Phaeton body

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A phaeton is a car body style, similar to a sedan or convertible sedan, where the rear seat area is extended for added leg room or for an additional row of seating. This gives the vehicle the appearance that it is meant to be chauffeur-operated. This body type was popular up to the early years of World War II.

Prior to the automotive age, the phaeton was a light, fast, four-wheeled horse-drawn carriage.

During the early automotive years, though most were of the extended passenger seat area (1925 Studebaker Phaeton, 1941 Buick Roadmaster 4-door Phaeton) or additional row seating variety, others had custom body types. Some models had a driver's row with no roof with a passengers' row with a fixed roof (1930 Duesenberg J Murphy Town Car), while other models had their driver's and passengers' rows separated by a cowl and sometimes a folding windshield (1931 Cadillac V-16 dual cowl Phaeton).

During the late 1930s, Cord built 2-door convertible sedans with "Phaeton" included in the name (1937 Cord 810 Phaeton). However, this may have been a marketing embellishment and not an indication to the type of body.

Modern phaetons lack the second row cowl or the cabin dividing wall. Though most manufacturers do not really use the word Phaeton when marketing these vehicles, the sedan-like body with extended rear seat area continues in model line-ups of many luxury marques (Jaguar XJ Vanden Plas, Maybach 57 and 62). In 2004, Volkswagen introduced their flagship vehicle which donned the name Phaeton, and boasted an enormous cabin, both front and rear, which was major competition to the similar bodied BMW 750 and Mercedes-Benz S-Class. The VW Phaeton was pulled from the U.S. Market in 2006 due to poor sales.