3-009-023 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The International Exhibition: sociable, with interchangeable heads, by Rock and Son, of Hastings, 1862. 'Messrs. Rock and Son...who, like all the other provincial coachbuilders, had only space for a single carriage allotted to them, have managed practically to exhibit two carriages upon that space. This they have accomplished by means of the principle of interchangable heads, invented and patented by them. The carriage...is a dioropha landau, or sociable, with interchangable heads - that is to say, a carriage which, for summer use, is an elegant sociable landau, with folding head to cover all the occupants of the carriage in case of sudden rain or cold; and in winter, when the landau head is exchanged for a comfortable coach head, well stuffed and provided with abundance of glass, becomes a warm and cheerful close carriage, which the landau...is not. A further advantage of this new carriage is, that in its winter form it has a solid and finished appearance; while the ordinary landau, when shut up after the head has been down all the summer, presents a wrinkled and shabby surface on all its upper parts. Considered as a dioropha, this carriage is an improvement on those for which Rock and Son obtained the prize medals of 1851 and 1855...' From "Illustrated London News", 1862.