Coachbuilder Body Tags
Emblems of coachbuilder, body, carrosserie constructors.
Before the 1950s, nearly all cars were built as a separate chassis and body. You could choose from multiple body styles for a single chassis - sedan, formal sedan, town car, cabriolet, convertible sedan, coupe, and speedster to name just a few. Customers could choose from factory-built bodystyles or purchase the chassis and bring it to any number of coachbuilders around the world. There were hundreds of coachbuilders in the US alone (check out the awesome http://www.coachbuilt.com for info on many of them). This added significantly to the cost but often times the wealthy customer ended up with a one-off or rarely seen body style.
This practice of custom bodies faded during the 1950s and was virtually wiped out by the mid-1960s. Custom bodywork continued but only for the wealthiest of customers - sheiks, heads of state, and the most valued customers who could not be turned away. Some of the original coachbuilder names continued on even under mass-produced designs, mostly on GM and Ford cars marketed to elderly customers who remembered the glory days of coachbuilding. Ever heard of a Cadillac Fleetwood? Fleetwood was a body builder for Cadillac in the 1920s and was purchased by GM to be an in-house designer.
The tags in this gallery are from my travels and it's nice to see the tags to identify the designs.
Read MoreBefore the 1950s, nearly all cars were built as a separate chassis and body. You could choose from multiple body styles for a single chassis - sedan, formal sedan, town car, cabriolet, convertible sedan, coupe, and speedster to name just a few. Customers could choose from factory-built bodystyles or purchase the chassis and bring it to any number of coachbuilders around the world. There were hundreds of coachbuilders in the US alone (check out the awesome http://www.coachbuilt.com for info on many of them). This added significantly to the cost but often times the wealthy customer ended up with a one-off or rarely seen body style.
This practice of custom bodies faded during the 1950s and was virtually wiped out by the mid-1960s. Custom bodywork continued but only for the wealthiest of customers - sheiks, heads of state, and the most valued customers who could not be turned away. Some of the original coachbuilder names continued on even under mass-produced designs, mostly on GM and Ford cars marketed to elderly customers who remembered the glory days of coachbuilding. Ever heard of a Cadillac Fleetwood? Fleetwood was a body builder for Cadillac in the 1920s and was purchased by GM to be an in-house designer.
The tags in this gallery are from my travels and it's nice to see the tags to identify the designs.
