Ponton (car)

Ponton or pontoon styling is an automotive design genre that spanned roughly from the 1930s-1960s, when pontoon-like bodywork enclosed the full width and uninterrupted length of a car body — eliminating previously distinct running boards and articulated fenders. The integrated fenders of an automobile with ponton styling may also be called Pontoon fenders, and the overall trend may also be known as envelope styling.

Now largely archaic, the term Ponton describes the markedly bulbous, slab-sided configuration of postwar European cars, including those of Mercedes-Benz, Opel, Auto Union, DKW, Borgward, Lancia, Fiat, Rover, Renault, and Volvo—as well as similar designs from North America and Japan, sometimes — in its most exaggerated usage — called the "bathtub" look in the U.S.

The term derives from the French and German word ponton, meaning 'pontoon'. The Langenscheidt German–English dictionary defines Pontonkarrosserie as "all-enveloping bodywork, straight-through side styling, slab-sided styling."