Body-on-frame is a traditional

motor vehicle A motor vehicle, also known as a motorized vehicle, automotive vehicle, automobile, or road vehicle, is a self-propelled land vehicle, commonly wheeled, that does not operate on railway track, rails (such as trains or trams), does not fly (such ...

construction method whereby a separate body or coach is mounted on a strong and relatively rigid

vehicle frame A vehicle frame, also historically known as its ''chassis'', is the main supporting structure of a motor vehicle to which all other components are attached, comparable to the skeleton of an organism. Until the 1930s, virtually every car had ...

chassis A chassis (, ; plural ''chassis'' from French châssis ) is the load-bearing framework of a manufactured object, which structurally supports the object in its construction and function. An example of a chassis is a vehicle frame, the underpart ...

that carries the

powertrain In a motor vehicle, the powertrain comprises the main components that generate engine power, power and deliver that power to the road surface, water, or air. This includes the internal combustion engine, engine, transmission (mechanics), trans ...

(the engine and

drivetrain A drivetrain (also frequently spelled as drive train or sometimes drive-train) or transmission system, is the group of components that deliver mechanical power from the prime mover to the driven components. In automotive engineering, the driv ...

) and to which the wheels and their suspension, brakes, and steering are mounted. Whereas this was the original method of building automobiles, body-on-frame construction is now used mainly for

pickup trucks A pickup truck or pickup is a light or medium duty truck that has an enclosed cabin, and a back end made up of a cargo bed that is enclosed by three low walls with no roof (this cargo bed back end sometimes consists of a tailgate and removabl ...

, large SUVs, and heavy

truck A truck or lorry is a motor vehicle designed to transport freight, carry specialized payloads, or perform other utilitarian work. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, but the vast majority feature body-on-frame construct ...

s. In the late 19th century, the frames, like those of the carriages they replaced, might be made of wood (commonly ash), reinforced by steel flitch plates, but in the early 20th century, steel ladder frames or chassis rapidly became standard. Mass production of all-metal bodies began with the

Budd Company The Budd Company was a 20th-century metal fabricator, a major supplier of body components to the automobile industry, and a manufacturer of stainless steel passenger rail cars, airframes, missile and space vehicles, and various defense produ ...

and the

Dodge Brothers Dodge is an American brand of automobiles and a division of Stellantis, based in Auburn Hills, Michigan. Dodge vehicles have historically included performance cars, and for much of its existence, Dodge was Chrysler's mid-priced brand above P ...

. All-metal bodies became common in the 1920s, except for Europe, which followed almost a decade later. Europe's custom-made or "coachbuilt" cars usually contained some wood framing or used aluminium alloy castings. Towards the beginning of international automobile assembly and construction, most manufacturers created

rolling chassis A rolling chassis is the fully-assembled chassis of a motor vehicle (car, truck, bus, or other vehicle) without its coachwork, bodywork. It is equipped with running gear (engine and drivetrain) and ready for delivery to a coachbuilder to be compl ...

consisting of a powertrain, suspension, steering column and a fuel tank that was then sent to a

coachbuilder A coachbuilder manufactures bodies for passenger-carrying vehicles. The trade of producing coachwork began with bodies for horse-drawn vehicles. Today it includes custom automobiles, buses, Coach (bus), motor coaches, and passenger car (rai ...

that added the body, interior and upholstery to the customers specific requests. In contrast,

unibody A vehicle frame, also historically known as its ''chassis'', is the main supporting structure of a motor vehicle to which all other components are attached, comparable to the skeleton of an organism. Until the 1930s, virtually every car had ...

monocoque Monocoque ( ), also called structural skin, is a structural system in which loads are supported by an object's external skin, in a manner similar to an egg shell. The word ''monocoque'' is a French term for "single shell". First used for boats, ...

designs, where panels within the body supported the car on its suspension, were developed by European manufacturers in the late 1920s with Budd USA (which had a number of large factories in Europe) and its technical know-how. Because of the high cost of designing and developing these structures and the high cost of specialised machinery to make the large pressings required by this style of construction it is not used by low-volume manufacturers, who might construct an equivalent by welding steel tube to form a suitable space frame.

