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A fastback is an automotive styling feature, defined by the rear of the car having a single slope from the roof to the tail. The
kammback A Kammback—also known as a Kamm tail or K-tail—is an automotive styling feature wherein the rear of the car slopes downwards before being abruptly cut off with a vertical or near-vertical surface. A Kammback improves aerodynamic drag, thus ...
is a type of fastback style. Some models, such as the
Ford Mustang The Ford Mustang is a series of American automobiles manufactured by Ford. In continuous production since 1964, the Mustang is currently the longest-produced Ford car nameplate. Currently in its sixth generation, it is the fifth-best selli ...
, have been specifically marketed as fastbacks, often to differentiate them from other body styles (e.g. coupe models) in the same model range. The ''4-door coupe'' is a common branding term used today to describe fastback sedans.


Definition

A fastback is often defined as having a single slope from the roof to the rear of the vehicle. The term "fastback" is not interchangeable with "
liftback A liftback is a variation of hatchback with a sloping roofline between 45 and 5 degrees. Traditional hatchback designs usually have a 90 to 46 degree slope on the tailgate or rear door. As such the liftback is essentially a hatchback with a more ...
"; the former describes the shape of the car, and the latter refers to a roof-hinged tailgate that lifts more upwards than rearwards. More specifically, ''
Road & Track ''Road & Track'' (stylized as ''R&T'') is an American automotive enthusiast magazine. It is owned by Hearst Magazines and is published 6 times per year. The editorial offices are located in New York, New York. History ''Road & Track'' (often ...
'' have defined the fastback as
A closed body style, usually a coupe but sometimes a sedan, with a roof sloped gradually in an unbroken line from the windshield to the rear edge of the car. A fastback naturally lends itself to a
hatchback A hatchback is a car body configuration with a rear door that swings upward to provide access to a cargo area. Hatchbacks may feature fold-down second row seating, where the interior can be reconfigured to prioritize passenger or cargo volume. ...
configuration and many have it, but not all hatchbacks are fastbacks and vice versa.
In the case of the
Ford Mustang The Ford Mustang is a series of American automobiles manufactured by Ford. In continuous production since 1964, the Mustang is currently the longest-produced Ford car nameplate. Currently in its sixth generation, it is the fifth-best selli ...
, the term "fastback" is used to differentiate against the
coupé A coupe or coupé (, ) is a passenger car with a sloping or truncated rear roofline and two doors. The term ''coupé'' was first applied to horse-drawn carriages for two passengers without rear-facing seats. It comes from the French past parti ...
notchback A notchback is a design of a car with the rearmost section that is distinct from the passenger compartment and where the back of the passenger compartment is at an angle to the top of what is typically the rear baggage compartment. Notchback cars ...
body style, which has a steeper rear window followed by a horizontal trunk lid.


History

Automobile designers in the 1930s began using elements of aircraft aerodynamics to
streamline Streamline may refer to: Business * Streamline Air, American regional airline * Adobe Streamline, a discontinued line tracing program made by Adobe Systems * Streamline Cars, the company responsible for making the Burney car Engineering ...
the boxy-looking vehicles of their day. Such designs, that were ahead of their time when exhibited during the early 1930s, included a droplet-like streamlining of the car's rear; a configuration similar to what would become known as the "fastback" 25 years later. Merriam-Webster first recognized the term "fastback" in 1954, many years before the popularization of the term "hatchback", which entered the dictionary in 1970. Opinions vary as to whether the terms are mutually exclusive. Early examples of fastback cars include the 1929 Auburn Cabin Speedster, 1933 Cadillac V-16 Aerodynamic Coupe, 1935 Stout Scarab, 1933 Packard 1106 Twelve Aero Sport Coupe,
Bugatti Automobiles Ettore Bugatti was a German then French manufacturer of high-performance automobiles. The company was founded in 1909 in the then- German city of Molsheim, Alsace, by the Italian-born industrial designer Ettore Bugatti. The ca ...
Type 57 Atlantic, Tatra 87, Porsche 356, Saab 92/96, Standard Vanguard,
GAZ-M20 Pobeda The GAZ-M20 "Pobeda" (russian: ГАЗ-М20 Победа; ''победа'' means ''victory'') was a passenger car produced in the Soviet Union by GAZ from 1946 until 1958. It was also licensed to the Polish Passenger Automobile Factory and prod ...
, and Bentley Continental R-Type.


