I just had a young guy come by the shop and asked the difference between a Sport Coupe, Cabriolet, and a roadster. Obviously I knew the roadster but wasn't sure about the others. Help ,thanks.
Sport coupe has a cloth over wood bow top that does not fold down.. Roadster has a cloth top over bows that fold down... Cabriolet.... I want to know too.. We're there cabs in the model A's?? Jason
sport coupe has a fabric top , but does not fold ,and has doors like a coupe cabriolet has a folding top and a solid , fixed windshield
Roadster has a folddown top and side curtains that snap on when it rains. Sport Coupe looks like a cabrolet but has coupe doors with rollup gl*** windows. The Cabriolet has a top that folds down, windows roll up & down in the doors. There are straight post windsheil;d and slant windsheiuld models of the Cabrolet, all of them have a front post in the door, but no rear post, that is part of the top iron ***embly. Rear quarters are different on all three.
Any historians know the reason why Ford made a Sports Coupe? Was it the same as people having vinyl tops on their 70s land yachts? A luxury look of a convertible without the reality? Just curious. Same goes for the reasoning between a Cabriolet and Roadster. Why did they make two different cars with seemingly the same end result, aesthetics notwithstanding?
I think roadsters were simply the cheapest car they could make. Little brother used to have a poster depicting all the 32 models. There was a bunch of them. Perhaps a better question would be, "Why so many different models?"
Exactly that. Why a Cabriolet AND Roadsters? And then, why a Sports Coupe, unless that was Fords way of taking a bunch of left over parts and selling a new model with the snazz of a cloth top but none of the fun? And isn't the Business Coupe similar to the Sports Coupe? I don't know, I am a newbie to both Fords cars from the 20s and 30s and life in general.
Like C9 said, the roadster was nothing fancy, just a dirt cheap car that anyone could buy. Than if you had a few more bucks, you could get a real car with windows and such. The roadster was Ford's entry level model. Neal
Don't forget about leatherback coups too. But look at all the different models we have today too. We have much different needs today than they did back then though.
Speaking Fords: Don't forget that the doors on the Cabriolet have the roll up windows ,but no frame around the window openings like the sports coupe. Also the landau bars are functional on the Cabriolet unlike the sports coupe.
Does anyone know if the quarter panel is the same between a 28-29 sport coupe and a cabriolet? The reason I ask is that I bought one at a swap meet thinking it would fit my roadster but it doesn't. It looks a lot like a coupe quarter with to sail panel cut off. Dan
I thought that was to hide the wrinkles / ****py fit of the ***embly line rejects (in the 70's I mean).
cabrolets have a wood subframe (like an a400 and vicky) sports coupe and roadsters have a steel subframe tk
you must realize that while henry ford was a "car guy" first and formost he was a business man. yes he did build cars to use every part available but he also recognized peoples need to set themselves apart from each other and therefore provided as many options to the buying public as possible. he was such an opponent of waste that he set his son-n-law up in business to dispose of the leftover wood created in manufacturing cars. that is why we have kingsford charcoal and kingsford michagan. he didn't do much without a reason.
The roadster was considered an open car. It had no gl*** windows. It was a car that did not protect you from the elements. It had leather seats and rubber floor mats. This was because the inside would almost guaranteed get dirty and wet. The cabriolet was considered a closed car that the top could be lowered on. It has roll down gl*** windows. It was so considered a closed car, that cabriolets had cloth interiors like other hard topped cars. It was one of the most expensive cars of the line, and considered one of the Deluxe body styles, build by a coach builder. Sport coupe was made to look like the more expensive cabriolet, but did not have a retractable top. It does have the "S" curved Landau irons behind the window like the cabriolet, but the fastest way to spot a Sport Coupe is that it has a metal visor like a regular coupe. Cabriolets do not have a visor.
Thanks Elrod. I figured the Sport Coupe was trying to bridge some sort of gap and figured that Ford also had a plan for extra parts lying around. Looking back on the number of models the A had in its years is mindboggling.
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