Coupé (carriage)

A coupé was a four-wheeled carriage with outside front seat for the driver and enclosed passenger seats for two persons.^[1] The name coupé comes from the French past participle of couper, "cut".^[2]

Carriage coupé de gala Portuguese origin, Royal Museums for Art and History, Brussels.

Town coupé belonging to the Sabatier banking family

The coupé carriage body style originated from the berline horse-drawn carriage. The coupé version of the berline was introduced in the 18th century as a shortened ("cut") version with no rear-facing seat.^[3][4][5][6] Normally, a coupe had a fixed glass window in the front of the passenger compartment.^[7] The coupe was considered an ideal vehicle for women to use to go shopping or to make social visits.^[8]

Types

The grand coupé with a curved body was the first common form of this carriage. Around 1830, the small coupé appeared, of four wheels, a closed squared body, with seats for two passengers. The coachman's seat, at the front and outside, rests on a chest. The small coupé is suspended on two pincer springs at the front and half-pincer springs at the rear, connected by a transverse spring. The small coupé was the model of the French fiacre.

There are a number of coupé types, including but not limited to:

• Town coupé: a prestigious two-seater carriage, reserved for ceremonies.

• Mail coupé: derived from the English-style mail coach, and retained the exterior seats and trunks.

• Chariot: a type of curved light coupé.

• Brougham: a type of squared small coupé.

• Three-quarter coupé or Clarence: a coupé with a projecting glass front and seats for four passengers inside.

• Landaulet: the coupé form of the landau. There are also the brougham-landaulet and the three-quarter landaulet.

• Dorsay: a boat-shaped double-suspension coupé.

The coupé also refers to the front part of a composite carriage, such as a diligence (Continental-style stagecoach).

See also

• Coach (carriage)
• Coupe (car)

References

1. Pleasant W. Johnson Johnson's Encyclopædia of Transportation 1892 p. 252 "COUPÉ. A four-wheeled close carriage, for two persons inside..."
2. "Coach Building Terminology". Coachbuilt.com. 2004. Retrieved 14 July 2018.
3. Haajanen, Lennart W. (2003). Illustrated Dictionary of Automobile Body Styles. Illustrations by Bertil Nydén. McFarland. pp. 16, 18, 20, 50. ISBN 0-7864-1276-3. LCCN 2002014546.
4. Adolphus, David Traver (March 2007). "Club Coupes - If you think you know what a Club Coupe is, think again". Hemmings Classic Car. Retrieved 30 March 2020. Coupé (some designers still insist on the 'koo-pay' pronunciation) is the French verb meaning 'to cut,' and it was first applied to 19th Century carriages, where the rear-facing seats had been eliminated, or cut out.
5. Haajanen, Lennart W. (2017). Illustrated Dictionary of Automobile Body Styles (Second ed.). McFarland. pp. 52–53, 57. ISBN 978-0-7864-9918-2. Retrieved 14 July 2018. "When the Berline body was shortened the Berline Coupe, or just Coupe, resulted."
6. "Royal carriages". Moscow Kremlin Museums. Retrieved 14 April 2018.
7. Haajanen 2003, p. 50.
8. Stratton, Ezra (1878). "Chapter VIII. French carriages, including historical associations". World on Wheels. New York: Ezra Stratton. p. 242. ISBN 0-405-09006-4. OL 7004294M. Retrieved 2014-09-04. For the use of ladies making calls or engaged in shopping, no better carriage has yet been invented.