page_title: Sunroof
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Sunroof / History
caption_attribution_description: MG PA Airline Coupe sliding head
context_page_description: An automotive sunroof is a movable panel that is operable to uncover a window in an automobile roof, which allows light and/or fresh air to enter the passenger compartment. A moonroof has a glass panel that is transparent and usually tinted. Sunroofs are either manually operated or motor driven, and are available in many shapes, sizes and styles. While the term sunroof is now used generically to describe any glass panel in the roof, the term "moonroof" was historically used to describe stationary glass panes rigidly mounted in the roof panel over the passenger compartment. Previous terms include Sunshine Roof, Sliding Head and Sliding Roof.
context_section_description: A common configuration for early automobiles included a fixed roof for the rear passenger compartment and an uncovered section for the chauffeur in a style known as Coupe de Ville, Sedanca (two door) or Sedanca de Ville. An open cabin allowed the driver to be more connected to their surroundings, demonstrated that the car's owner employed a paid driver (one reason chauffeurs wore uniform) and identified the owner through the driver's livery (the other reason for the uniform). Road speeds were increasing and vehicles were changing from occasional use to full-time transport meaning that they were increasingly being used in bad weather. In order to provide better shelter for the driver therefore, temporary cover was now demanded. These part-time roofs, sometimes at first just a stretched piece of leather, became more sophisticated comprising frame elements and leather or water-resistant cloth to form the construction, and installations even included spaces provided to store the parts when not in use.
  By the late 1920s, a more convenient version of the temporary roof was often being used where a solid metal panel would slide into a slot at the top of the passenger compartment, sometimes called a de Ville extension. By the early 1930s, cars were being constructed in the Sedan style comprising a metal one-piece roof without the gap above the driver's cabin. To provide a similar facility to the earlier Coup de Ville configurations, sliding cloth or metal panels recognisable as the modern sunroof were regularly fitted to Bentley and Rolls Royce models built by coach builders such as Barker, Gurney Nutting or Park Ward. In these cars, the continuous roofline, between the windscreen and passenger compartment, was unbroken and so, unlike the Coup de Ville, a coverable opening had to be let into the roof panel itself.
  While at first the purpose may still have been to expose the chauffeur, Bentley cars in particular were increasingly sold for owners to drive themselves. Indeed, some models were provided with a sliding panel for the front seats even though the vehicle had just two-seats. Early "Derby" Bentley hard-top models were therefore frequently equipped with sliding sunroof panels, possibly more often than not. The purpose of the sliding panels thus changed from uncovering the chauffeur to allowing the owner to better enjoy their surroundings on fine weather days.
  This evolution was eventually not limited to luxury motoring. The entrepreneur Noel Mobbs laid the foundation of the volume sunroof market when he evolved his coach building business into a company dedicated to the manufacture of sliding roofs in the name of Pytchley. The Pytchley mechanism was both patented and first publicly demonstrated in 1925. At first Pytchley used their sliding roof system to build a number of coach-built, custom "tourer saloon" automobiles sold from their premises at 201 - 203 Great Portland Street London. In 1927 they claimed for a Daimler 20/70 hp that "This roof slides at the touch of a finger and opens up 50% of the roof area giving greater visibility and more air without draughts." The sliding roof system evolved from a device that Pytchley installed themselves, to an option which manufacturers offered as a standard body style. It was factory fitted to vehicles from a number of different manufacturers. By 1929 the design had improved so that when closed the moveable panel was flush with the rest of the roof. Morris built several models using Pytchley's technology from 1932, including the Morris Minor, Morris Major and Morris Ten adding what became known as a Sliding Head (using the term head in the same way as Folding Head or Drop Head). This comprised a panel which could be slid back over the roof behind to create an opening above the driver and passenger. The sliding panel also incorporated locks which allowed the panel to be fixed at any position from fully closed to fully open. By 1935 Wolseley were using the Pytchley roof and by 1936 Austin too were also selling models with the sliding head. The Hillman Minx was another low-cost small
caption: 1930s MG coupe including a Sliding Head incorporating glass panels
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "SANYO DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image Make": "SANYO Electric Co.,Ltd.", "Image Model": "C6", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "", "Image DateTime": "2007:10:28 00:13:07", "Image Artist": "David Hunter", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "276", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 51, 48, 48, 0, 0, 33, 0, 1, 0, 22, 0, ... ]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "13500", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7550", "EXIF ExposureTime": "2/591", "EXIF FNumber": "7/2", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "50", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2007:10:27 12:58:19", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2007:10:27 12:58:19", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "2", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "-1/0", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "18/5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash fired, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "63/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2816", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2112", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "13018", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Custom", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "41", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "1"}