A sedan or saloon (British English) is a passenger car in a three-box configuration with separate compartments for an engine, passengers, and cargo. The first recorded use of sedan in reference to an automobile body occurred in 1912. The name derives from the 17th-century litter known as a sedan chair, a one-person enclosed box with windows and carried by porters. Variations of the sedan style include the close-coupled sedan, club sedan, convertible sedan, fastback sedan, hardtop sedan, notchback sedan, and sedanet/sedanette.
A sedan (sᵻˈdæn) is a car with a closed body (i.e. a fixed metal roof) with the engine, passengers, and cargo in separate compartments. This broad definition does not differentiate sedans from various other car body styles, but in practice, the typical characteristics of sedans are:
a B-pillar (between the front and rear windows) that supports the roof;
two rows of seats;
a three-box design with the engine at the front and the cargo area at the rear;
a less steeply sloping roofline than a coupé, which results in increased headroom for rear passengers and a less sporting appearance; and
a rear interior volume of at least .
It is sometimes suggested that sedans must have four doors (to provide a simple distinction between sedans and two-door coupés); others state that a sedan can have four or two doors. While the sloping rear roofline defined the coupe, the design element has become common on many body styles with manufacturers increasingly "cross-pollinating" the style so that terms such as sedan and coupé have been loosely interpreted as "'four-door coupes' - an inherent contradiction in terms."
When a manufacturer produces two-door sedan and four-door sedan versions of the same model, the shape and position of the greenhouse on both versions may be identical, with only the B-pillar positioned further back to accommodate the longer doors on the two-door versions.
A sedan chair, a sophisticated litter, was an enclosed box with windows used to transport one seated person.