Top motor museums essentials

The essential Riley excellence. Alan Ward’s two-tone Riley on the move.

If we are going to spend time looking at vehicles from the past, it might be an idea to be fully conversant with the main eras, dates and the terminology used in such cars. So, without wanting to insult the intelligence of those in the know, or those of elevated status or ‘cognoscenti’ ego, here, provided for the enthusiast reader and for those willing to learn or refresh their thinking, is a quick reference guide (or reminder), to the eras and the key terminology applied to earlier cars as likely to be found in car museums. 

We also need to know that the first British car museums were small, privately funded affairs – personal collections. Then came more organised gatherings and in 1952, the Edward Douglas-Scott-Montagu Motor Museum at Beaulieu was a precursor to a national movement and it too started with a private gathering of half a dozen cars. By 1959, nearly 300,000 members of the British public had visited the house and wooden sheds that constituted what was the nascent National Motor Museum at Beaulieu. From 1964, a dedicated new building and true major museum status acted as a kick-start to the wider ‘national’ museum context we know so well today.

The late John Haynes’ passion for cars and motorsport remains a ‘go to’ on the ‘must see’ list. Newly revamped, the Haynes International Museum near Yeovil contains cars and themed displays that may need more than a day to get around. The dedicated motorsport displays at the Haynes Museum cannot but tug at the emotions of the motorsport fan. You cannot help but stand and stare and try to imagine the sight, sound and smell of the cars in action: are these cars, with their histories and patina, really inanimate objects incapable of telling their story?

We now have global, professional bodies or de facto ‘authorities’ that run our world of old, classic cars. The likes of the American Associations such as the Antique Automobile Club of America, assorted clubs, the Federation Internationale des Vehicules Anciens (FIVA), add much to our automobilia. The Federation of British Historic Vehicle Clubs (FBHVC) plays a huge role in promoting and supporting the use and driving of old cars from a British perspective in a business worth billions of pounds per year in the UK alone (£5.5billion at last count). A professional body supporting the smaller museums also exists –the Association of Independent Museums (AIM).

Motoring, or transport-related museums offer a specific niche and their authenticity is key to their survival. Also vital is our own understanding, and our willingness to learn. Museums are about learning, as well as seeing. ‘I did not know that’ is an often heard phrase in a car museum.

Interestingly, several marque clubs have set up their own museums; the Aston Martin Owners Club Heritage Trust Museum being a prime example. Bugatti fans have created the Bugatti Trust which is allied to the separate entity that is the very friendly Bugatti Owners Club. The French, Friends of Bedelia group must be encouraged to do the same thing for the Bedelia is not mad, it is marvellous. Meanwhile, the David Brown Tractor Club and their collection, prove that it is not all about cars.

Pre-war delight. Riley Sprite seen at Bicester Heritage on a great open day.
Collections covering brochures, ephemera, engineering and design drawings, photographs and a myriad of documents charting the history of the car, all lie out there, awaiting our discovery. Interestingly, the digital age and twenty-first century technology provide the motoring investigator with huge gains – Motor Sport has placed its entire publication run as an archive in a vital digital web resource. 

We have an amazing history to revel in. From Nicolas Cugnot who created the first ‘car’ or self-propelled vehicle in 1769 (if we ignore ancient Chinese claims to a inventing a propelled vehicle, and the designs of Leonardo da Vinci, to Karl Benz, to Ferdinand Porsche, from Henry Ford or Herbert Austin, from Ettore Bugatti to Gabriel Voisin, and the works of Sir Frederick Lanchester, the history of early motoring is infused with greatness. And was it not Camille Jenatzy who created in 1899 the early electric car – a streamlined 65mph device named ‘La Jamais Contente’? Did not Ferdinand Porsche invent axle-mounted hybrid electric motors at the turn of the nineteenth century in the Lohner-Porsche?

 For the enthusiast, defined periods in this history of the automobile are set, but also subject to national colloquialism and terminologies. Familiarisation with their dated eras can only assist us on our museum visit. Knowledge of dates, eras, terms, design and engineering language, can be very helpful. The following are the terms and general ‘nomenclature’ that frame many exhibits in motoring museums and often seen.

 Veteran

The Veteran period is from the start of motoring pre-1900 up to the year 1904. Also known in the USA as the ‘Pioneer’ era to certain observers. Although veteran and vintage are indeed universal terms, they mean different things in different countries, especially in the USA. In the USA a Veteran car is one produced between 1906-1912. An American ‘Vintage’ car definition refers to one manufactured between 1912 and 1929 whereas the British define Veteran cars as those built before 31 December 1904! And Vintage cars come after the Edwardian classification.

