A town car is a historical automobile body style characterized by four doors, an open front compartment and an enclosed rear compartment. The front compartment may include a removable cover. Customers intending to be driven by a chauffeur often chose this body style.
In Europe the style is known as Sedanca de Ville, often shortened to Sedanca or de Ville. The name Sedanca was introduced by the Spanish Count Salamanca in the 1920s.
The contemporary Lincoln Town Car derives its name from this historical body style despite the fact that it does not carry a town car body by the historical definition. The only Lincoln vehicle known to carry a town car body was a vehicle custom built in 1922 for Henry Ford's personal use.
Ford introduced a town car body to its Model A line in December 1928. Ford eventually manufactured 1,065 Model A town cars.
In 1940 and 1941, a limited edition model of the Cadillac Sixty Special carried the Town Car name. It was reintroduced as a coupe hardtop in 1949 using the French name for the body style Coupe DeVille and in 1956 as a four-door hardtop called the Sedan DeVille.
Famous quotes containing the words town and/or car:
“A little instruction in the elements of chartography—a little practice in the use of the compass and the spirit level, a topographical map of the town common, an excursion with a road map—would have given me a fat round earth in place of my paper ghost.”
—Mary Antin (1881–1949)
“I started out by believing God for a newer car than the one I was driving. I started out believing God for a nicer apartment than I had. Then I moved up.”
—Jim Bakker (b. 1940)