A sedan (American English; ) or saloon car (British English, Irish English, New Zealand English) is a passenger car in a three-box configuration with A, B & C-pillars and principal volumes articulated in separate compartments for engine, passenger and cargo. The passenger compartment features two rows of seats and adequate passenger space in the rear compartment for adult passengers. The cargo compartment is typically in the rear, with the exception of some rear-engined models, such as the Renault Dauphine, Tatra T613, Volkswagen Type 3 and Chevrolet Corvair. It is one of the most common car body styles.
A sedan seats four or more people and has a fixed roof that is full-height up to the rear window. The roof structure will typically have a fixed B-pillar on sedan models. Most commonly it is a four-door; two-door models are rare, but they do occur (more so historically). In the U.S., the term sedan has been used to denote a car with fixed window frames, as opposed to the hardtop style without a "B" pillar and where the sash, if any, winds down with the glass. However, true hardtops have become increasingly rare.
Four-door sedans can have either two or three side windows: One in each door (vent windows not counted), and the possible third integrated in the "C"-pillar.
Typically this design is chosen for its aerodynamic advantages. Automakers can no longer afford the penalty in fuel consumption produced by the traditional notchback three box form.
In the popular vernacular, a two-door sedan is defined by appearance and not by volume; vehicles with a B-pillar between the front and rear windows are generally called two-door sedans, while hardtops (without the pillar, and often incorporating a sloping backlight) are called coupés.
The Mazda RX-8 meets the volume requirement to be called a sedan, but it has vestigial rear-hinged rear doors, so some call it 2+2-door sedan. Another term for a coupé endowed with rear-hinged doors is a "quad coupé." However, this may simply be vernacular, based on a possible copyright by General Motors, for its Saturn Ion Quad-Coupe.
The first automobile to use the configuration was the 1899 Renault Voiturette Type B. The first closed car, for at least 4 persons, which used the word sedan was the 1911 Speedwell sedan, which was manufactured by the Speedwell Motor Co in Dayton, Ohio. But even before that time completely closed cars were called saloons or limousines, like the 1905 Rational 4-door limousine or the 1907 Renault 4-door limousine or the 1910 Stella 2-door saloon. The words saloon or limousine do not exclusively mean a fully closed car. Cars which are called sedans are always fully closed.
The derivation from the town of Sedan, Ardennes in France, where it was said to have been made or first used, lacks historical evidence, according to Oxford English Dictionary.
In British English, a car of this configuration is called a saloon. The engine compartment cover is the bonnet, the cargo-compartment boot is at the rear. Hatchback sedans are known simply as hatchbacks (not hatchback saloons); long-wheelbase luxury sedans may be referred to as limousines.
The British English term saloon is sometimes used by British car manufacturers in the United States. For example, the Rolls-Royce Park Ward was sold as a saloon in the United States, while the smaller Silver Seraph was called a sedan.
In Australia the American term sedan is used, albeit with the British terms boot and bonnet being retained. In New Zealand the British terms are used, but the American terms are understood by most of the population. In other languages, sedans are known as berline (French), berlina (European Spanish, European Portuguese, Romanian, and Italian); although these terms also may include hatchbacks. These terms, besides sedan, derive from types of horse-drawn carriages. In German, the term limousine is used for sedans, as well as for limousines.
Category:Car body styles Category:Car classifications
ar:سيدان be:Седан bs:Limuzina bg:Седан (автомобил) cs:Sedan (automobil) da:Sedan (bil) de:Limousine et:Sedaan es:Sedán fa:سدان fr:Type de carrosserie#Berline ko:세단 hr:Limuzina id:Sedan it:Berlina lv:Sedans lt:Sedanas (automobilis) nah:Tepozcaxitl tepozmalacatl nl:Sedan (autotype) ja:セダン no:Sedan (bil) pl:Sedan (nadwozie) pt:Sedan (automóvel) ro:Sedan (automobil) ru:Седан simple:Sedan sk:Sedan sr:Лимузина sh:Limuzina fi:Sedan sv:Sedan th:รถซีดาน tr:Sedan (otomobil) uk:Седан vi:Sedan (ô tô) zh:轿车This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
The World News (WN) Network, has created this privacy statement in order to demonstrate our firm commitment to user privacy. The following discloses our information gathering and dissemination practices for wn.com, as well as e-mail newsletters.
We do not collect personally identifiable information about you, except when you provide it to us. For example, if you submit an inquiry to us or sign up for our newsletter, you may be asked to provide certain information such as your contact details (name, e-mail address, mailing address, etc.).
When you submit your personally identifiable information through wn.com, you are giving your consent to the collection, use and disclosure of your personal information as set forth in this Privacy Policy. If you would prefer that we not collect any personally identifiable information from you, please do not provide us with any such information. We will not sell or rent your personally identifiable information to third parties without your consent, except as otherwise disclosed in this Privacy Policy.
Except as otherwise disclosed in this Privacy Policy, we will use the information you provide us only for the purpose of responding to your inquiry or in connection with the service for which you provided such information. We may forward your contact information and inquiry to our affiliates and other divisions of our company that we feel can best address your inquiry or provide you with the requested service. We may also use the information you provide in aggregate form for internal business purposes, such as generating statistics and developing marketing plans. We may share or transfer such non-personally identifiable information with or to our affiliates, licensees, agents and partners.
We may retain other companies and individuals to perform functions on our behalf. Such third parties may be provided with access to personally identifiable information needed to perform their functions, but may not use such information for any other purpose.
In addition, we may disclose any information, including personally identifiable information, we deem necessary, in our sole discretion, to comply with any applicable law, regulation, legal proceeding or governmental request.
We do not want you to receive unwanted e-mail from us. We try to make it easy to opt-out of any service you have asked to receive. If you sign-up to our e-mail newsletters we do not sell, exchange or give your e-mail address to a third party.
E-mail addresses are collected via the wn.com web site. Users have to physically opt-in to receive the wn.com newsletter and a verification e-mail is sent. wn.com is clearly and conspicuously named at the point of
collection.If you no longer wish to receive our newsletter and promotional communications, you may opt-out of receiving them by following the instructions included in each newsletter or communication or by e-mailing us at michaelw(at)wn.com
The security of your personal information is important to us. We follow generally accepted industry standards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during registration and once we receive it. No method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100 percent secure, however. Therefore, though we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.
If we decide to change our e-mail practices, we will post those changes to this privacy statement, the homepage, and other places we think appropriate so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it.
If we make material changes to our e-mail practices, we will notify you here, by e-mail, and by means of a notice on our home page.
The advertising banners and other forms of advertising appearing on this Web site are sometimes delivered to you, on our behalf, by a third party. In the course of serving advertisements to this site, the third party may place or recognize a unique cookie on your browser. For more information on cookies, you can visit www.cookiecentral.com.
As we continue to develop our business, we might sell certain aspects of our entities or assets. In such transactions, user information, including personally identifiable information, generally is one of the transferred business assets, and by submitting your personal information on Wn.com you agree that your data may be transferred to such parties in these circumstances.