| 1. | any of various light, four-wheeled carriages, with or without a top, having one or two seats facing forward, used in the 19th century. |
| 2. | a vintage automobile of the touring-car type. |

phaeton
open, four-wheeled, doorless carriage, popular in the 18th and 19th centuries. It contained one or two seats, usually had a folding, or falling, top, and was owner-driven (i.e., it had no outside driver's seat). The most spectacular phaeton was the English four-wheeled high-flyer, the body of which consisted of a light seat for two, resting atop two sets of springs and reached by ladder.
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