What is Landau
Landau's automotive body dates back to the early days of automotive history. Just a few years after the invention of the automobile by Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz in 1886 - working independently of each other, both companies had a large number of cars on the roads where part of the roof was made of fabric.
The Mercedes-Benz brand, created in 1926, took up this idea, and over the years, Landaulets have been building both cheap and premium cars based on a number of models. The last variant available as a production car was the 600 (W 100 series) from 1965 to 1981. The company's own special vehicle workshops also built 3 different landauses for the Vatican in the second half of the 20th century.
Distinctive convertible top
Lando is one of the terms among special body designs, and indeed its origins date back to the days of the first cars. Its hallmark is “a rigid, enclosed passenger compartment with a folding convertible top”, as defined by Mercedes-Benz. In practice, this means a folding convertible top above the rear seats, adjacent to a hard top or solid bulkhead. Depending on the variant, the driver can be in the open air, or, as is usually the case in modern bodies of this type, in the style of a limousine.
In any case, the choice between a closed or open top is only available to passengers in the rear. Landau's qualities as the ideal vehicle for public figures are most evident when the luxurious roof folds back to focus on the rear passengers and transforms this type of vehicle into a stylish and elegant platform for public speaking. This is why cars with such unique body designs are used almost exclusively by dignitaries and VIPs. And of course, the roof can always be closed again, as protection from the weather or prying eyes.
What happened to the auto industry
Sometime in the 1960s or 1970s, automakers decided to bring back the name "landau roof" or "landau top" to describe something completely different from its original meaning: in this case, a fixed roof on a coupe or sedan that simply mimicked a convertible. Automakers did this themselves throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and then beginning in the late 1980s and early 1990s, landau-roofed cars began to emerge to establish this feature as the centerpiece of the car.
Unfortunately, all this talk about the Landau roof does not really answer the main question that arises from many: Why is all this necessary? And really, why do people buy such cars? Does the usual metal roof really suit very few people? The cars above show how much everything has changed over many decades.
There are other companies doing these transformations, but we may never know why. Today, there are fewer and fewer motorists who actually know what a landau roof is. This definition of body style mostly associates it with older drivers who grew up in the landau roof era and don't want to give up this great design feature. The rest just think it brings an element of personality to the design of the car.
