Body Styles

Whenever you see cars on road, you will find various designs and shapes. Today lets understand various types of body types. We will understand their body type classification. Broadly, Car Body types are classified as follows-

     1. Closed cars

          (a) Saloon or sedan

          (b) Hatchback

          (c) Coupe

          (d) Limousine

     2. Open cars

          (a) Sports

          (b) Convertible (Roadster and Cabriolet)

      3. Special styles

          (a) Estate car or shooting brake or Station wagon

          (b) Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV)

Lets Understand one by one each Body type.

1. Saloon or Sedan

       This body type has 3 separate body compartment as Engine compartment (Bonnet), Cockpit (Passenger compartment), Tail (Trunk or luggage or cargo space). Distinguishing 3 different outline shows clear picture of sedan car. Saloon word is often used in British while sedan word is used in USA.

2. Hatchback

     Hatchback is a body style in which tail portion is absent and luggage compartment door is at the back end of car. It is a sedan with a door at back. In general, wheel base of hatchback is lesser than Sedan car. In cars segment, it is often referred as smallest among the category. 

  3. Coupe

        Coupe is car which is much similar to sedan but in coupe model there is only one sitting row is available. So, this car has only 2 doors as highlighted in the picture. In this car, driver and one passenger has seating arrangement provided. Such body styles can only be seen in high end luxury cars. The roof line height is also little lesser compared to sedan in coupe in many models.

4. Limousine

       Limousine is a long wheel base car with at least 6 sitter passenger compartment with more space inside the car. This cars are Chauffeur (Driver) driven. This cars are generally used by presidents and prime ministers of the country.   

  5. Sports Car

       Sports car has a unique identification by its exterior appearance. To categorise a car into sports car there are mainly 2 important points checked they are high performance powerful engine and outstanding aesthetic design. This cars are generally known for its high speed engines and sporty driving handling characteristics. White highlighted portion on the car shows streamlined nature of sports car.   

6. Roadster or Hard top convertible

     There is always a confusion between convertible, Roadster and Cabriolet. Convertible is a type of car while roadster and cabriolet is a part of convertible body type. Roaster term is used for hard top (Roof) convertible car. As you can see in the following pictures how convertible roof is changed for Roadster. 

7. Cabriolet or Soft top convertible

      Cabriolet is a soft-top convertible car. This convertible style is very popular in Europe. This is generally driven as open cars. All luxury manufacturers have such a segment for open cars. Have a look at how convertible look like when converted to open car.  

8. Estate Car or Shooting brake or Station wagon

       Estate car is generally a body type in which roof lining is extended directly till the end in a streamlined way. In this body type, generally there are 3 seating rows and body is extended at the back as highlighted in picture. To identify this model, a small trick is to check the third glass of the car is elongated the back. In USA, this body type is referred as Station wagon while in European or British countries it is called as Estate car or shooting brake car. 

9. Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV)

      Sports utility vehicle category inspired from station wagon in a small version. It is looks like a small version of Station wagon and big version of Hatchback. The vehicle is built up on truck chassis structure previously but now a days unitary body construction is manufactured.