The 20 Different Car Body Types In Automobiles (2024)

The 20 Different Car Body Types

Did you know that there are 20 distinct types of car bodies? In this blog article, I will show you the many automobile body styles. Some of this is highly popular on the roadways, while others are not. Automobiles come in a variety of body styles, including the following:

OFF-ROAD Car Body Type

An off-road vehicle, often known as an overland or adventure vehicle, is any form of vehicle capable of driving on and off paved or gravel surfaces. It is distinguished by enormous tires with deep, open treads, a flexible suspension, or even caterpillar tracks. Tractors, forklifts, cranes, backhoes, bulldozers, and golf carts are examples of off-highway vehicles that do not drive on public streets or highways.

Because of their adaptability, off-road vehicles have a devoted following. Off-road vehicle racing is used in a variety of motorsports. The most typical use for these vehicles is for sight-seeing in regions far from the roadway. The use of greater clearance and higher traction vehicles allows access to rugged and poor traction trails and forest roads. Some off-road vehicles can traverse water; we refer to the quantity of water they can traverse as wading depth.

CABRIOLET/CONVERTIBLE Car Body Type

A convertible, often known as a cabriolet, is a kind of passenger automobile that may be driven with or without a roof. The procedures for retracting and storing the roof differ depending on the model. A convertible provides an open-air driving experience with the option of adding a roof when needed. Convertibles may have a lower structural stiffness (requiring extensive engineering and design to counterbalance the impacts of removing a car’s roof).

The majority of convertible roofs are built with a folding structure and a cloth or other fabric top. Retractable hardtops (typically made of metal or plastic) and removable hardtops are two further forms of convertible roofs (where a metal or plastic roof is manually removed and often stored in the trunk).

COUPE Car Body Type

A coupe or coupé is a two-door passenger automobile with a sloping or truncated rear roofline. The name coupé was initially given to two-passenger horse-drawn carriages with no rear-facing seats. It is derived from the French word of “cut.”

MINIVAN Car Body Type

Minivan (or simply van) is an automobile classification in North America for vehicles meant to carry people in the back seating row(s), with reconfigurable seats in two or three rows. In Europe, the corresponding categorization is MPV (multipurpose vehicle) or people carrier/mover. Minivans often feature a one-box or two-box body design, a taller roof, a flat floor, sliding doors for rear passengers, and high H-point seating.

Most minivans have a lower body and are built on a passenger car chassis, as opposed to a full-size van. Early models, such as the Ford Aerostar and Chevrolet Astro, were built on a tiny pickup truck basis.

The biggest size of minivans is sometimes known as a ‘Large MPV,’ and it became popular when the 1984 Dodge Caravan and Renault Espace were introduced. These are often built on platforms borrowed from D-segment passenger vehicles or tiny pickup trucks. Minivans in the compact MPV and tiny MPV sizes have grown in popularity since the 1990s. If the term’minivan’ is used without specifying a size in North America, it typically refers to the biggest size.

PICKUP Car Body Type

A pickup truck, often known as a pickup, is a light-duty vehicle having an enclosed cabin and an open cargo area, as well as low sidewalls and a tailgate. Once a labor or agricultural tool with little creature comforts, pickup trucks became popular among American consumers in the 1950s for lifestyle reasons, and by the 1990s, fewer than 15% of owners reported using the pickup truck for work as its main purpose. The truck is mostly utilized as a passenger automobile in North America, accounting for around 18% of total vehicle sales in the United States. Full-sized trucks and SUVs are a significant source of income for major automakers like as GM, Ford, and Stellantis, accounting for more than two-thirds of their worldwide pretax revenues but accounting for just 16 percent of North American vehicle production. These cars have a large profit margin and a high price tag; in 2018, Kelley Blue Book reported a new Ford F-150 costing an average of US$47,174 (including optional extras).

The phrase “pickup” has no recognized origin. Studebaker adopted it in 1913, and by the 1930s, “pick-up” (hyphenated) had become the usual phrase.

