Coupé de ville: Difference between revisions
Right. I shall have to attack this pile of MBEP piece by piece. First off: Corrected headings as per WP:LEAD and added Cite check tag, as there are VERY serious doubts that the text reflects what the sources say. |
Removed paragraph about the automotive choices of Hollywood film stars whose only supporting document predates both the automobile and the motion picture camera. Restored text the citation originally supported. |
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Hence, when early automobile designers began creating luxury products, the design form and term carried over into their design and marketing principles.<ref name=HayBeat/> Secondly, as early automotive engines were not powerful, and as coach building added a substantial weight and cost to the final produced car, the performance and cost advantages of using such a design became obvious.<ref name=HayBeat/> |
Hence, when early automobile designers began creating luxury products, the design form and term carried over into their design and marketing principles.<ref name=HayBeat/> Secondly, as early automotive engines were not powerful, and as coach building added a substantial weight and cost to the final produced car, the performance and cost advantages of using such a design became obvious.<ref name=HayBeat/> |
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| ⚫ | The style was also intended for the personal use of women<ref>{{cite book|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=YNGsnpvKkpsC&pg=PA242&dq=%22world+on+wheels%22+%22coupé+de+ville%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=k4jxTrKFL-2amQXkrfWhAg&sqi=2&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false |author=Ezra Stratton |title=World on Wheels |publisher=Bloom |location=New York |year=1878 |isbn=0-405-09006-4}}}</ref> riding in the back seat and chauffeured. |
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==Design form== |
==Design form== |
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[[File:1937 Bentley 4¼ litre coupé de ville.jpg|thumb|right|interior]] |
[[File:1937 Bentley 4¼ litre coupé de ville.jpg|thumb|right|interior]] |
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Due to its historic and luxurious connections, the term found early favour amongst many North America automobile manufacturers. As the market developed through the 1920s and 1930s, the term [[Town car]] became used for the 4-door variants, and [[Limousine]] for cars with a dividing wall. Manufacturers included [[Brewster & Co.]] (especially for Rolls-Royce, [[Packard]] and own its chassis), [[LeBaron]] and [[Rollston]]. |
Due to its historic and luxurious connections, the term found early favour amongst many North America automobile manufacturers. As the market developed through the 1920s and 1930s, the term [[Town car]] became used for the 4-door variants, and [[Limousine]] for cars with a dividing wall. Manufacturers included [[Brewster & Co.]] (especially for Rolls-Royce, [[Packard]] and own its chassis), [[LeBaron]] and [[Rollston]]. |
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In Southern Europe, in the 1930s the term Coupé de Ville became most associated as a three-position [[Convertible (car)|drophead coupé]], which may be: fully closed; fully open; or partially closed, leaving rear passengers covered. This form became most popular in the 1930s, allowing you to use one powerful car to make the run from Northern Europe to the [[Mediterranean]] coast, most typically [[Monaco]].<ref name=Websters3rd>{{cite book |editor1-first= Philip Babcock |editor1-last= Gove |editor1-link= Philip Babcock Gove|others= |title= Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged |date= |year= 1966 |month= | volume = A-K|origyear= |publisher= G & C Merriam |location= Springfield, Mass. USA |isbn= 0-7135-1037-4|page= 521}}</ref> |
In Southern Europe, in the 1930s the term Coupé de Ville became most associated as a three-position [[Convertible (car)|drophead coupé]], which may be: fully closed; fully open; or partially closed, leaving rear passengers covered. This form became most popular in the 1930s, allowing you to use one powerful car to make the run from Northern Europe to the [[Mediterranean]] coast, most typically [[Monaco]].<ref name=Websters3rd>{{cite book |editor1-first= Philip Babcock |editor1-last= Gove |editor1-link= Philip Babcock Gove|others= |title= Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged |date= |year= 1966 |month= | volume = A-K|origyear= |publisher= G & C Merriam |location= Springfield, Mass. USA |isbn= 0-7135-1037-4|page= 521}}</ref> |
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Revision as of 11:30, 8 June 2014
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_Coup%C3%A9_Napoleon.jpg){kind=link}
A Coupe de Ville (also: Coupe Chauffeur or Sedanca de Ville), is a French language-derived term for an automobile designed to be driven by a chauffeur, in which the driver is either sitting externally or has an open top, while the passengers sit within an enclosed and luxurious compartment.[1][2]
Terminology
In Northern Europe, the term most commonly used is Coupe de Ville, covering both 2 and 4-door variants. In Southern Europe and the United Kingdom, the Spanish-term Sedanca de Ville is used for the 4-door variant, often shortened to Sedanca or de Ville, having been introduced by Count Salamanca in the 1920s.[1][2] In North America, the term Town car or Town Brougham was most commonly used by manufacturers pre-World War 2 for the 4-door variant, Coupe de Ville for the 2-door, and Limousine for variants with a dividing wall.[1] Latterly, few North American manufacturers have used the term exactly (ie: no open front), to enable their larger cars which could be chauffeur-driven to gain extra marketing qudos.[1][2]
Origin
The term dates back to the French language verb couper, translating as cut, referring to the fact that the body is separated by a cut-off wheel, or "cut in half".[1][2][3]
The unusual body shape seen today goes back to the chivalry of the horse drawn carriage era of medieval Europe. In order to identify incoming guests at court as friendly, it was necessary for the host to be able to identify the livery of the visiting guests coachman from afar off distance. To enable the coachman to be identifiable, he was hence placed high up and in the open.[1]
As many of the early railway carriages were simply either converted horse carriages, or used designs derived from them, this form of design carried over into the early 1800's European railway age. Often, the owner was fully enclosed in part of a railway carriage, whilst his servants, staff and often animals were in an open or simply covered area of the same railway vehicle.[1]
Hence, when early automobile designers began creating luxury products, the design form and term carried over into their design and marketing principles.[1] Secondly, as early automotive engines were not powerful, and as coach building added a substantial weight and cost to the final produced car, the performance and cost advantages of using such a design became obvious.[1]
The style was also intended for the personal use of women[4] riding in the back seat and chauffeured.
