Actually, "The Standard Catalog of American Cars" lists two coupes - a
business coupe (with front seat only) and a club coupe (with both front and
rear seats). The club coupe is described as having a front and rear seat,
but with a "shorter-than-sedan body structure". The authors end the club
coupe description with, "Most coupes of today are a variation upon this type
of styling theme."
(The book has line illustrations for each body style. The coupe
illustrations were based on the postwar 1947-52 Studebaker coupes, but have
them reversed - they use the business coupe for the club coupe and the
"Starlight" coupe for the business coupe.)
The fueslage 2-door hardtop rooflines of Imperial, Chrysler, Polara/Monaco
and non-formal Plymouth Fury were designed with the old club coupes in mind.
The club coupe had a rear seat just like the 2-door sedan, but the passenger
compartment was "close-coupled" - ie, the distance from the dash to the rear
parcel shelf was shorter on the cluib coupe than the sedan. If you compare
Mopar's fuselage "coupes" with the 4-door hardtops, you can clearly see the
close-coupled look.
On an earlier message, I do have a copy of "Cars of the Sensational '70s"
and read the page on the 1973 Imperial. The exact quote for the 'bumper
weight' (photo #5) is, "Thanks in part to its bigger bumpers, a '73 LeBaron
hardtop sedan tipped the scales at over 5000 pounds."
There is no mention of the weight of a 2-door hardtop on the page, nor a
photo, although they do mention the 4-door outsold the 2-door. What the
authors were referring to were the beefier bumpers on the 1973 Imperials,
which included big rubber blocks, and not comparing the weight of the 4-door
with the 2-door.
Bill
Vancouver, BC
> Peter Engel/vze2dp8c@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>
> > The writer is really off-base because there's no such thing as a
> > fuselage Imperial coupe, technically. Sure, a lot of people call any
> > two door model a coupe, but that's not right.
> >
> > The body style section in an older edition of "Standard Catalog of
> > American Cars" indicates that a coupe has no rear seat area side windows
> > at all (like a business coupe) or has rear side windows but they don't
> > roll down. I think that Chevy Novas and Ford Mavericks were that way.
> > Also the Duster and Demon, but the rear side windows flip outward on
> > those cars.
>
> I imagine this will disappoint all the Crown Coupe owners out there. Guess
> they never shoulda let go of "Southampton."
>
> Actually, the definitions of bodystyles have evolved over the years.
Today,
> a coupe can be anything with two doors, even though technically most
2-doors
> today (with the exception of certain Mercedes models that are the only
> pillarless hardtops still in production) are really just two-door
sedans...
> or hatchbacks. And when was the last time a carmaker offered a business
> coupe, also known as a doctor's coupe?
>
> Of course, look at all the terms carmakers are inventing to try and hide
the
> fact that their new "crossover vehicles" are really just station wagons.
>
> I would still tend to label the fuselage offerings as two- and four-door
> hardtops (plus the four-door sedan in 1969).
>
> Chris in LA, lover of wagons and hardtops!
>
>
>
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