SEDAN Car Body Type

A sedan, sometimes known as a saloon in British English, is a three-box passenger automobile having distinct compartments for the engine, passengers, and baggage.

Sedan was originally used as a term for an automobile body in 1912. The term is derived from a 17th-century version of a litter, the sedan chair, which is a one-person enclosed box with windows and is carried by porters. In Book VI of the Lives of the Twelve Caesars, page 258, Modern Library, Random House, Suetonius describes the Sedan used to transport Nero to the theater.

Close-coupled sedan, club sedan, convertible sedan, fastback sedan, hardtop sedan, notchback sedan, and sedanet/sedanette are all variations of the sedan body design.

STATION WAGON/ESTATE Car Body Type

A station wagon or estate car is a variant of a sedan/saloon with its roof extended rearward. The American Heritage Dictionary defines a station wagon as “an automobile with one or more rows of folding or removable seats behind the driver“. Station wagons can flexibly reconfigure their interior volume via fold-down rear seats to prioritize either passenger or cargo volume.

HATCHBACK Car Body Type

A hatchback is an automobile body style featuring an upward-swinging rear door that provides access to the cargo space. Hatchbacks may have a fold-down second row of seats, allowing the interior to be adjusted for passenger or cargo space. Hatchbacks are available in two- or three-box configurations.

The hatchback body type has been sold globally on a variety of vehicles ranging in size from superminis to compact family cars, as well as executive and sports automobiles. They are an integral part of every sport utility vehicle.

SUV Car Body Type

A sport utility vehicle, or SUV, is a kind of vehicle that combines components of road-going passenger automobiles with off-road vehicle characteristics, such as increased ground clearance and four-wheel drive.

There is no universally accepted definition of an SUV, and the word is used differently in different nations. Thus, it is “a wide phrase that has historically included a diverse variety of four-wheel-drive vehicles.” According to some definitions, an SUV must be based on a light truck chassis; however, more expansive definitions include any vehicle with off-road design attributes as an SUV. While a crossover SUV is often characterized as an SUV with a unibody structure (like with passenger vehicles), crossovers are frequently referred to simply as SUVs.

SUVs predate military and low-volume vehicles released in the late 1930s, as well as four-wheel drive station wagons and carryalls debuted in 1949. The 1984 Jeep Cherokee (XJ) is widely regarded as the first SUV to have a contemporary design. Today, some SUVs are built on unibody chassis; however, in the past, most SUVs were built on body-on-frame chassis. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, SUVs gained significant appeal, often at the cost of big sedans and station wagons.

Recently, smaller SUVs, mid-size SUVs, and crossovers have grown in popularity. SUVs are the biggest automotive category in the world, accounting for 45.9 percent of the global passenger vehicle market in 2021.

SUVs have come under fire for a number of environmental and safety concerns. They are often less fuel efficient and need more resources to construct than smaller cars, contributing much more to climate change and environmental destruction. Their increased center of gravity puts them at a greater danger of rollover. Their increased bulk limits their braking radius, reduces visibility, and increases the amount of damage caused to other road users in crashes. Their wider front end makes them at least twice as likely to kill people when they collide. Additionally, the psychological feeling of security they provide on drivers encourages them to drive more recklessly.

CROSSOVER Car Body Type

A Crossover, crossover SUV, or crossover utility vehicle (CUV) is a form of unibody sport utility vehicle. Crossovers, a word that originated in North America, are vehicles that share a platform with a passenger automobile, as opposed to a pickup truck. As a result, crossovers are sometimes referred to as “car-based SUVs.” Due to ambiguities on whether some cars are classified as crossovers or SUVs, the word “SUV” is often used to refer to both crossovers and small SUVs.

As of 2006, crossover vehicles accounted for more than half of the entire SUV market in the United States. Since the early 2010s, crossovers have grown in popularity in Europe as well.