North America and Europe

In North America, the numerous marketing terms for the fastback body-style included "aerosedan", "club coupe", "sedanette" and "torpedo back". Cars included
Cadillac The Cadillac Motor Car Division () is a division of the American automobile manufacturer General Motors (GM) that designs and builds luxury vehicles. Its major markets are the United States, Canada, and China. Cadillac models are distributed ...
's Series 61 and 62 Club Coupes, as well as various other models from General Motors, Ford, and
Chrysler Stellantis North America (officially FCA US and formerly Chrysler ()) is one of the " Big Three" automobile manufacturers in the United States, headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan. It is the American subsidiary of the multinational automot ...
. By the early 1940s until 1950, nearly every domestic manufacturer offered at least one fastback body style within their model lineups. In the mid-1960s, the style was revived on many GM and Ford products until the mid-1970s. In Europe, there was a sloping rear on streamlined cars as early as 1945, from which, among other things, the shapes of the
Volkswagen Beetle The Volkswagen Beetle—officially the Volkswagen Type 1, informally in German (meaning "beetle"), in parts of the English-speaking world the Bug, and known by many other nicknames in other languages—is a two-door, rear-engine economy car, ...
and Porsche 356 are derived.


Australia

In Australia, fastbacks (known as "slopers") were introduced in 1935, first designed by General Motors' Holden as one of the available bodies on
Oldsmobile Oldsmobile or formally the Oldsmobile Division of General Motors was a brand of American automobiles, produced for most of its existence by General Motors. Originally established as "Olds Motor Vehicle Company" by Ransom E. Olds in 1897, it pro ...
, Chevrolet, and Pontiac chassis. The sloper design was added by Richards Body Builders in Australia to
Dodge Dodge is an American brand of automobiles and a division of Stellantis, based in Auburn Hills, Michigan. Dodge vehicles have historically included performance cars, and for much of its existence Dodge was Chrysler's mid-priced brand above P ...
and
Plymouth Plymouth () is a port city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to the west and south-west. Plymout ...
models in 1937; it was subsequently adopted by Ford Australia in 1939 and 1940, as well as a sloper style made on Nash chassis. According to automotive historian G.N. Georgano, "the Slopers were advanced cars for their day".


Japan

In Japan, the
Toyota AA The A1 was the first prototype passenger car built by the company that became Toyota. It was redesigned and put into production as Toyota's first production cars, the AA sedan and the AB cabriolet. These were succeeded by the similar AE, AC and ...
first adopted the fastback style in 1936. It was strongly influenced by the 1933 DeSoto Airflow. The 1965 Mitsubishi Colt 800 was the first
post-war In Western usage, the phrase post-war era (or postwar era) usually refers to the time since the end of World War II. More broadly, a post-war period (or postwar period) is the interval immediately following the end of a war. A post-war period ...
Japanese fastback, and the 1958 Subaru 360 was the first kei fastback. The Prince Skyline 1900 Sprint was developed by Prince Motor Company in 1963, but was never marketed. Afterwards, all Japanese automakers adopted the fastback style, with the 1967 Honda N360, 1968
Nissan Sunny The is an automobile built by the Japanese automaker Nissan from 1966 to 2006. In the early 1980s, the brand changed from Datsun to Nissan in line with other models by the company. Although production of the Sunny in Japan ended in 2006, the ...
Coupe, 1968
Mazda Familia The , also marketed prominently as the Mazda 323, Mazda Protegé and Mazda Allegro, is a small family car that was manufactured by Mazda between 1963 and 2003. The Familia line was replaced by the Mazda3/Axela for 2004. It was marketed as the ' ...
Rotary Coupe, 1970 Suzuki Fronte "Sting Ray Look", and 1971 Daihatsu Fellow Max. From the late 1960s to the 1970s, American coke bottle styling became popular in Japan, as seen on
Toyota is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on . Toyota is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world, producing about 10 ...
's 1973 Celica "Liftback".


