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A sunroof is a movable panel that opens to uncover a window in an automobile roof, allowing light and fresh air to enter the passenger compartment. Sunroofs can be manually operated or motor driven, and are available in many shapes, sizes and styles. While the term "sunroof" is now used generically to describe any moveable panel in the roof, the term "moonroof" was historically used to describe stationary glass panes rigidly mounted in the roof panel over the passenger compartment. A moonroof has a glass panel that is transparent and usually tinted. Previous terms include sunshine roof, sliding head, and sliding roof.
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A common configuration for early automobiles included a fixed roof for the rear passenger compartment and an uncovered section for the chauffeur in a style known as Coupe de Ville, Sedanca (two door) or Sedanca de Ville. An open cabin allowed the driver to be more connected to their surroundings, demonstrated that the car's owner employed a paid driver (one reason chauffeurs wore uniform) and identified the owner through the driver's livery (the other reason for the uniform). Road speeds were increasing and vehicles were changing from occasional use to full-time transport meaning that they were increasingly being used in bad weather.[citation needed] In order to provide better shelter for the driver therefore, temporary cover was now demanded. These part-time roofs, sometimes at first just a stretched piece of leather, became more sophisticated comprising frame elements and leather or water-resistant cloth to form the construction, and installations even included spaces provided to store the parts when not in use.
By the late 1920s, a more convenient version of the temporary roof was often being used where a solid metal panel would slide into a slot at the top of the passenger compartment, sometimes called a de Ville extension.[1] By the early 1930s, cars were being constructed in the Sedan style comprising a metal one-piece roof without the gap above the driver's cabin. To provide a similar facility to the earlier Coup de Ville configurations, sliding cloth or metal panels recognisable as the modern sunroof were regularly fitted to Bentley and Rolls-Royce models built by coach builders such as Barker, Gurney Nutting or Park Ward. In these cars, the continuous roofline, between the windscreen and passenger compartment, was unbroken and so, unlike the Coup de Ville, a coverable opening had to be let into the roof panel itself.
While at first the purpose may still have been to expose the chauffeur, Bentley cars in particular were increasingly sold for owners to drive themselves. Indeed, some models were provided with a sliding panel for the front seats even though the vehicle had just two-seats. Early "Derby" Bentley hard-top models were therefore frequently equipped with sliding sunroof panels, possibly more often than not. The purpose of the sliding panels thus changed from uncovering the chauffeur to allowing the owner to better enjoy their surroundings on fine weather days.
This evolution was eventually not limited to luxury motoring. The entrepreneur Noel Mobbs laid the foundation of the volume sunroof market when he evolved his coach building business into a company dedicated to the manufacture of sliding roofs in the name of Pytchley. The Pytchley mechanism was both patented[2][3] and first publicly demonstrated in 1925. At first Pytchley used their sliding roof system to build a number of coach-built, custom "tourer saloon" automobiles sold from their premises at 201 - 203 Great Portland Street London. In 1927 they claimed for a Daimler 20/70 hp that "This roof slides at the touch of a finger and opens up 50% of the roof area giving greater visibility and more air without draughts."[4] The sliding roof system evolved from a device that Pytchley installed themselves, to an option which manufacturers offered as a standard body style. It was factory fitted to vehicles from a number of different manufacturers. By 1929 the design had improved so that when closed the moveable panel was flush with the rest of the roof. Morris built several models using Pytchley's technology from 1932, including the Morris Minor, Morris Major and Morris Ten adding what became known as a Sliding Head (using the term head in the same way as Folding Head or Drop Head). This comprised a panel which could be slid back over the roof behind to create an opening above the driver and passenger. The sliding panel also incorporated locks which allowed the panel to be fixed at any position from fully closed to fully open. By 1935 Wolseley were using the Pytchley roof and by 1936 Austin too were also selling models with the sliding head. The Hillman Minx was another low-cost small car which was clearly not designed to be chauffeured, and in 1931 it was offered in a variety of body styles as was usual at that time, among the options was a sliding roof section[5] including, on the 1933 Aero model[6] with glass panels, as photographed on the 1932 show car,[7] making this the first moonroof. In 1941 Pytchley took on the manufacturer Vauxhall for failure to pay royalties. Vauxhall claimed that their variation of the sliding roof, which slid the panel under the rear section rather than over, was sufficiently different to mean that a license need not be paid.[2] Pytchley won the case.
Variations in moveable, removable and transparent roof panels continued. The Ford Lincoln X-100 concept car[8] of 1953 revisited the Sedanca style for a non-chauffeured vehicle as it had a retractable transparent targa top which inspired later fixed moonroof panels on 1954 production vehicles. In 1961 Triumph launched the TR4 with a removable hard top roof split into two sections. The rear part, incorporating the rear window, could be left on the car when the centre piece was removed creating a Sedanca layout. This concept was resurrected again in 1966 when Porsche launched a version of its 911 sports car that established the term Targa, trademarked by Porsche. This bore even more of a resemblance to the traditional Sedanca form, as the car had both a permanently fixed roll-over hoop, and rear seats. While in 1969 Lamborghini showed the first full-roof framed transparent-panel roof, heralding the modern panoramic roof, on an Espada.
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Sunroofs, by historical definition are opaque. Today, most factory sliding sunroof options feature a glass panel and are sometimes marketed as moonroofs, a term introduced in 1973 by John Atkinson, a marketing manager at Ford for the Continental Mark IV. For the first year, Ford sent out its Mark IVs to American Sunroof Company for offline installation.
Variations of both the sunroof and moonroof have become the norm in both factory installed and aftermarket offerings, creating a wide range of features and choices. Sunroof systems may be manual or electric, while most moonroof systems are electric/electronic. Manual sunroofs may be lever actuated, as in venting type pop-ups, manual lever or crank operated for sliding systems. Electric roof systems are usually cable driven by a motor and feature some form of sliding opening. Most moonroof systems today are electric and have either a combination pop-up/inbuilt or a pop-up/spoiler configuration (see sunroof types below).
Roof systems may be original equipment, factory options (provided by the car company), or installed aftermarket by a roof installation professional for the car dealer or retail customer. Once the vehicle leaves the assembly line, the factory option can no longer be integrated into the roof, making aftermarket the only option.
Roof systems are available in many shapes, sizes and styles, and are known by many names. The main types are as follows:
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