Coupé
Encyclopedia
A coupé or coupe is a closed car body style
(permanently attached fixed roof), the precise definition of which varies from manufacturer to manufacturer, and over time. Coupés are often hardtop
ped sports cars or sporty variants of sedan (saloon) body styles, with doors commonly reduced from four to two, and a close-coupled
interior (i.e., the rear seat placed further forward than in a standard sedan) offering either two seats or 2+2 seating (space for two passengers in the front and two occasional passengers or children in the rear). Before the days of motorized vehicles, the word referred to the front or after compartment of a Continental stagecoach
.
spelling, coupé, and (mostly in English speaking countries) a modified French pronunciation (kuːˈpeɪ koo-), are used. The stress may be on either the first or second syllable; stressing the first syllable is the more anglicized
variant. Most, but not all, speakers of North American English
, at this time, use the word coupe, the present tense French spelling (without the acute accent
- coupe). This was a gradual change from the French past participle occurring prior to World War II
. A North American example of usage is the hot-rodders' term Deuce Coupe ("doos coop") used to refer to a 1932 Ford; this pronunciation is famously used in the Beach Boys 1963 hit song, Little Deuce Coupe
.
, cut (coupé) to eliminate the forward-mounted, rear-facing passenger seats, with a single seat inside for two persons behind the driver, who sat on a box outside. If the driver had no roof over his head then it was a coupé de-ville. Commonly, a coupé had a fixed glass window in the front of the passenger compartment. The driver was protected from road dirt by a high curving dashboard. A landau is a coupé de-ville with a folding top. Where only the passenger compartment has a folding top but the driver remains covered, the style is known as a landaulet.
During the 1920s, the Society of Automobile Engineers suggested nomenclature for closed cars that included the following:
Coupelet: A small car seating two or three with a folding top and full height doors with fully retractable windows.
Coupé: An enclosed car operated from the inside with seats for two or three and sometimes a backward-facing fourth seat.
Convertible coupé: A roadster with a removable coupé roof. (technically not a coupe, but some car companies try and cash in on the cachet the word coupe brings)
Through the 1950s opening-roof convertible
automobiles were sometimes called drop-head coupés, but since the 1960s the term coupé has generally been applied exclusively to fixed-head models. Coupés generally have two doors, although automobile makers have offered four-door coupés and three and five-door hatchback
coupés. Modern coupés often have the styling feature of frameless doors, with the window glass sealing directly against a weather-strip on the main body.
The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) distinguishes a coupé from a sedan (saloon) primarily by interior volume
; SAE standard J1100 defines a coupé as a fixed-roof automobile with less than 33 cubic feet (934.5 l) of rear interior volume. A car with a greater interior volume is technically a two-door sedan, not a coupé, even if it has only two doors. By this standard, the Chevrolet Monte Carlo
, Ferrari
612 Scaglietti, and Mercedes-Benz CL-Class
coupés are all two-door sedans. Only a few sources, however (including the magazine Car and Driver
), use the two-door sedan label in this manner. Some car manufacturers may nonetheless choose to use the word coupé (or coupe) to describe such a model (e.g., the Cadillac Coupe de Ville
).
Alternatively, a coupé is often distinguished from a two-door sedan by the lack of a B pillar
to support the roof. Sedans have an A pillar forward at the windscreen, a B pillar aft of the door, and a C pillar defining the aftermost roof support at the rear window. Thus with all side-windows down, a coupé would appear windowless from the A to the C pillars. These fixed-roof models are described as a hardtop
or pillarless coupé. Though, to confuse things even further, there are many hardtop/pillarless two and four door sedans. Targa top
, or just 'T'-top models are a variation on the convertible
design, where the roof centre section can be removed, in one or two sections, leaving the rest of the roof in place. Yet another variation on the convertible or drop-head coupé is the fully retractable hardtop. In this form the car has all the adantages of fixed-head vehicle but, at the touch of a button, the entire roof lifts off, folds and stows away in the trunk (boot). Though retractables were tried many years ago by Peugeot, in Europe and Ford, in the US, with the Fairlaine Skyliner, it is only in the 21st century that there has been an explosion in the popularity of this bodystyle.
During the 20th century, the term coupé was applied to various close-coupled (rear seat that is located further forward than usual and the front seat further back than usual) automobiles.
Manufacturers have used the term coupé in several varieties, including:
Club coupé: A coupé with a larger rear seat, which would today be called a two-door sedan.
Business coupé: A coupé with no rear seat or a removable rear seat intended for traveling sales
people and other vendors who would be carrying their wares with them.
