Three-Box Styling

Three-box design is a broad automotive styling term describing a coupé, sedan, notchback or hatchback where—when viewed in profile—principal volumes are articulated into three separate compartments or boxes: engine, passenger and cargo.

Three-box designs are highly variable. 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 integrates a hatchback with the articulation of a three-box. This style was later used by its larger Škoda Superb, 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 need not be boxy: Car Design News calls the fluid and rounded Fiat Linea a three-box design—and most examples of the markedly bulbous styling of the ponton genre are three-box designs.

Typical pillar configurations of a sedan (three box), station wagon (two box) and hatchback (two box) from the same model range.

One-box design

One-box, also called a monospace, mono-box or monovolume configuration, is a design that pulls the base of a vehicle's A-pillars forward, softening any distinction between separate volumes and enclosing the entire interior of a vehicle in a single form—as with the Renault Espace, 1992 Renault Twingo I, Tata Nano and Japanese microvans amongst others.

Two-box design

Two-box designs articulate a volume for engine and a volume that combines passenger and cargo volumes, e.g., station wagons or (three or five-door) hatchbacks, and minivans like the Chrysler minivan.

A three-box coupé in notchback form, the Fiat 124

A three-box hatchback in notchback form — with its vestigial third box, the European Ford Escort

A three-box sedan, the Renault Dauphine, with articulated engine (rear), passenger and cargo (front) volumes.

Last updated on 7 March 2014 at 22:11.