A sedan can also have two doors - as long as it has a B pillar. Although a
2-door sedan did not appear in the post-war Imperial line-up, there were
2-door sedans in the 1937-1939 Chrysler Imperial line up.
A coupe basically has a smaller greenhouse area than a sedan. Or, to put
it another way, the distance from the dashboard to the rear parcel shelf is
less in a coupe than in a sedan. A business coupe generally had a front
seat only with no room for a rear seat as the body was so short. A club
coupe, as Chrysler called them, had a rear seat but the rear seat area was
smaller than on a sedan.
The fuselage (1969-73) 2-door hardtops are commonly referred to as coupes.
and the styling was meant to imitate the theme of Chrysler's club coupes of
the 1940's and early 1950's. They do meet the criteria of a coupe as the
rear seat room is less than the sedan models and the greenhouse is smaller
as well. (This description does not apply to the 1969-72 Fury formal
hardtops which used the 4-door hardtop roofline.)
Originally hardtops were convertibles with non-removable roofs. Interiors
differed from convertibles in that the rear seat was full width as there was
no need to make room for the folding top mechanism. Chrysler was the
first to put a steel roof on a convertible in 1946, building 7 Town &
Country hardtop convertibles.
But GM was the first to mass produce them in mid-1949 with the Oldsmobile 98
Holiday, Buick Roadmaster Riviera, and Cadillac series 62 Coupe de Ville.
By the way, when Chrysler introduced their 1949 models in March, the
brochure illustrated a 2-door Newport hardtop convertilbe, to be produced in
the Windsor and New Yorker series. One 2-door hardtop was built in 1949 in
the Town & Country series. Unfortunately Chrysler held back on the hardtop
until 1950, and GM got all the credit for the 2-door hardtop.
Bill
Vancouver, BC
----- Original Message -----
From: "Hugh & Therese" <hugtrees@xxxxxxxx>
To: "Imperial Mailing List" <mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, July 13, 2004 10:07 AM
Subject: IML: Fw: Hardtop V. Sedan
>
> Joseph asked:
>
> OK. I cannot get this straight in my head (and my father-in-law who was
in
> the body shop business tried to explain this to me several times), how can
> one tell the difference between a hardtop and a sedan?
>
> My reply:
>
> Well, lets start with what we know a sedan is. It has four doors. It has
> three pillars holding up the roof on each side. One at the windshield,
one
> at the rear window, and one in the middle, between the doors. The doors
are
> fully framed, which is to say the glass moves within the frame and their
is
> a seal all around it when the window is closed.
>
> A four door hardtop does not have the middle pillar. With the windows
open
> there is no obstruction between the windshield and rear window. The doors
> are not fully framed. When closed the windows seal against the roof of
the
> car, the front and rear pillars and with each other in the middle.
>
> The name hardtop is confusing. It is an abbreviation of the phrase
'hardtop
> convertible, which is almost an oxymoron, or 'fixed hardtop convertible,'
> which definitely is. The idea is to give the impression that the car is a
> convertible without actually having a roof that opens and closes. In some
> sports cars, they do indeed have a canvas roof for the summer and a
hardtop
> roof for the winter. The hardtop obviously cannot be folded away but can
be
> removed. No Imperial had a removable hardtop. Also, many Imperial coupes
> are really two door hardtops and not coupes at all.
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> Hugh
> 58 4 door hardtop.
>
>
>
>
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