Opéra coupé: A coupé de-ville with a high roofed passenger compartment such that the owners could be driven to the opera without the need to remove their large hats. These often had 'occasional' seats that folded for use by children or extra passengers, and allowed easy passage to the rear seats. These cars most closely approximated a motorised version of the original horse-drawn coupé. Often, they would have solid rear-quarter panels, with small, circular windows, to enable the occupants to see out without being seen. These opera window
s were revived on many US automobiles during the 1970s and early 1980s.
Sports coupé or berlinetta: A body with a sloping roof, sometimes sloping downward gradually in the rear in the manner known as fastback
.
Four-door coupé: A sedan with classic coupé-like proportions. The designation was first applied to a low-roof model of the Rover P5
from 1962 until 1973, but was revived by the 2005 Mercedes-Benz CLS, as well as other models including the 1992 Infiniti J30, the 2008 Volkswagen Passat CC
, and the 2009 Jaguar XJ
. However, the low roof design reduces back seat passenger access and headroom. (again these cars are not really a coupe, more a marketing ploy)
Quad coupé: Quad coupé
is a marketing name for cars with one or two small rear doors with no B pillar.
Combi coupé: Combi coupé
is a marketing term used by Saab
for a car body similar to the liftback.
With the growing popularity of the pillarless hardtop
during the 1950s some automakers used the term coupé to refer to hardtop (rigid, rather than canvas, automobile roof) models and reserved the term sedan for their models with a B pillar. This definition was by no means universal, and has largely fallen out of use with near-demise of the hardtop. Similarly, a Rover P5
saloon model came in a body style with a lower roof that was called a coupé. Technically, it was cut, as the original definition required, but it was not a shorter car body.
Today coupé has become more of a marketing
term for automotive manufacturers, than a fact of the vehicle's design and technical makeup. They ascribe the term to any vehicle with two, three, and now even four-doors, for the term's perceived luxury or sporting appeal. This is because coupés in general are seen as sportier than sedans; hence a coupé would be marketed as a sportier vehicle than a two-door sedan.
While previous coupés were "simply line-extenders two-door variants of family sedans", some coupés have different sheet metal and styling than their four-door counterparts. The AMC Matador
coupe of the 1970s had a unique design sharing almost nothing with the 4-door versions.
Even 2-door cars with a backseat are now being referred to as "sedans" in which the terms "coupe" and "sedan" are used interchangeably. Two-door sedans with front bench seating have phased out with the late-90s Chevrolet Monte Carlo
being the last model to offer it.
However, 2-door cars in general have fallen in popularity, with the popular exception of convertible
s and 2-seat roadster
s. Sedans, pickup truck
s and SUVs/station wagon
s have had fewer 2-door models (especially ones with backseats
) in recent years since the cost of 4-door cars has gone down along with engineering to ease access to the back seat area.
Car body style
Automobiles' body styles are highly variable. Some body styles remain in production, while others become less common or obsolete. They may or may not correlate to a car's price, size or intended market classification. The same car model might be available in multiple body styles comprising a...
(permanently attached fixed roof), the precise definition of which varies from manufacturer to manufacturer, and over time. Coupés are often hardtop
Hardtop
A hardtop is a term for a rigid, rather than canvas, automobile roof. It has been used in several contexts: detachable hardtops, retractable hardtop roofs, and the so-called pillarless hardtop body style....
ped sports cars or sporty variants of sedan (saloon) body styles, with doors commonly reduced from four to two, and a close-coupled
Close-coupled sedan
A close-coupled sedan is an obsolete type of car body which disappeared from the United States market by World War II, though it survived elsewhere for a time. It was a four-windowed sedan with a trunk that from front to rear was almost as thin as an upright suitcase...
interior (i.e., the rear seat placed further forward than in a standard sedan) offering either two seats or 2+2 seating (space for two passengers in the front and two occasional passengers or children in the rear). Before the days of motorized vehicles, the word referred to the front or after compartment of a Continental stagecoach
Stagecoach
A stagecoach is a type of covered wagon for passengers and goods, strongly sprung and drawn by four horses, usually four-in-hand. Widely used before the introduction of railway transport, it made regular trips between stages or stations, which were places of rest provided for stagecoach travelers...
.
Pronunciation
In Europe (including the United Kingdom), the past participle FrenchFrench language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
spelling, coupé, and (mostly in English speaking countries) a modified French pronunciation (kuːˈpeɪ koo-), are used. The stress may be on either the first or second syllable; stressing the first syllable is the more anglicized
Anglicisation
Anglicisation, or anglicization , is the process of converting verbal or written elements of any other language into a form that is more comprehensible to an English speaker, or, more generally, of altering something such that it becomes English in form or character.The term most often refers to...
variant. Most, but not all, speakers of North American English
North American English
North American English is the variety of the English language of North America, including that of the United States and Canada. Because of their shared histories and the similarities between the pronunciation, vocabulary and accent of American English and Canadian English, the two spoken languages...
