Touring ( English touring, touring car ), in British English - Tourer ( English tourer ), also sometimes - a torpedo ( English torpedo ) - a historical type of an open automobile body, one of the most popular body types up to mass distribution of sedans in the second half of the 1920s. According to the definition given by SAE in 1916, touring is “an open body with four or more seats and direct access to the back row of seats”.
Initially, this name meant a “touring” car for long trips (far from necessarily entertaining - the main meaning of the word touring in English at that time was “work related to constant travel” - for example, a traveling salesman ), massive enough and durable to withstand travel on the roads of those years.
Such a body could be either a two-door or a four-door, but in the two-door version the doors were not located on opposite sides, like modern two-door bodies, but on one, providing separate access to the front and rear seats. Sometimes there could be three doors - for example, two doors for access to the front seat and one for the rear. Large cars with a body of this type could have three rows of seats.
In bad weather, the driver of such a car lifted a folding top and fastened to the sidewall tarpaulin blinds or made of leatherette blinds with glass, celluloid or film windows.
One of the most popular cars with such a body is the Ford Model T Touring: it accounted for approximately 44% of the total Ford T production, including cargo modifications and commercial chassis, or 6,519,643 out of about 15,000,000 .
It is worth noting that in the first quarter of the 20th century, generally accepted standards regarding the classification of car bodies and the names of their various types were largely absent - each manufacturer used its own nomenclature, often very different from that used by other companies, and, especially, in other countries.
The same configuration, but lighter and sportier body could be called "phaeton" ( English phaeton ). Subsequently, as the differences between different types of car bodies were smoothed out, the second term absorbed the first - all four-door open cars were called phaetons. For example, a Ford Model A that has been produced since 1927 with such a body was already called a “chaise”, as well as its licensed copy - GAZ-A .
The term “dashboard" originally meant a type of touring with an engine hood forming one line with the waist line of the body, and generally a smooth transition from the hood to the body itself. By the 1930s, such a design had become the rule rather than the exception, and this designation was no longer in use.
In British English, the term tourer generally had the same meaning as a touring car in American English, but sometimes two-door, two-seater cars, which in the USA would be considered roadsters, were also referred to as tourers. Also in the UK, the term all-weather tourer was used at one time, meaning a four-door convertible with lifting side windows - in contrast to the usual tourer with shutter curtains.