History

Ford model t 1919 d044 lubrication chart

The

Ford Model T The Ford Model T is an automobile that was produced by the Ford Motor Company from October 1, 1908, to May 26, 1927. It is generally regarded as the first mass-affordable automobile, which made car travel available to middle-class Americans. Th ...

carried the tradition of body-on-frame over from horse-drawn buggies, helping to facilitate high volume manufacturing on a moving assembly line. The use of steel ladder and X frame

allowed numerous vehicles to share a chassis and drivetrain while making changes to bodywork and interiors relatively easy, thus keeping costs down and minimizing design time. Over time the technology for unibody construction became economically feasible, assisted in recent decades by

computer-aided design Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve c ...

. in addition, modern creature comforts, luxury and power-assisted features, and extensive safety reinforcement of vehicles have all added substantial weight, the ability to offset this with unibody construction has proven advantageous. A handful of small passenger vehicles switched to

construction by the end of the 1930s. The trend had started with cars like the

Citroën Traction Avant The Citroën Traction Avant () is the world's first mass-produced, semi-monocoque bodied, front-wheel drive car. A range of mostly four-door saloon (automobile), saloons and executive cars, as well as longer wheelbased ''"Commerciale"'', and thre ...

(1934) and Opel Olympia (a

General Motors General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. The company is most known for owning and manufacturing f ...

design) introduced in 1935, and the short-lived, aborted Chrysler Airflow.

Truck A truck or lorry is a motor vehicle designed to transport freight, carry specialized payloads, or perform other utilitarian work. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, but the vast majority feature body-on-frame construct ...

s, bus manufacturers, and large low-volume cars or those made in the United States continued to use separate bodies on "conventional" frames. Body-on-frame remains the preferred construction method for heavy-duty commercial vehicles (especially those intended to carry or pull heavy loads, such as trucks and some

sport utility vehicles A sport utility vehicle (SUV) is a car classification that combines elements of road-going passenger cars with features from off-road vehicles, such as raised ground clearance and four-wheel drive. There is no commonly agreed-upon definitio ...

(SUVs)) but as production volumes rise, increasing numbers of SUVs and crossover SUVs are switching to

frames. Mass-market manufacturers Ford,

, and

Chrysler FCA US, LLC, Trade name, doing business as Stellantis North America and known historically as Chrysler ( ), is one of the "Big Three (automobile manufacturers), Big Three" automobile manufacturers in the United States, headquartered in Auburn H ...

are abandoning true body-on-frame SUVs, opting, when sales volume permits, for more efficient unibody construction.

Toyota is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on August 28, 1937. Toyota is the List of manuf ...

currently manufactures the most body-on-frame SUVs with the 4Runner, Sequoia, Land Cruiser, Lexus GX, and Lexus LX, followed by

Nissan is a Japanese multinational Automotive industry, automobile manufacturer headquartered in Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan. The company sells its vehicles under the ''Nissan'' and ''Infiniti'' brands, and formerly the ''Datsun'' brand, with in-house ...

with the

Patrol A patrol is commonly a group of personnel, such as law enforcement officers, military personnel, or security personnel, that are assigned to monitor or secure a specific geographic area. Etymology The word "patrol" is derived from the Frenc ...

, Armada, and Infiniti QX56/80.

Examples

The following is a list of SUVs and light-duty pickup trucks that have a body-on-frame construction. The list is divided by vehicle category.

Sedans

Full-Size Sedans

* Ford Crown Victoria

SUVs/wagons

Mini SUV

Suzuki Jimny The is a series of four-wheel drive off-road vehicle, off-road Mini sport utility vehicle, mini SUVs, manufactured and marketed by Japanese automaker Suzuki since 1970. Originally belonging to the Kei car, kei class, Japan's light automobile t ...

Mid-size SUV

* Toyota 4Runner *

INEOS Grenadier The Ineos Grenadier is an off-road vehicle, off-road utility vehicle designed and produced by Ineos Automotive. It went into production in October 2022. The Grenadier was designed to be a modern replacement for the original Land Rover Defender, ...

* Toyota Fortuner * Toyota Land Cruiser Prado * Lexus GX * Mitsubishi Pajero Sport * Nissan Terra * SsangYong Rexton * Isuzu MU-X * Jeep Wrangler *

Ford Bronco The Ford Bronco is a model line of SUV, SUVs manufactured and marketed by Ford Motor Company, Ford. The first SUV model developed by the company, five generations of the Bronco were sold from the 1966 to 1996 model years. A sixth generation of ...

* Ford Everest *

Ford Explorer The Ford Explorer is a range of Sport utility vehicle, SUVs manufactured by Ford Motor Company since the 1991 model year. The first five-door SUV produced by Ford, the Explorer, was introduced as a replacement for the three-door Ford Bronco II ...

