The Transition Period - Carriage Bodies to Automobile Bodies

The original name of the automobile was the “Horseless Carriage.” There is a direct link between the old horse drawn carriage body and the present automobile body. The link stems from the discovery of the “French Rule” in 1875, which was a system of using geometrical formulas, that made it possible to reproduce the curved panel surfaces of a carriage body.

It is the system used by body engineers today, which makes it feasible to duplicate from an original model, the many thousands of bodies with the multifarious compound curved surfaces found on present day automobiles. The paper contains a suggestion to body designers to examine old carriage bodies for fresh ideas.