Evidence indicates that 2-wheeled chariots and carts were in use in Egypt about 1600 B.C. The Romans, Scythians, Persians, Greeks, and Sumerians also made early use of vehicles, particularly the 2-wheeled kind. The 4-wheeled wagon developed slowly because the inflexible axle did not permit the wagon to be guided along curving roadways. The Romans eventually overcame this difficulty with the use of a swiveling front axle. They acquired a wide variety of carriage types by copying and improving the designs of vehicles found in the nations they conquered.
In the early Middle Ages the art of carriage building waned. Development ceased, and wheeled vehicle -excepting carts and wagons- were rarely used. Wheels were made with fewer spokes and with very wide and crude rims.
Medieval Carriages
Beginning about the 12th century, historical references to carriages again become common, and presumably development resumed where it had stopped at the end of the Roman period. An early example of a vehicle with a suspended body was the English hammock wagon, in which a kind of hammock was hung from posts at the ends of the carriage. Like springs, which were later used to support carriage bodies, this type of suspension helped absorb the shocks from rough roads. Also developed in medieval England was the whirlicote, a long, highly decorated, covered wagon. On the European continent mid-15th-century improvements in carriages resulted in a popular new vehicle type, the coach.
Carriage Building: 1600–1900
The 17th century brought not only a marked increase in carriage use but also the development of several new types. Late in the century 2-wheeled cabriolets were used in both France and Italy. Also built were 4-wheeled cabriolets that could be called an early version of the phaeton. Phaeton carriages grew to be large and varied and were popular until the end of the carriage era in the early 20th century. The sociable, an open carriage with transverse seats facing one another, was developed in the late 17th century, probably in Germany.
In the second half of the 18th century, the art of carriage building reached a high point. Suspension had already improved through the use of whip-springs and S-springs, which evolved into the C-spring shortly before 1800. More effective suspension offered greater comfort, and lessening the jolts caused by poor roads permitted lighter, more tastefully designed carriages to be made. By 1800, coaches, chariots, phaetons, landaus, landaulets, barouches, sociables, cabriolets, gigs, and chaises were in use in Europe and North America.
In 1804 the English coachmaker Obadiah Elliot invented the elliptical spring. These springs eliminated the need for a bulky supporting framework -a heavy perch (shaft) and cross beds- thereby lessening a carriage's weight still further. Improved spring suspension combined with another early-19th-century invention, macadam road surfacing, to produce a revolution in carriage design. In the 1830s the cabriolet-phaeton and the brougham were designed in England. Originally used by the gentry, these carriages became hugely popular and eventually were employed widely as hackney (or hack) carriages for hire. Another vehicle for public transportation was the omnibus, first used in Paris about 1820. At this time vehicle bodies tended to be hung lower, thus affording easier access.
In the United States, too, carriage building accelerated in the early 19th century. Among the designs of that era were the rockaway and the popular American buggy. After 1850 the carriage industry began to modernize. Mechanized manufacture and malleable iron castings instead of hand-forged parts reduced the cost of carriages so that Americans of more modest means could afford them. By 1900 an inexpensive buggy could be purchased for $30. Final improvements, near the end of the carriage era, were rubber tires -first solid and then pneumatic- and ball bearings for the axles. For a time the carriage industry coexisted with automobile manufacturing, sometimes in the same factories, but after World War I the demand for carriages rapidly declined.
