Three body styles with pillars and boxes

The configuration of a car body is typically determined by the layout of the engine, passenger and luggage compartments, which can be shared or separately articulated. A key design feature is the car's roof-supporting pillars, designated from front to rear of the car as A-pillar, B-pillar, C-pillar and D-pillar. Common car body configurations are one-box (e.g., a van/minivan/MPV), two-box (e.g., a hatchback/SUV) and three-box (e.g., a sedan/saloon) designs.

One-box design

A one-box design, also called a ''monospace'', ''mono-box'' or ''monovolume'' configuration—approximates in shape a single volume comprising engine, cabin and cargo areas, in part by locating the base of a vehicle's A-pillars further forward. One-box designs include light commercial vehicles,

minivans Minivan (sometimes called simply a van) is a car classification for vehicles designed to transport passengers in the rear seating row(s), with reconfigurable seats in two or three rows . The equivalent classification in Europe is MPV (multi-pu ...

, MPVs and

mini MPV Mini MPV—an abbreviation for mini multi-purpose vehicle—is a vehicle size class for the smallest size of minivans/MPVs. The mini MPV size class sits below the compact MPV size class and the vehicles are often built on the platforms of B-segm ...

s. Passenger cars with a one-box design include the 1984 Renault Espace, 1992 Renault Twingo I, 2008 Tata Nano, 2005 Toyota Aygo/ Citroën C1/

Peugeot 107 The Peugeot 107 is a city car produced by France, French automaker Peugeot, launched in June 2005, and produced until 2014. The 107 was developed by the B-Zero project of PSA Peugeot Citroën in a joint venture with Toyota; the Citroën C1 and T ...

and 1997 Mercedes-Benz A-Class.

Two-box design

''Two-box'' designs articulate a volume for engine and a volume that combines passenger and cargo volumes, e.g., station wagon/estate or (three or five-door)

hatchback A hatchback is a car body style, car body configuration with a rear door that swings upward to provide access to the main interior of the car as a cargo area rather than just to a separated trunk. Hatchbacks may feature fold-down second-row sea ...

s like the Saab 900, and minivans like the Chrysler Pacifica, 2001 Volkswagen Polo Mk4 and 1999 Skoda Fabia Mk1.

Three-box design

Three-box design is a broad automotive styling term describing a

coupé A coupe or coupé (, ) is a passenger car with a sloping or truncated rear roofline and typically with two doors. The term ''coupé'' was first applied to horse-drawn carriages for two passengers without rear-facing seats. It comes from the Fr ...

, sedan/saloon,

notchback A notchback is a car design with the rear section 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 have "a trunk w ...

where—when viewed in profile—principal volumes are articulated into three separate compartments or boxes: engine, passenger and cargo, However, A three-box sedan and a three-box coupe are generally both smaller than a conventional cab truck and a standard bus. Three-box designs are highly variable. Hemmings Motor News said: Where the Renault Dauphine is a three-box that carries its engine in the rear and its cargo up front, the styling of the

Škoda Octavia The Škoda Octavia is a small family car (C-segment) produced by the Czech Republic, Czech Automotive industry, car manufacturer Škoda Auto since the end of 1996. It shares its name with an Škoda Octavia (1959–71), earlier model produced b ...

integrates a

with the articulation of a three-box. This style was later used by its larger

Škoda Superb The Škoda Superb is a Mid-size car, mid-size/large family car (D-segment) that has been produced by the Czech car manufacturer Škoda Auto since 2001. The first generation of the modern Superb, produced from 2001 to 2008, was based on the Volk ...

, which marketed as the TwinDoor, within the liftgate operable as a trunk lid or as a full hatchback. As with the third generation European Ford Escort (also a hatchback), the third box may be vestigial. And three-box styling does not need to be boxy: Car Design News calls the fluid and rounded

Fiat Linea The Fiat Linea (Type 323) is a compact car, compact sedan produced by Fiat between 2006 and 2018. The sedan was released on 26 March 2007 at the Tofaş plant in Bursa, Turkey as a "world car" in developing countries. It is based on the Fiat Gra ...

a three-box design—and most examples of the markedly bulbous styling of the ponton genre are three-box designs. In 2012, Hemmings Motor News wrote "the three-box sedan design is seen as traditional or—worse—conventional." By 2016 In the United States, the three-box sedan began to wane in popularity. In 2018, the Wall Street Journal wrote: "from gangster getaway cars and the Batmobile to the humble family sedan, the basic three-box configuration of a passenger car—low engine compartment, higher cabin, low trunk in the rear—has endured for decades as the standard shape of the automobile. Until now." Sales and popularity of four-door notchback sedans/saloons began declining in Europe since mid-1990s, especially affordable ones. This is resulted in moving production of Volkswagen Jetta in Mexico, as well as the Peugeot abandoning that segment since 2001 when the production of Peugeot 306 ended. Other, predominantly European manufacturers followed suit, with the most recent generation of Opel Astra may no longer to be offered as the four-door notchback. Since 2018, Ford reduced sales of four-door

Focus Focus (: foci or focuses) may refer to: Arts * Focus or Focus Festival, former name of the Adelaide Fringe arts festival in East Australia Film *Focus (2001 film), ''Focus'' (2001 film), a 2001 film based on the Arthur Miller novel *Focus (2015 ...

as well as Mondeo to Eastern Balkans markets. Again, Volkswagen stopped sales of Jetta in Europe around the same time due to too long dimensions, exceeding those with International Passat B8.

Car roof classification

A related classification is based on the style of roof in the car design. The DrivAer aerodynamics model of the Technical University of Munich classifies roof styles as (F)

Fastback 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 is not a fastback design with a roofline that tapers downward toward the car's rear before being cut of ...

, (E) Estate Back, (N)

Notchback A notchback is a car design with the rear section 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 have "a trunk w ...

/ Sedan.

Motorsport applications

The bodies of stock cars can be modified for motorsport purposes while retaining their main characteristics. Th
DrivAer high-performance (hp)
configuration, a parametric academic model, provides an open-source wind tunnel dataset and serves as a benchmark, particularly valuable when combined with the original DrivAer

(F) variation variant for aerodynamic analysis. Aero kits applied are in line with those found in motorsport categories like European DTM and American NASCAR series.

References