(until 2010) * Kia Mohave *

Mercedes-Benz G-Class The Mercedes-Benz G-Class, colloquially known as the G-Wagon or G-Wagen (as an abbreviation of Geländewagen), is a four-wheel drive luxury SUV manufactured by Magna Steyr (formerly Steyr-Daimler-Puch) in Graz, Styria, Austria, and sold by Mercede ...

Mercedes-Benz GLE The Mercedes-Benz GLE, formerly Mercedes-Benz M-Class (designated with the "ML" nomenclature), is a mid-size luxury SUV produced by the German manufacturer Mercedes-Benz since 1997. In terms of size, it is slotted in between the smaller GLC a ...

(Under ML badge until 2005) * Mercury Mountaineer * Lincoln Aviator (until 2005) * Chevrolet TrailBlazer (until 2009) * LDV D90 * TANK 300 * TANK 500

Full-size SUV

Toyota Land Cruiser The , also sometimes spelt as LandCruiser, is a series of four-wheel drive vehicles produced by the Japanese automobile manufacturer Toyota. It is Toyota's longest running series of models. , the sales of the Land Cruiser totalled more than 1 ...

Toyota Sequoia The Toyota Sequoia is a full-size SUV manufactured by Toyota mainly for the North American market since 2000 for the 2001 model year, being derived from the Toyota Tundra, Tundra pickup truck. It is the second largest SUV ever produced under th ...

* Lexus LX * Cadillac Escalade (ESV) * Chevrolet Suburban * Chevrolet Tahoe * Hongqi LS7 * Nissan Patrol * Nissan Armada * GMC Hummer EV * GMC Yukon (XL) * Jeep Wagoneer (Grand Wagoneer) * Ford Expedition (EL/Max) *

Lincoln Navigator Lincoln most commonly refers to: * Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), the 16th president of the United States * Lincoln, England, cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire, England * Lincoln, Nebraska, the capital of Nebraska, U.S. * Lincoln (n ...

( L) * Yangwang U8 * Infiniti QX80

Compact MPV

* Mitsubishi Zinger

Mid-size MPV

Toyota Innova The Toyota Innova is a series of multi-purpose vehicles (MPV) manufactured by the Japanese carmaker Toyota since 2004, mainly sold with three-row seating. The Innova is the replacement for wagon versions of Kijang (internally known as the To ...

(until 2021) * Isuzu Panther

Pickup trucks

Mid-size pickup truck

* Holden Colorado * Ford Ranger * GMC Canyon *

Isuzu D-Max The Isuzu D-Max is a pickup truck manufactured since 2002 by Isuzu. A successor of the Isuzu Faster/KB, the first and second-generation model shares its platform with the Chevrolet Colorado. The third-generation model shares its platform wi ...

* Renault Alaskan * SsangYong Musso * Toyota Hilux *

Toyota Kijang The Toyota Kijang is a series of pickup trucks, station wagons and light commercial vehicles produced and marketed mainly in Southeast Asia, Taiwan, India and South Africa by Toyota between 1976 and 2007 under various other names. The vehicle ...

* Toyota Tacoma * Mazda BT-50 *

Mitsubishi Triton The Mitsubishi Triton or Mitsubishi L200 is a mid-size pickup truck produced by Mitsubishi Motors. In Japan, where it has only been sold intermittently and in small numbers, it was originally known as the Mitsubishi Forte and from 1991 as the ...

* Nissan Frontier * Nissan Navara * Jeep Gladiator * Volkswagen Amarok * LDV T60 * GWM Ute Cannon

Full-size pickup truck

Chevrolet Silverado The Chevrolet Silverado is a range of trucks manufactured by General Motors under the Chevrolet brand. Introduced for the 1999 model year, the Silverado is the successor to the long-running Chevrolet C/K model line. Taking its name from the to ...

Ford F-Series The Ford F-Series is a series of light-duty trucks marketed and manufactured by Ford Motor Company since model year 1948 as a range of full-sized pickup trucks — positioned between Ford's Ford Ranger (T6), Ranger and Ford Super Duty, ...

* GMC Hummer EV * GMC Sierra * Nissan Titan * Ram pickup *

Toyota Tundra The Toyota Tundra is a full-size pickup truck manufactured in the United States by the Japanese manufacturer Toyota since May 1999. The Tundra was the second full-size pickup to be built by a Japanese manufacturer (the first was the Toyota T100 ...

References

External links

Ford assembly line featuring body-on-frame car (historic)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Body-On-Frame Automotive chassis types Structural system Structural engineering