A light two-wheeled one-horse carriage.
A Gig is a 2-wheeled cart to be pulled by a horse. Gig carts are constructed with the driver’s seat sitting higher than the level of the shafts. Traditionally, a Gig is more formal than a Village cart and Meadowbrook cart.
A four-wheel carriage with a top divided into two sections that can be let down, thrown back, or removed and with a raised seat outside for the driver. Illustration: http://www.m-w.com/mw/art/landau.htm
A landau is a lightweight open carriage on elliptical springs, invented in the 18th century (first noted in English in 1743 [1]), and named after the city of Landau in the Rhenish Palatinate, French at the time, where they were first produced.
Lord, Hopkinson, coachmakers of Holborn London, produced the first English landaus in the 1830s (Museum Victoria). A landau, drawn by a pair or four-in-hand, is similar to a vis-à-vis, a social carriage with facing seats over a dropped footwell (illustration), which was perfected by mid-19th century in the form of a swept base that flowed in a single curve. Double soft folding tops at front and rear ordinarily lie perfectly flat but in a pinch can completely cover the passengers, latched at the center, with some loss of a graceful line.
Landaus were expensive and luxurious.
Phaeton (alternately high-perch or high-flyer phaeton): any of various light four-wheeled horse-drawn vehicles.
Phaeton is the fanciful early 19th-century term for a sporty rig drawn by a single horse or a pair, with extravagantly large wheels, very lightly sprung, with a minimal body, fast and dangerous.
A 2-wheeled chaise usually drawn by two horses.
A curricle was a smart light two wheeled “chariot” large enough for the driver and a passenger and— most unusual for a vehicle with a single axle—drawn by a carefully-matched pair.
Curricles were light and open and could be drawn by one horse.
