Pylimitics

Heard of jargon? Here’s some cargon

In addition to interesting words for parts of automobiles (and wagons), there’s a larger collection of words than you might expect for types of automobiles and wagons. Wagons are included because most of the words for cars originally came from wagons. 

Most people know that a “coupe” is a car with two doors, probably designed to at least look like it’s sporty and fast. Originally a “coupe” was a kind of horse-drawn carriage. The horsy sort of coupe didn’t have any specified number of doors, but did have four wheels. That’s two more than a “curricle,” a “gig,” or a “dennet,” all of which are two-wheeled carriages. 

If you read anything set in 1800s London, including Sherlock Holmes stories, you’ve probably observed that sometimes the characters hop aboard a “hansom” cab, and occasionally hail a “hackney.” They’re both horse-drawn taxis, but once again the difference is in the wheels; a hansom has two while a hackney has four. 

Although there’s a certain amount of luggage space in both a hackney and a hansom, if you’re part of the landed gentry traveling to your summer quarters you’d probably need something like a “fourgon;” an extra wagon just for baggage. 

Throughout the history of automobile design there have been “cabriolets” that usually have some sort of convertible top. Once again that comes from a horse-drawn predecessor; a “cabriolet” back then was another one of those light two-wheeled conveyances. It did, usually, have a collapsible top — although if you’ve seen pictures of those things, it’s unclear how much shelter the top gave; the sides and front stayed completely open. Another kind of car, usually a larger, fancier sort, has been called a “phaeton.” Volkswagen offered the most recent attempt at something actually called a “Phaeton.” It was an attempt to compete in the very high-end of the luxury market. Unfortunately (for Volkswagen), people who generally purchase top-of-the-line Mercedes-Benz, Lexus, or Bentley products didn’t see themselves as Volkswagen customers and the Phaeton was soon discontinued. Also discontinued is the open four-wheeled carriage that was the original “phaeton.” From a corporate point of view, Volkswagen competes in the high-end car market by owning Bentley and Bugatti, of course. 

In the middle of the 20th century there were also some phaeton-like cars called “broughams” — generally larger, more stately vehicles that were somewhat like “phaetons.” Among cars, “broughams” tended to be closed cars while “phaetons” were originally open (no windows and an overhanging roof). Although Cadillac continued to use the “brougham” term longer than anyone else (until 1992), nowadays there aren’t any cars claimed to be “broughams”. The car makers must have simply thought “brougham” sounded fancy; the original horsedrawn brougham was just a closed carriage pulled by a single horse. 

Speaking of “pulled by a single horse,” lots of the names or wagons have to do with the number of wheels, but only some of them have to do with what I would have thought at least as important: the number of horses. There are some named carriages that make this clear, though. A “trap” is a one-horse carriage; a “tandem” has two horses (one in front of the other), a “troika” has three horses, and a “quadriga” is pulled by four. 

There there are a couple of carriage types defined not by their wheels OR their horses, but by their seating arrangements. A “vis-a-vis” is a carriage with two seats facing each other, and a “wagonette” has one seat in front and two behind. Ironically, the carriage with the longest name I could find, a “desobligeante,” has only a single seat. It’s a one-horse carriage for one rider. That’s a concept that never really made the transition to automobiles; other than racing cars the one-seat car has never been a popular idea.