Boot or Tonneau Cover

[Peterfurlan]

Just curious but when did the convertible top boot become a tonneau
cover. Years ago I had a MG Midget (fun car) now that car had a boot and a
tonneau cover. The boot went over the convertible top when it was down and
the tonneau cover went over the entire cockpit. The car could be left out in
the rain with the top down with the tonneau cover in place. It was made with
a zipper down the middle could be opened to just expose the drivers side. So
why is boot a tonneau cover on the Thunderbird?

[DavidA]

Re: Boot or Tonneau Cover

Who says it's a tonneaiu cover on the TBird? You are correcct in your description. A tonneau covers the cockpit as you state.

[Sealy]

Re: Boot or Tonneau Cover

Just to keep the waters muddied, I was raised up when the "boot" was the well that the top was lowered into and the "boot cover" was what went over the lowered and folded top. Some where along the way, boot cover got shortened to boot and the fancy people came in with tonneau. I'll go along with tonneau sounding like it covers more - anything that is hard to spell is usally more complicated.

[Leroy]

Re: Boot or Tonneau Cover

Tonneau is the rear seating compartment of a automobile. Leroy

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[Lonestar]

Re: Boot or Tonneau Cover

I have always referred to the boot as the boot (covers the soft top when down). The tonneau cover is a described, a cockpit cover and the term carried over to the fiberglass covers on the early 60’s Thunderbirds that covered the rear seat. Likewise, the fiberglass mini tonneaus for the 02-05 Thunderbirds are called tonneaus. Naturally, fabric or vinyl covers that cover a pickup truck bed is called a tonneau while a flat fiberglass cover for the same is called many things but not a tonneau.

[FUN X 3]

Re: Boot or Tonneau Cover

I've always thought a boot was something you put on your foot if you live in Texas.

Tonneau sounds like a fancy French word for something very heavy, like 2,000 lbs. or so.

I got so confused I just did away with any kind of cover except the convertible top. Or is that really a ragtop?

[TexasWhiteBird]

Re: Boot or Tonneau Cover

Just like calling the hood a bonnet or trunk a rear deck..a rose by any other name etc, etc... (sorry, I stayed at a Holiday in last night) couldn't resist!!!!!!!

[steelblue5505]

Re: Boot or Tonneau Cover

Wikipedia says:
"In the post-World War II era the term has come to refer to the area behind the front seats of an open car (a convertible or roadster). The term tonneau cover is sometimes used for a hard or soft cover that encloses the well for the convertible top and/or the rear seating/storage area. The tonneau cover dates to the days of horse-drawn cargo wagons, and later to early trucks, where a tarpaulin was commonly used to protect a load from road dust or weather. Similarly, early open-bodied touring-type automobiles used tonneau covers to protect unoccupied rear seats. Quite often the word is spelled incorrectly as "tonno"."

"The "boot", in British English, Australian English and New Zealand English, refers to the storage area of a car termed the "trunk" in American English."

How this answers your question, hmmmmmm?

[justjon]

Re: Boot or Tonneau Cover

I loved the "tonneau" covers on my old MG.s and TR 4. Has anyone made one for our birds? There must be a better way to attach them now then the post/snap mathos of yore.... ( I'm talking "tonneau" in the full cockpit sense of the word)

[RustyFrye]

Re: Boot or Tonneau Cover

The term tonneau cover is sometimes used for a hard or soft cover that encloses the well

And if they had done that, then Timmy wouldn't have fallen in and that would have saved Lassie alot of trouble...

[Tbirddave]

Re: Boot or Tonneau Cover

Ah hell, The boot is a cover for the top when it's down..

[4LOWBIRDS+7]

Re: Boot or Tonneau Cover

Ah hell, The boot is a cover for the top when it's down..

WELL SAID, THANKS.

[Lindy]

Re: Boot or Tonneau Cover

While I concur that a "tonneau" cover generally covers the cock-pit, it was indicated somewhere (I think) in Ford literature for the 02 Thunderbird that the boot-cover was also referred to as a "soft tonneau." The idea which the designers or brochure writers had in mind was likely the rigidity of the semi-hard and contoured 02 boot which ever so vaguely resembles the retro hard tonneau on the 2002 red prototype. On the other hand, the 2003 super-charged concept car was said to have had a "locking tonneau cover" which looked a lot like the '02 boot.

(source of first two pics Dot's: www.portholeauthority.com et al.)

[0bird2]

Re: Boot or Tonneau Cover

This link is to a copy of the Ford Dealer Invoice for our '57 T-Bird. It lists a tonneau as being installed on the car at the factory. It has a cockpit cover that was installed by the factory. In my small mind, that makes the cockpit cover a Tonneau. And the '55-'57 T-Birds don't have a boot or boot cover, the soft top goes behind the seat inside the car body.
I too, would like to see a '02-'05 tonneau that could be used without snaps.

http://www.portholeauthority.com/thu...nvoice_med.jpg

[Jim Young]

Re: Boot or Tonneau Cover

Boy, things must be slow in the nest these days... :)