 Edwardian

 A lesser-used definition to describe a period post-1904 up to 1918 yet which ignores for the purpose of history and fashion, the date that the relevant King Edward VII came to the throne and the date of his death in 1910.Generally deemed to run up to the start of the First World War, when car design and manufacture effectively stalled for the duration.

 Vintage

The defined period of car production from 1905 to 1930, yet which has been slightly extended into the 1930s by some. The British Vintage car period runs from 1919 to the last day of 1930. A Post-Vintage car can, say some, cover the era just beyond to 1939.

 Thoroughbred or Post-Vintage Thoroughbred 

Applied by some to the post-vintage era cars of 1931-1939. Once cited in the title of Thoroughbred and Classic Cars magazine – now Classic Cars.

 Post-War and Classic

 Defines a generic era 1945 through to the late-1960s of ‘classic cars’ but open to interpretation. In the Second World War, little car design focus took place and 1939-1945 currently lacks a defined classification beyond ‘war-time production’. The same thinking applies to books as produced to ‘war-time standard’. Included within the post-war era can be ‘thoroughbred’ cars whose origins lie in the very late-1930s. The defined niche ‘Post-War’ cars of 1946-1959 are also ‘classics’, yet the wider generic term ‘classic car’ encompasses the post-war era well into the 1960s. 

Old-timer 

A Northern European/German term for any very old veteran and early vintage era car.

 Modern Classic 

A more recent term to describe cars of the 1970s and up to the 1980s and perhaps beyond.

 Young timer 

Another northern European/Germany for a modern classic. 
Of particular note, many museums and collections use descriptions of cars in terms of their engineering and design that require more than a passing knowledge of the history of car design. The reader may be assisted in their visits to see or research cars, by the inclusion herein of key terms that are used by car collectors, car collections and museums to categorise the myriad of earlier car types, styles, and design features.

 Car body design/coachbuilder terminology:

 Aero-screen 
Small square or semi-circular/ellipsoid windscreen mounted on the scuttle of an open car type to reduce wind resistance but still proved some form of occupant shielding from the wind. Also as a racing car fitment.

 Barrel-sided 

A form of body design where there can be found a convex curve-under shape to bodysides towards the lower panels (sills) as a turn-under shape leading to a barrel-shaped curvature. Not to be confused with tumblehome.

 Beetle-back

 Not related to the VW ‘Beetle’ but an earlier term to describe a rounded tail or roof line that suggested the rear contours of an insect/beetle (carapace).

 Berline/Berlina 

Often applied to a French, German or Italian car, this means standard saloon – four-doors. A horse-drawn carriage term, ‘Berlin’ evolved into the modern era. A Berline is a French term, but Berlina is the Italian etymology but a Berlinetta is a smaller, (often two-seat) sports coupé version of a Berlina (such as a Ferrari Berlinetta). Germans still however refer to a mid-range saloon as ‘Berlina’.

 Boat-tail(ed) 

Refers to a touring-type body that has a pointed tail end, aping the (converse) prow of a small boat or rowing boat, or a pointed boat stern (not all sterns are pointed and many are flat-backed). 

Boat-decked

 Indicates that wood or ‘decking’ has been applied to the upper surface of a top panel – overlaid as in boat building practice and notably for stern decks. 

Brake (Shooting)/Break 

The early term for an estate car body type and describing the rugged and large vehicles used for taking shooting guests to upper class shoots and to carry their guns, dogs and kit. Also as a car to collect cargo and baggage in the country from railway stations to return to one’s estate hence the derivation of ‘Station Wagon’still extant in the USA. Originally the ‘Shooting Brake’ this is the origin of today’s estate car. Of note, the French term for such cars was, and remains, a ‘Break’ of alternative spelling. The Swedish and Germans often refer to such cars as ‘Wagonettes’ and this has transposed to the U.S. colloquialism of ‘Wagon’ to describe an estate car or hatchback – beyond the use of the earlier ‘station wagon’. 

Buggy 

Applied to short-wheelbase two-seater chassis body combinations of simple and horse-cart derived style. 