, at this time, use the word coupe, the present tense French spelling (without the acute accent
Acute accent
The acute accent is a diacritic used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek scripts.-Apex:An early precursor of the acute accent was the apex, used in Latin inscriptions to mark long vowels.-Greek:...
- coupe). This was a gradual change from the French past participle occurring prior to World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. A North American example of usage is the hot-rodders' term Deuce Coupe ("doos coop") used to refer to a 1932 Ford; this pronunciation is famously used in the Beach Boys 1963 hit song, Little Deuce Coupe
Little Deuce Coupe
Little Deuce Coupe is The Beach Boys' fourth album, and third overall LP release in 1963. Almost unintentionally, the album was rush-recorded and compiled when leader Brian Wilson sought to protect his band from exploitation from Capitol Records....
.
History
In the 19th century a coupé was a closed four-wheel horse-drawn carriageCarriage
A carriage is a wheeled vehicle for people, usually horse-drawn; litters and sedan chairs are excluded, since they are wheelless vehicles. The carriage is especially designed for private passenger use and for comfort or elegance, though some are also used to transport goods. It may be light,...
, cut (coupé) to eliminate the forward-mounted, rear-facing passenger seats, with a single seat inside for two persons behind the driver, who sat on a box outside. If the driver had no roof over his head then it was a coupé de-ville. Commonly, a coupé had a fixed glass window in the front of the passenger compartment. The driver was protected from road dirt by a high curving dashboard. A landau is a coupé de-ville with a folding top. Where only the passenger compartment has a folding top but the driver remains covered, the style is known as a landaulet.
During the 1920s, the Society of Automobile Engineers suggested nomenclature for closed cars that included the following:
Coupelet: A small car seating two or three with a folding top and full height doors with fully retractable windows.
Coupé: An enclosed car operated from the inside with seats for two or three and sometimes a backward-facing fourth seat.
Convertible coupé: A roadster with a removable coupé roof. (technically not a coupe, but some car companies try and cash in on the cachet the word coupe brings)
Through the 1950s opening-roof convertible
Convertible
A convertible is a type of automobile in which the roof can retract and fold away having windows which wind-down inside the doors, converting it from an enclosed to an open-air vehicle...
automobiles were sometimes called drop-head coupés, but since the 1960s the term coupé has generally been applied exclusively to fixed-head models. Coupés generally have two doors, although automobile makers have offered four-door coupés and three and five-door hatchback
Hatchback
A Hatchback is a car body style incorporating a shared passenger and cargo volume, with rearmost accessibility via a rear third or fifth door, typically a top-hinged liftgate—and features such as fold-down rear seats to enable flexibility within the shared passenger/cargo volume. As a two-box...
coupés. Modern coupés often have the styling feature of frameless doors, with the window glass sealing directly against a weather-strip on the main body.
The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) distinguishes a coupé from a sedan (saloon) primarily by interior volume
Volume
Volume is the quantity of three-dimensional space enclosed by some closed boundary, for example, the space that a substance or shape occupies or contains....
; SAE standard J1100 defines a coupé as a fixed-roof automobile with less than 33 cubic feet (934.5 l) of rear interior volume. A car with a greater interior volume is technically a two-door sedan, not a coupé, even if it has only two doors. By this standard, the Chevrolet Monte Carlo
Chevrolet Monte Carlo
The Chevrolet Monte Carlo was an American-made two-door coupe introduced for model year 1970, and manufactured over six generations through model year 2007. It was marketed as a personal-luxury coupe through most of its history, with the last model version being classified as a full-sized coupe...
, Ferrari
Ferrari
Ferrari S.p.A. is an Italian sports car manufacturer based in Maranello, Italy. Founded by Enzo Ferrari in 1929, as Scuderia Ferrari, the company sponsored drivers and manufactured race cars before moving into production of street-legal vehicles as Ferrari S.p.A. in 1947...
612 Scaglietti, and Mercedes-Benz CL-Class
Mercedes-Benz CL-Class
The Mercedes-Benz CL-Class is a luxury coupé automobile produced by the German automaker Mercedes-Benz. The name CL stands for the German Comfort Leicht ....
coupés are all two-door sedans. Only a few sources, however (including the magazine Car and Driver
Car and Driver
Car and Driver is an American automotive enthusiast magazine. Its total circulation is 1.31 million. It is owned by Hearst Magazines, who purchased prior owner Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S. in 2011...
