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Notchback is a styling term describing a car body style, a variation of three-box styling where the third distinct volume or "box" is less pronounced — especially where the rear deck (third box) is short or where the rear window is upright. Generally, the notchback refers to the distinct angle of the rear window in relation to the vehicle's more horizontal roofline and its rear decklid.
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The term is derived from the noun, notch meaning v-cut or indentation — though as a styling term it eludes precise definition and can overlap other styling designations. The term can apply to a sedan, coupé, liftback or hatchback configuration — especially where the third box of the three-box styling remains articulated, though perhaps barely — as with the third generation European Ford Escort. The notchback may highlight a design's sharp or abrupt roof/rear-window angle. Notchback may highlight a design's sharp or abrupt roof/rear-window angle. Examples of reverse-rake rear window include the European Ford Anglia and U.S. Mercury Montclair that also included a rear window that could be lowered for "breezeway" ventilation.
The styling term also may overlap the marketing use of the term notchback, for example where the term differentiates models within a range, for example the Chevrolet Vega Notchback (sedan) from the Vega Hatchback.
North America
General Motors marketed the 1940 Cadillac Sixty Special as having a "streamlined notchback" styling that influenced roof and rear deck styling of a broad range of vehicles until World War II The notchback design was common across U.S. automakers and automobile types starting in the early-1960s.
American Motors described the a styling trend re-emerged in the late-1960s as a "modified fastback" where the roof lines on two-door models were made smoother with a slope of the rear window or having more of an arc. The four-door sedans featured a more upright roofline such as the Rambler Ambassador.
Chevrolet used the notchback descriptor on the Chevrolet Vega two-door thin-pillar sedan, officially changing its name for the 1973 model year to - Vega Notchback.
In the 1980s, short deck - formal roof, compact and mid-size notchback coupes and sedans made a return such as the Ford LTD Crown Victoria, as well as the C- and G-body cars from General Motors, and the 1985-1991 N-body cars.
Examples
Outside North America
Notchback can be applicable to some hatchbacks and liftbacks, such as the Ford Escort and the Ford Sierra, with a discontinuous roofline from the windscreen to the rear bumper.
The term became common in British English when used for the European Mark III Ford Escort and the slightly later Ford Sierra, both of which have hatchbacks as well as a slightly articulated trunk.
In British English, a three-box sedan is more generally known as a saloon. Although the term appears in a few British English publications (see refs), "notchback" is not a term that is used in common parlance in Britain.