A brake (French: break) was a horse-drawn carriage used in the 19th and early 20th centuries in the training of horses for draft work, or an early automobile of similar body design. A shooting-brake was a brake pressed into service to carry beaters, gamekeepers and sportsmen with their dogs, guns and game.
There were purpose-built shooting-brakes designed to carry the driver and a footman or gamekeeper at the front facing forward, and passengers on longitudinal benches, with their dogs, guns and game borne along the sides in slatted racks.
In the 19th century, a brake was a large, four-wheeled carriage-frame with no body, used for breaking in young horses, either singly or in teams of two or four. It has no body parts except for a high seat upon which the driver sits and a small platform for a helper immediately behind.
If the passenger seats were made permanent the vehicle might be described as a waggonette.
When automobiles were first developed, the term "brake" was also applied to those with bodies similar to a horse-drawn brake. Currently the word is sometimes used for an estate car (see also shooting-brake) or station wagon. In France, the term break is synonymous with a station wagon, having been called a break de chasse, literally translated: hunting break.
Austin Carriage Museum, Weirsdale, Florida. Formerly Florida Carriage Museum & Resort. Photos and text: click on The Carriage Museum, then on Classification of Carriages, then Breaks.
A cart or dray is a vehicle designed for transport, using two wheels and normally pulled by one or a pair of draught animals. A handcart is pulled or pushed by one or more people.
A stagecoach is a four-wheeled public transport coach used to carry paying passengers and light packages on journeys long enough to need a change of horses. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by four horses.
A carriage is a private four-wheeled vehicle for people and is most commonly horse-drawn. Second-hand private carriages were common public transport, the equivalent of modern cars used as taxis. Carriage suspensions are by leather strapping and, on those made in recent centuries, steel springs. Two-wheeled carriages are informal and usually owner-driven.
A wagon or waggon is a heavy four-wheeled vehicle pulled by draught animals or on occasion by humans, used for transporting goods, commodities, agricultural materials, supplies and sometimes people.
Coupé de ville — also known as town car or sedanca de ville — is a car body style produced from 1908 to 1939 with an external or open-topped driver's position and an enclosed compartment for passengers. Although the different terms may have once had specific meanings for certain car manufacturers or countries, the terms are often used interchangeably.
There are many types of car body styles. They vary depending on intended use, market position, location and the era they were made in.
Shooting brake is a car body style which originated in the 1890s as a horse-drawn wagon used to transport shooting parties with their equipment and game.
A phaeton was a form of sporty open carriage popular in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Drawn by one or two horses, a phaeton typically featured a minimal very lightly sprung body atop four extravagantly large wheels. With open seating, it was both fast and dangerous, giving rise to its name, drawn from the mythical Phaëthon, son of Helios, who nearly set the Earth on fire while attempting to drive the chariot of the Sun.
A landaulet, also known as a landaulette, is a car body style where the rear passengers are covered by a convertible top. Often the driver is separated from the rear passengers by a division, as with a limousine.
A brougham was a light, four-wheeled horse-drawn carriage built in the 19th century. It was named after the politician and jurist Lord Brougham, who had this type of carriage built to his specification by London coachbuilder Robinson & Cook in 1838 or 1839. It had an enclosed body with two doors, like the rear section of a coach; it sat two, sometimes with an extra pair of fold-away seats in the front corners, and with a box seat in front for the driver and a footman or passenger. Unlike a coach, the carriage had a glazed front window, so that the occupants could see forward. The forewheels were capable of turning sharply. A variant, called a brougham-landaulet, had a top collapsible from the rear doors backward.
A barouche is a large, open, four-wheeled carriage, both heavy and luxurious, drawn by two horses. It was fashionable throughout the 19th century. Its body provides seats for four passengers, two back-seat passengers vis-à-vis two behind the coachman's high box-seat. A leather roof can be raised to give back-seat passengers some protection from the weather.
A Berlin carriage was a type of covered four-wheeled travelling carriage with two interior seats. Initially noted for using two chassis rails and having the body suspended from the rails by leather straps, the term continued in use for enclosed formal carriages with two seats after the suspension system changed from leather straps to steel springs.
A buckboard is a four-wheeled wagon of simple construction meant to be drawn by a horse or other large animal. A distinctly American utility vehicle, the buckboard has no springs between the body and the axles. The suspension is provided by the flexible floorboards of the body and a leaf spring under the seat(s). The buckboard has no sideboards on the body, leaving the floor quite mobile. In rough terrain, the floor can flex and "buck", lending the vehicle its name.
A horse-drawn vehicle is a mechanized piece of equipment pulled by one horse or by a team of horses. These vehicles typically had two or four wheels and were used to carry passengers and/or a load. They were once common worldwide, but they have mostly been replaced by automobiles and other forms of self-propelled transport.
A coach is a large closed four-wheeled passenger-carrying vehicle or carriage usually drawn by two or more horses usually controlled by a coachman, a postilion, or occasionally both. A coach has doors in its sides and a front and a back seat inside. The driver has a seat in front raised up high to give good vision. It is often called a box, box seat or coach box. The word coach came into use in the 15th century and spread across Europe. There are a number of types of coach depending on how the vehicle is to be used. Special breeds of horses, such as the now-extinct Yorkshire Coach Horse, were developed to pull the heavy coaches.
A brougham was originally a car body style where the driver sat outside and passengers seated within an enclosed cabin, as per the earlier brougham horse-drawn carriage. Similar in style to the later town car, the brougham style was used on chauffeur-driven petrol and electric cars.
A horse-bus or horse-drawn omnibus was a large, enclosed, and sprung horse-drawn vehicle used for passenger transport before the introduction of motor vehicles. It was mainly used in the late 19th century in both the United States and Europe, and was one of the most common means of transportation in cities. In a typical arrangement, two wooden benches along the sides of the passenger cabin held several sitting passengers facing each other. The driver sat on a separate, front-facing bench, typically in an elevated position outside the passengers' enclosed cabin. In the main age of horse buses, many of them were double-decker buses. On the upper deck, which was uncovered, the longitudinal benches were arranged back to back.
Stage wagons are light horse-drawn or mule-drawn public passenger vehicles often referred to as stagecoaches. Like stagecoaches they made long scheduled trips using stage stations or posts where the horses would be replaced by fresh horses. Stage wagons were intended for use in particularly difficult conditions where standard stagecoaches would be too big and too heavy.
A wagonette is a small horse-drawn vehicle with springs, which has two benches along the right and left side of the platform, people facing each other. The driver sits on a separate, front-facing bench. A wagonette may be open or have a tilt. A large horse-drawn enclosed vehicle with spring-suspension, a similar arrangement of the seats and obligatory roof is called a horsebus.
The Concord coach is a type of horse-drawn coach, often used as stagecoaches, mailcoaches, and hotel coaches. The term was first used for the coaches built by coach-builder J. Stephen Abbot and wheelwright Lewis Downing of the Abbot-Downing Company in Concord, New Hampshire, but later to be sometimes used generically. Like their predecessors, the Concords employed a style of suspension and construction particularly suited to North America's early 19th century roads. Leather thoroughbraces suspend passengers who are in constant motion while the coach is moving. The swaying is accepted by passengers for the shock absorbing action of the leather straps and for the way the special motion eases the coach over very rough patches of roadway. This suspension, which was developed by Philip de Chiese in the 17th century, was long replaced by steel springs in England.
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