), use the two-door sedan label in this manner. Some car manufacturers may nonetheless choose to use the word coupé (or coupe) to describe such a model (e.g., the Cadillac Coupe de Ville
Cadillac Coupe de Ville
The Coupe de Ville was a model of the Cadillac marque of General Motors from 1949 through 1993.- Early History :The name "de Ville" is from the French de la ville or de ville meaning "of the town"...
).
Alternatively, a coupé is often distinguished from a two-door sedan by the lack of a B pillar
Pillar (car)
Pillars are the vertical supports of the greenhouse of an automobile — known respectively as the A, B, C or D-pillar moving in profile view from the front to rear....
to support the roof. Sedans have an A pillar forward at the windscreen, a B pillar aft of the door, and a C pillar defining the aftermost roof support at the rear window. Thus with all side-windows down, a coupé would appear windowless from the A to the C pillars. These fixed-roof models are described as a hardtop
Hardtop
A hardtop is a term for a rigid, rather than canvas, automobile roof. It has been used in several contexts: detachable hardtops, retractable hardtop roofs, and the so-called pillarless hardtop body style....
or pillarless coupé. Though, to confuse things even further, there are many hardtop/pillarless two and four door sedans. Targa top
Targa top
Targa top, targa for short, is a semi-convertible car body style with a removable roof section and a full width roll bar behind the seats. The term was first used on the 1966 Porsche 911 Targa, and it remains a registered trademark of Porsche AG....
, or just 'T'-top models are a variation on the convertible
Convertible
A convertible is a type of automobile in which the roof can retract and fold away having windows which wind-down inside the doors, converting it from an enclosed to an open-air vehicle...
design, where the roof centre section can be removed, in one or two sections, leaving the rest of the roof in place. Yet another variation on the convertible or drop-head coupé is the fully retractable hardtop. In this form the car has all the adantages of fixed-head vehicle but, at the touch of a button, the entire roof lifts off, folds and stows away in the trunk (boot). Though retractables were tried many years ago by Peugeot, in Europe and Ford, in the US, with the Fairlaine Skyliner, it is only in the 21st century that there has been an explosion in the popularity of this bodystyle.
During the 20th century, the term coupé was applied to various close-coupled (rear seat that is located further forward than usual and the front seat further back than usual) automobiles.
Manufacturers have used the term coupé in several varieties, including:
Club coupé: A coupé with a larger rear seat, which would today be called a two-door sedan.
Business coupé: A coupé with no rear seat or a removable rear seat intended for traveling sales
Sales
A sale is the act of selling a product or service in return for money or other compensation. It is an act of completion of a commercial activity....
people and other vendors who would be carrying their wares with them.
Opéra coupé: A coupé de-ville with a high roofed passenger compartment such that the owners could be driven to the opera without the need to remove their large hats. These often had 'occasional' seats that folded for use by children or extra passengers, and allowed easy passage to the rear seats. These cars most closely approximated a motorised version of the original horse-drawn coupé. Often, they would have solid rear-quarter panels, with small, circular windows, to enable the occupants to see out without being seen. These opera window
Opera window
Opera Windows are small porthole sized side windows in the C-pillar of some cars. Typically offered in unison with a vinyl roof, they were a very common design feature of American automobiles during the 1970s. The design was new at the time, "... and would prove to be very popular, indicated by its...
s were revived on many US automobiles during the 1970s and early 1980s.
Sports coupé or berlinetta: A body with a sloping roof, sometimes sloping downward gradually in the rear in the manner known as fastback
Fastback
A fastback is a car body style whose roofline slopes continuously down at the back. The word can also designate the car itself. The style is seen on two-door coupés as well as four-door sedans.-History:...
.
Four-door coupé: A sedan with classic coupé-like proportions. The designation was first applied to a low-roof model of the Rover P5
Rover P5
The Mark II version of the P5 was introduced in 1962. It featured more power from the same 3.0 L engine and an improved suspension, while dropping the glass wind deflectors from the top of the window openings which also, on the front doors, now featured "quarterlight" windows .The most...
from 1962 until 1973, but was revived by the 2005 Mercedes-Benz CLS, as well as other models including the 1992 Infiniti J30, the 2008 Volkswagen Passat CC
Volkswagen Passat CC
The Volkswagen Passat CC is a 4-door coupé version of the Volkswagen Passat. It debuted in January 2008 at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit...
, and the 2009 Jaguar XJ
Jaguar XJ (X351)
The Jaguar XJ is the latest Jaguar XJ luxury saloon from Jaguar Cars. Completely new styling combines with underpinnings based on the previous X350 version.-Launch:...