Design form
From the early designs, where the driver most often had no cover, no doors and often no windshield, resultantly leaving him fully open to the weather; the design necessarily developed through both increasing road speeds and distances travelled.[1][2]
After quickly adding a windshield, which protected the driver from the then substantial amounts of dirt from the untarmacadam roads and also the collected animal manure, doors to the driving compartment became the next development. Early roofs for the front compartment were made of a single-skin of leather, with no structural support, held in place between the passenger compartment and the windshield by poppers to allow for easy removal or rollback when the weather allowed. Latter 1920s onwards designs used a metal two-skin roof which regressed into a void above the passenger compartment, either manually or electrically.[1][2]
The passenger compartment was always luxurious, clad in the best materials, with seating for between two and most often upto 6 or occasionally 8 persons, made of the finest cotton or silk adorned with brocade. The same material was also most often used to provide complete curtain coverage for the compartment, and was matched by substantial carpet and fine inlaid woodwork. Something we would find unusual today was that the drivers compartment retained leather seating, as it was open to the weather.[1] On the dividing wall between the two compartments were often placed additional seating suitable for lighter passengers such as children, and it would often accommodate various compartments like a sideboard, such as drinks, cigars, make-up or books.[1]
The two compartments were separated by a divide, often with a small slide-back glass window, or latterly completely made of glass with a manual or electric winding system. The passengers were enabled to speak to the driver through a communications tube, or from the 1920s via an electrical device akin to an early telephone. Some designs incorporated a switch panel in the rear passenger compartment, which contained both a speedometer as well as switches to impart the most common instructions to the driver via a lighted dashboard panel, such as "stop", "left", "right" or "home".[1]
Manufacturer
Due to its high-end luxurious form, bespoke commissioning and resultant design nature, and final high cost, these style of vehicles were manufactured in small numbers through manual production. The cars were nearly 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 most known for such works, and latterly Henri Binder who is most associated with equipping one onto a Bugatti Royale.
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 variant with Rolls Royce Motor Cars, and the 2-door sporting variant with Bentley Motors. Coach builders included Barker, Hooper, HJ Mulliner and Park Ward.
North America
Due to its historic and luxurious connections, the term found early favour amongst many North America automobile manufacturers. As the market developed through the 1920s and 1930s, the term Town car became used for the 4-door variants, and Limousine for cars with a dividing wall. Manufacturers included Brewster & Co. (especially for Rolls-Royce, Packard and own its chassis), LeBaron and Rollston.
In Southern Europe, in the 1930s the term Coupé de Ville became most associated as a three-position drophead coupé, which may be: fully closed; fully open; or partially closed, leaving rear passengers covered. This form became most popular in the 1930s, allowing you to use one powerful car to make the run from Northern Europe to the Mediterranean coast, most typically Monaco.[5]
Seeking publicity and building on his work with Studebaker, Raymond Loewy had two Lincoln Continentals[6] altered to coupés de ville in 1946 using a removable plexiglas cover over the chauffeur. Once high-speed highways entered the cities this part-open style became obsolete in North America and is now best remembered in the model-name Cadillac Coupe de Ville.[citation needed]
See also
- Landaulet de Ville, also known as Town Landaulet
- Town car
- Targa top also known in North America as a Surrey Top. Removable panel over the front seats, while the back of the top is usually fixed.
References
- Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford University Press, 1989
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Ian Beattie (1977). Automobile Body Design. Haynes Publishing Group. ISBN 0-85429-217-9.
- ^ a b c d e f Culshaw, David; Horrobin, Peter (2013) [1974]. "Appendix 5 - Coachwork styles". The complete catalogue of British Cars 1895 - 1975 (Paperback ed.). Poundbury, Dorchester, UK: Veloce Publishing. p. 483. ISBN 978-1-874105-93-0. Retrieved 2013-12-06.
Sedanca A version of the Coupe style, with the rear seat covered by a fixed roof. The front seats are open, but occasionally covered by a sliding panel. Dummy hood irons are sometimes in evidence, as are fixed (occasionally circular) side windows.
{{cite book}}: External link in|chapterurl=|chapterurl=ignored (|chapter-url=suggested) (help); Unknown parameter|deadurl=ignored (|url-status=suggested) (help) - ^ coachbuilt.com: Terminologie (de Ville)
- ^ Ezra Stratton (1878). World on Wheels. New York: Bloom. ISBN 0-405-09006-4.}
- ^ Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1966). Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged. Vol. A–K. Springfield, Mass. USA: G & C Merriam. p. 521. ISBN 0-7135-1037-4.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|month=(help) - ^ Dennis Adler (2007). Speed and Luxury: The Great Cars. St. Paul MN: Motorbooks. ISBN 978-0-7603-2960-3.
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