End Of The Horse-Drawn Bodywork

The early twentieth century marked a turning point in the design of bodywork. While the first cars remain substantially not in their mode of propulsion but in form (derived from the couplings), horse-drawn vehicles, automobiles of 1900 "emancipated" change shape.

A De Dion-Bouton was originally a first body concept: that of "vis-à-vis." There is a cart, much shorter, accommodating four people vis-à-vis, hence the surname of the automobile. It will be sold almost 2970 copies, record production at that time. Besides the usual bodies (tilbury, my lord, American, English cart, dog cart, Duke, ...), new terminologies associated with new bodies: limousine, sedan, phaeton, roadster ... In this "emancipation" style, Jean-Henri Labourdette is one of the most imaginative. It transposes the automobile forms of ships or aircraft in a structure he called "torpedo-skiff".

Some avant-garde designers are also interested in the 1910, to the aerodynamics of the cars, like the Alfa Romeo 40-60 HP designed by Castagna, whose body form a shaped hull shaped aircraft .