The classic car types guide

2+2

The 2+2 is a version of a coupé car-body style that has two small rear seats for children or occasional usage, along with two front seats for the driver and front passenger. Manufacturers which sell coupés both with and without rear seats often market the versions that include rear seats as "2+2" or as 2-plus-2.

Cabriolet

The term “convertible” is really only used for automobiles. The word simply means to convert and refers to the fact that a vehicle can be converted from one with a rooftop, to one without a top. The word convertible is the more widely used term in the auto industry today.

Coachbuilt Body

Coachbuilt body is the British English name for the coachbuilder's product. Custom body is the standard term in North American English. "Coachbuilt body" is also the British English name for mass-produced vehicles built on assembly lines using the same but simplified techniques until more durable all-steel bodies replaced them in the early 1950s.

Convertible

The term “convertible” is really only used for automobiles. The word simply means to convert and refers to the fact that a vehicle can be converted from one with a rooftop, to one without a top. The word convertible is the more widely used term in the auto industry today.

Drop Head Coupé

A four-seated sports car with two doors, a folding soft roof and a sloping rear.

Fixed Head Coupé

A four-seated car or coupé with the appearance of a sports car, with a sloping rear and hardtop.

Limousine

A 4 or 6 seats car (or even more), with four doors, six car windows and a fixed roof. The name Limousine comes from the six windows and the width of the car. This is generally speaking a large car in which you can easily deploy your legs at the backseat of the car.

Open Two Seater

An open automobile having a front seat and a rumble seat.

Overhead Valve Engine

An overhead valve (OHV) engine is a piston engine whose valves are located in the cylinder head above the combustion chamber. This contrasts with earlier flathead engines, where the valves were located below the combustion chamber in the engine block.

Saloon

A Saloon is a passenger car in a three-box configuration with separate compartments for engine, passenger, and cargo.

Side Valve Engine

A flathead engine, also known as a side valve engine or valve-in-block engine is an internal combustion engine with its poppet valves contained within the engine block, instead of in the cylinder head, as in an overhead valve engine. Flatheads were widely used internationally by automobile manufactures from the late 1890s until the mid-1950s but were replaced by more efficient overhead valve and overhead camshaft engines. They are currently experiencing a revival in low-revving aero-engines such as the D-Motor.

Vanden Plas

Vanden Plas is the name of coachbuilders who produced bodies for specialist and up-market automobile manufacturers. Latterly the name became a top-end luxury model designation for cars from subsidiaries of British Leyland and the Rover Group, last used in 2009 to denote the top-luxury version of the Jaguar XJ (X350).