered.

Cabriolet-Victoria

In the United Kingdom, a sedanca-style drophead coupé with three-position folding top (fully open, covering the rear passengers only, or fully closed) is called a "cabriolet victoria". This variant is defined as a coupé de ville in the United States.

Coupé chauffeur

thumb|1928 [[Minerva (automobile)|Minerva AK-32 CV]]

French variant

Coupé limousine

French variant similar to the coupé chauffeur but with a longer passenger compartment capable of holding up to seven passengers, with up to three on jump seats usually facing forward. The style was referred to in the United States as a limousine town car and in Britain as a limousine de ville. The term Coupé Napoleon was also used to describe a Bugatti Royale body of the type.

Brougham

thumb|1899 [[Peugeot Type 27]]

The term is derived from the brougham carriage. In strict terms, a brougham would have a sharply squared rear end of the roof and a forward-curving body line at the base of the front of the passenger enclosure. The term degraded during the twentieth century.

Manufacturers

Europe

Due to its high-end luxurious form, bespoke commissioning and resultant design nature, and final high cost, coupés de ville of both types were hand-built in small numbers. The cars were almost always made as individual ("full custom"), or in a small edition with individual equipment ("semi-custom").

In France, Audineau et Cie., Mulbacher and Rothschild became known for such works.

In the United Kingdom, the style was applied to numerous chassis by the various specialist coachwork builders, but it is most often associated via the 4-door Sedanca de Ville variant with Rolls-Royce motor cars, and the 2-door sporting Sedanca variant with Bentleys. Coachbuilders included Barker, Hooper, H. J. Mulliner and Park Ward.

North America

Coachbuilt

Due to its historic and luxurious connections, the term town car found early favour amongst many North America automobile manufacturers. The most luxurious were handbuilt by coachbuilders on rolling chassis provided by prestige automakers, such as Packards and North American-built Rolls-Royces bodied by Brewster & Co., and various Cadillacs, Lincolns, Packards, and others by LeBaron and Rollston. Brewster also sold a limited line of automobiles under its own name.

In 1922, Edsel Ford had a Lincoln built with a town car body for his father's personal use. for example the 1959 Lincoln Continental Town Car has a sedan body style.

File:Cadillac Coupe De Ville 1950.jpg|1950 Cadillac Coupe de Ville

File:1959 Lincoln Continental.JPG|1959 Lincoln Continental Town Car

File:2001 Lincoln Town Car Cartier.jpg|2001 Lincoln Town Car

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References

Citations

Sources

Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford University Press, 1989