"4-door coupe"

A decisive change of course took place in 2004, when the first generation of the
Mercedes-Benz CLS-Class The Mercedes-Benz CLS (initially called the CLS-Class) is a series of executive cars produced by Mercedes-Benz since 2004. The original model was a four-door fastback sedan based on the E-Class platform, marketed as a four door coupé. An esta ...
was launched. It was called a ''4-door coupé'', a purely marketing term describing its fastback sedan arrangement, with fastback coupé-profiled bodywork and two doors on each side. The CLS is considered the forerunner of this market segment, but it only reinterpreted the concept—such a layout (although not a true fastback) was briefly used on the 1992-1997 Infiniti J30/Nissan Leopard J Férié. It was followed by other competing models, such as the Audi A7 and the BMW 6 Series Gran Coupé, but also models of different segments, such as the
Audi A5 The Audi A5 is a series of compact executive coupe cars produced by the German automobile manufacturer Audi since June 2007. The A5 range additionally comprises the coupe, cabriolet, and "Sportback" (a five-door liftback with a fastback roofline ...
Sportback, BMW 4 Series Gran Coupé, Volkswagen CC, Mercedes-Benz CLA-Class, Aston Martin Rapide, and
Porsche Panamera The Porsche Panamera is a mid/ full-sized luxury car ( E-segment/ F-segment in Europe) manufactured and marketed by German automobile manufacturer Porsche across two generations using a front-engine, rear or all-wheel drive configuration. ...
.


Aerodynamic advantages

Fastbacks provide an advantage in developing
aerodynamic Aerodynamics, from grc, ἀήρ ''aero'' (air) + grc, δυναμική (dynamics), is the study of the motion of air, particularly when affected by a solid object, such as an airplane wing. It involves topics covered in the field of fluid dyn ...
vehicles with a low
drag coefficient In fluid dynamics, the drag coefficient (commonly denoted as: c_\mathrm, c_x or c_) is a dimensionless quantity that is used to quantify the drag or resistance of an object in a fluid environment, such as air or water. It is used in the drag e ...
. For example, although lacking a
wind tunnel Wind tunnels are large tubes with air blowing through them which are used to replicate the interaction between air and an object flying through the air or moving along the ground. Researchers use wind tunnels to learn more about how an aircraft ...
, Hudson designed its post-World War II cars to look aerodynamic, and "tests conducted by Nash later found that the Hudson had almost 20% less drag than contemporary
notchback A notchback is a design of a car with the rearmost section that is distinct from the passenger compartment and where the back of the passenger compartment is at an angle to the top of what is typically the rear baggage compartment. Notchback cars ...
sedans".


See also

*
List of fastback automobiles List of fastback automobiles includes examples of a car body style whose roofline ''slopes continuously down at the back''. It is a ''form of back for an automobile body consisting of a single convex curve from the top to the rear bumper''. T ...
*
Coupe A coupe or coupé (, ) is a passenger car with a sloping or truncated rear roofline and two doors. The term ''coupé'' was first applied to horse-drawn carriages for two passengers without rear-facing seats. It comes from the French past parti ...
* Sedan *
Hatchback A hatchback is a car body configuration with a rear door that swings upward to provide access to a cargo area. Hatchbacks may feature fold-down second row seating, where the interior can be reconfigured to prioritize passenger or cargo volume. ...
*
Liftback A liftback is a variation of hatchback with a sloping roofline between 45 and 5 degrees. Traditional hatchback designs usually have a 90 to 46 degree slope on the tailgate or rear door. As such the liftback is essentially a hatchback with a more ...
*
Kammback A Kammback—also known as a Kamm tail or K-tail—is an automotive styling feature wherein the rear of the car slopes downwards before being abruptly cut off with a vertical or near-vertical surface. A Kammback improves aerodynamic drag, thus ...


References


External links

{{Automobile configuration Car body styles Automotive styling features de:Fahrzeugheck#Schrägheck