Landau (carriage)

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In Vienna, landaus are called fiacres because they can be rented to carry tourists around the old city.

A landau is a coachbuilding term for a type of four-wheeled, convertible carriage.^[1] See also Landau (automobile).

It is lightweight and suspended on elliptical springs. It was invented in the 18th century (first noted in English in 1743 ^[2]) and was named after the German city of Landau in the Rhenish Palatinate where they were first produced. Lord, Hopkinson, coachmakers of Holborn, London, produced the first English landaus in the 1830s.

A landau, drawn by a pair or four-in-hand, is similar to a vis-à-vis, a social carriage with facing seats over a dropped footwell (illustration), which was perfected by mid-19th century in the form of a swept base that flowed in a single curve. The soft folding top is divided into two sections, front and rear, latched at the center. These ordinarily lie perfectly flat, but the back section can be let down or thrown back while the front section can be removed or left stationary. When opened the top can completely cover the passengers, with some loss of a graceful line.^[3] ^[4].

The landau's center section might contain a fixed full-height glazed door, or more usually a low half-door. There would usually be a separate raised open driver's upholstered bench-seat, but a landau could be postilion-driven, and there was ordinarily a separate groom's seat, sprung above and behind the rear axle, saving the groom from having to stand on a running board.

A small landau, a coupé with a folding top, was called a landaulet. A brougham called a brougham-landaulet had a top collapsible from the rear doors backward.

The landau reached its full development by the mid-19th century [1] It was purely a city carriage of luxury type. The low shell of the landau made for maximum visibility of the occupants and their clothing, a feature that makes a landau still a popular choice for Lords Mayor on ceremonial occasions.