Re: Coupe or Sedan? MAHONEY! (was PARTING OUT 74 HORNET...)

[jimzanna@xxxxxxxxx]

On March 23, 2005 Jim B wrote:

> A: I've had several 4 dr hard tops. '66 Plymouth (Fury IIRC) with suicide
> rear doors, '68 T-bird, '66 Pontiac Grande Parisienne and Strato Chief, '66
> Impala, '58/9 Impala
> 
> 
> From: "John W Rosa" <JohnRosa@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: mail@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: RE: Coupe or Sedan? MAHONEY! (was PARTING OUT 74 HORNET...)
> Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 08:05:49 -0500
> Message-ID: <002f01c52e16$bbb4e580$4a6b1540@rigor1>
> 
> Simple- a hardtop-convertible!
> 
> I'm sorry I even brought the subject up,  etc. ...

> Me thinks this is a question for one John Mahoney.
> 
> Batter up!
> 
> 
> John
> 
> 
> 
> .
   The whole thing is a question of age ... You have to be chronologically challanged enough to remember a time when these terms actually meant something!
    Think about a Model A Ford Roadster (I know that's non-AMC, but we can all picture one!) ... now add roll up windows and you have a convertible!
   Then add a metal top and you have a coupe.
   Now think of a touring car (Phaeton), add a metal top and you have a sedan. 
   So a coupe has a shorter passenger compartment than a sedan ... get it so far?
   Let's move up to the late 1940's ... someone, probably Harley Earl, noticed that convertibles were prettier than sedans and decided that that was because the lack of a "B-pillar" meant that the flowing horizontal lines of the car were not broken up by a vertical line in the middle. That's when the Hardtop Convertible (later shortened to just Hardtop) was born! It was literally a convertible body with a fixed metal top added, and was deferentiated from a coupe by it's lack of a "B-pillar".
   Since then many more terms have come along to confuse the issue ... and the original meanings have been corrupted for various reasons (was the original Crown Victoria REALLY a Hardtop? How about the mid 70's Impalas?) 
   But if we keep in mind where the names came from, we can still understand each other ... sort of ... on a good day ... with a little luck.

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