Cabriolet 

A confusing and multiply used term to describe a partially folding roof with proper weather protection and one supported by an inner mechanism and or removable panels, but not a true lightweight roadster-type soft top of minimal accommodation as latterly framed. The true word cabriolet has differing usage in Britain, the USA and Europe dependent on era. The inter-war British practice was to apply the term to a sports-specified large saloon often with four-doors – so British cabriolets of the 1920s and 1930s were larger, four-seat and, sometimes, four-door affairs with folding roofs of greater weather protection than a normal open car. As late as the 1950s, Rolls-Royce and various coachworks such as Hooper were still producing large, four-door soft-tops in the Anglicised cabriolet idiom; the 1952 RollsRoyce Hooper-bodied Silver Wraith Cabriolet being a stunning and advanced example (the Gulbenkian car). Beyond 1965, the Lincoln Continental of the US Presidential fleet defined a specific cabriolet context so different from the central European coupé-cabriolet sports car type. The Lincoln was the last true grand saloon cabriolet of the pre-war style carried over. Prior to 1940, giants such as the 1930s Bentley, Rolls-Royce, Horch, and Mercedes-Benz offerings were all ‘cabriolets’ despite their massive sizes and engine capacities, the controversial Mercedes ‘Grosser’ model of 7.7 litres being an example. But today, cabriolet means a different type of car in a new context. ‘Three-quarter’ cabriolets, and ‘single’ cabriolets were also defined according to type, accommodation and roof functions. A ‘faux’ cabriolet was just that, a falsely trimmed fixed roof device that hinted at being foldable but was not. An American cabriolet category also exists and defines a soft-roofed front or driver’s compartment and a fixed, hard-roofed rear saloon.A ‘salamanca’ cabriolet was a Spanish-designed Rolls-Royce type with luxury interior. Later, smaller or specific cabriolets of differing types included the Porsche 356 and Jaguar XJ-S. And was the Fiat 125 soft-top a cabrioletot a convertible?

Cant rail 

The portion of a car’s roof at each side; running from the A pillar rearwards.

Carrosserie/Carrozzeria/Karrossen 

The French, Italian and German terms respectively for a car body designer and specialist coachbuilder as a company or service beyond a manufacturer’s output. It was common to send a car chassis from its maker to a specialist body-builder. In English, the term coachbuilder stemmed from horse drawn and railway stock design and fabrication and was transferred to specialist non-factory marque, car and vehicle body design and building. 

Cape-cart 

Derived from the South African style of small horse-drawn ‘Cape’ cart. Applied to the motor car circa 1905- 1910 as a description of a specific type of folding, fabric or leather hood with a collapsible timber support structure. 

Cloverleaf

 A description of staggered-type three seat cabin layout with two seats to the front and one centrally to the rear as in the planform of a three-leafed cloverleaf 

Close-coupled

 An old-fashioned term that defines a smaller cabin or shorter wheelbase in which the front and rear seats have lesser or minimal legroom. 

Club/Club Brougham 

An American term applied to formal, upright-styled, upmarket, fixed-head, solid roofed cars circa 1920. A ‘Brougham’ derived from British horse drawn cart days (after Lord Brougham) and then became used in the USA where it was deployed as a marketing tag to define a formal saloon type of upmarket or badge-engineered car. This carried on into the modern car era of the 1980s. A shorter-bodied Brougham of the vintage era can be termed a ‘Single Brougham’.

 Coupé

 Deriving from the French term (hence the é accent used outside of the USA) coupé meaning to ‘cut’ and thus describing a smaller, or shortened body form as latterly applied to sports cars or two-door coupés. Earlier applied to larger or four-seat, four-door cars with a specific, drop-head or fixed-head roof style. Some 1920s coupés were in fact large car types and not in the form of the modern understanding of the term. The three-quarter coupé was a closed, two-door, two-seater with an upright cabin and a third seat mounted externally at the rear as in a ‘dickey’seat. Doctor’s coupé was an early term that lasted into the 1930s and which described a car of more sporting style and often a two-seater. High-built with large doors and plenty of luggage space, they became popular with the medical profession and hence doctor’s coupé. Other coupé iterations also existed – including a ‘golfer’s’ coupé and a ‘victoria’ coupé. An ‘opera’ coupé was an American, fourseater with only two doors and small rear windows – latterly ‘opera’ windows. A ‘fixed-head’ coupé was a 1920s-1930s fashion now obscured by the more generic, smaller, fastback idiom of the coupé. A ‘drop-head’ coupé is now a ‘convertible’ but in cars past, it was a coupé type but with a folding roof. Many vintage-era and pre-war classic cars of four-seater open-top design are still definitively referred to as ‘drop-head’ coupés, and yet so too are 1950s and 1960s two seater sports cars! Coupé de Ville is a term related to use in the Sedanca type nomenclature, this term described a sportier, or grander luxury sports derivative of a body-onchassis design, also applied as a fixed-head to very large cars and exemplified by the grandiose 1927 T41chasis Bugatti Coupé Napoleon. The ‘de Ville’ is a nominative term deriving from its use in ‘town’ (ville) car description (see below).