The limousine may owe its name to a French shepherd's cloak
Nobody is quite sure how a region of central France lent its name to the chauffeured luxury car. One theory points to a carriage roof shaped like the hooded cloaks of Limousin shepherds. Another suggests early drivers, left sitting outside in the weather, wrapped themselves in exactly that kind of cloak.
Either way, the design copied an old social habit. Wealthy carriage owners rode in private compartments while the coachman sat exposed to rain and wind, and when cars arrived they expected the same arrangement. In 1916 the US Society of Automobile Engineers defined the limousine as a closed car seating three to five inside, with the driver's seat outside. Variants multiplied: a berline enclosed the driver completely, a brougham left him with no roof at all, and a landaulet let rear passengers fold back the roof above them.
The partition survives as the style's signature. A glass panel between front and rear lets passengers see ahead, and they talk to the driver by sliding it open or using an intercom. A long wheelbase adds legroom, often with fold-down jump seats.
Stretching came from Arkansas. Armbruster, a Fort Smith firm founded in 1887 to build and repair horse-drawn vehicles, made an extended, multi-door car for Jordan Bus Lines in the early 1920s. It worked well enough that the company turned out about twenty a year until the Second World War, and big band leaders toured in them. Later came novelty conversions, from Trabants and Beetles to stretched Ferraris carrying up to 10 passengers.
The American trade has since shrunk. The Great Recession, ride-hailing apps and a fatal 2018 stretch limousine crash in Schoharie, New York, all hurt, and many clients now prefer the lower profile of a black SUV. By 2023 stretch models made up just one percent of what US limousine companies offered, down from about ten percent a decade earlier. At the top end, presidents still ride in them, a tradition that began when William McKinley took a steam Locomobile in 1899.
Source: Limousine
