Sunroof

A sunroof is a movable panel that opens to uncover a window in an automobile roof, allowing light and fresh air to enter the passenger compartment.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"[4] The sliding roof system evolved from a device that Pytchley installed themselves, to an option which manufacturers offered as a standard body style.

Vauxhall claimed that their variation of the sliding roof, which slid the panel under the rear section rather than over, was sufficiently different to mean that a license need not be paid.

Variations of both the sunroof and moonroof have become the norm in both factory installed and aftermarket offerings, creating a wide range of features and choices.