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The four main types of carriages used in the Winnipeg cab trade. Top: the landau and landaulet. Bottom: the clarence and coupe.
Source:
Norman Beattie.
Winnipeg Cab History / 9
Ham McMicken (6)
McMicken also made a brief foray into the livery cab business, aiming for a genteel clientele. An 1882 news article reported that Ham was importing "$7,000 worth of coupes, besides a number of other fancy rigs."
The coupe is becoming a popular carriage in fashionable circles. [Ham] contemplates having in addition to the driver a coloured attendant, dressed up in livery, to wait upon ladies and assist them in and out of the coupe. Who will say after this that Winnipeg is not a fashionable centre?
The coupe was one of the four main types of carriage used in the Winnipeg cab trade, as shown in the picture at left. The landau had two folding hoods which could be lowered to make the carriage completely open. The upper half of the doors could be slid down into the lower half.
The landaulet was also a convertible, but it had only one hood. The versatile landau and landaulet could be open or closed carriages depending on the season or the weather.
The clarence (named after the English Duke of Clarence) was closed carriage with glass windows and a solid roof. Like the landau and landaulet the clarence was a four-passenger cab drawn by two horses.
The coupe was a cut-down version of the four passenger carriages (the word "coupé" is French for "cut off"). It was a one-seat, two-passenger carriage usually drawn by one horse. Very few coupes seem to have been licensed in Winnipeg, cab owners apparently favouring the larger carriages.