. However, the low roof design reduces back seat passenger access and headroom. (again these cars are not really a coupe, more a marketing ploy)
Quad coupé: Quad coupé
Quad coupé
A quad coupé is a car body style featuring bi-parting side doors – located either on one or both sides of the vehicle.The bi-parting doors typically feature a longer front door and a short rear door, without a pillar in between. The configuration offers the utility of a 4-doors, though the...
is a marketing name for cars with one or two small rear doors with no B pillar.
Combi coupé: Combi coupé
Combi coupé
Combi coupé is a proprietary marketing term used by Swedish manufacturer Saab for marketing their fastback styled hatchback models.The term denotes a car with a mixture of a "combi" and a coupé...
is a marketing term used by Saab
Saab
Saab AB is a Swedish aerospace and defence company, founded in 1937. From 1947 to 1990 it was the parent company of automobile manufacturer Saab Automobile, and between 1968 and 1995 the company was in a merger with commercial vehicle manufacturer Scania, known as Saab-Scania.-History:"Svenska...
for a car body similar to the liftback.
With the growing popularity of the pillarless hardtop
Hardtop
A hardtop is a term for a rigid, rather than canvas, automobile roof. It has been used in several contexts: detachable hardtops, retractable hardtop roofs, and the so-called pillarless hardtop body style....
during the 1950s some automakers used the term coupé to refer to hardtop (rigid, rather than canvas, automobile roof) models and reserved the term sedan for their models with a B pillar. This definition was by no means universal, and has largely fallen out of use with near-demise of the hardtop. Similarly, a Rover P5
Rover P5
The Mark II version of the P5 was introduced in 1962. It featured more power from the same 3.0 L engine and an improved suspension, while dropping the glass wind deflectors from the top of the window openings which also, on the front doors, now featured "quarterlight" windows .The most...
saloon model came in a body style with a lower roof that was called a coupé. Technically, it was cut, as the original definition required, but it was not a shorter car body.
Today coupé has become more of a marketing
Marketing
Marketing is the process used to determine what products or services may be of interest to customers, and the strategy to use in sales, communications and business development. It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments...
term for automotive manufacturers, than a fact of the vehicle's design and technical makeup. They ascribe the term to any vehicle with two, three, and now even four-doors, for the term's perceived luxury or sporting appeal. This is because coupés in general are seen as sportier than sedans; hence a coupé would be marketed as a sportier vehicle than a two-door sedan.
While previous coupés were "simply line-extenders two-door variants of family sedans", some coupés have different sheet metal and styling than their four-door counterparts. The AMC Matador
AMC Matador
The AMC Matador is a mid-size car that was built and sold by American Motors Corporation from 1971 to 1978. The Matador came in two generations: 1971 to 1973 and a major redesign from 1974 to 1978...
coupe of the 1970s had a unique design sharing almost nothing with the 4-door versions.
Even 2-door cars with a backseat are now being referred to as "sedans" in which the terms "coupe" and "sedan" are used interchangeably. Two-door sedans with front bench seating have phased out with the late-90s Chevrolet Monte Carlo
Chevrolet Monte Carlo
The Chevrolet Monte Carlo was an American-made two-door coupe introduced for model year 1970, and manufactured over six generations through model year 2007. It was marketed as a personal-luxury coupe through most of its history, with the last model version being classified as a full-sized coupe...
being the last model to offer it.
However, 2-door cars in general have fallen in popularity, with the popular exception of convertible
Convertible
A convertible is a type of automobile in which the roof can retract and fold away having windows which wind-down inside the doors, converting it from an enclosed to an open-air vehicle...
s and 2-seat roadster
Roadster
A roadster is a two-seat open car with emphasis on sporty handling and without a fixed roof or side weather protection. Strictly speaking a roadster with wind-up windows is a convertible but as true roadsters are no longer made the distinction is now irrelevant...
s. Sedans, pickup truck
Pickup truck
A pickup truck is a light motor vehicle with an open-top rear cargo area .-Definition:...
s and SUVs/station wagon
Station wagon
A station wagon is a body style variant of a sedan/saloon with its roof extended rearward over a shared passenger/cargo volume with access at the back via a third or fifth door , instead of a trunk lid...
s have had fewer 2-door models (especially ones with backseats
Car seat
A car seat is the chair used in automobiles. Most car seats are made from inexpensive but durable material in order to withstand as much use as possible.-Ergonomy: Lumbar and thigh support:...
) in recent years since the cost of 4-door cars has gone down along with engineering to ease access to the back seat area.