A Winter Staple: The Car Coat

If there’s a word that describes the Antipodean winter, it’s fickle. Temperatures can fluctuate wildly. It’s rainy, then sunny, often to extremes within the same day. It asks you to be adaptable, essentially, and finding a piece of outerwear that can see you through everything the season can throw at you can be damnably tricky. That’s where the car coat comes in.

Sitting just above the knee, the car coat is essentially a shorter duster: single-breasted, trimmer than a full-length overcoat but longer than a pea coat or similar piece of outerwear. It’s a style that blends elegance with ease - it looks sharp worn over a suit or tailored jacket, but it doesn’t demand that level of formality - a t-shirt or knit will do just as well. The shorter length makes it convenient when on the go, and offers enough resistance from the elements without adding unnecessary heft.

Unsurprisingly, the car coat’s origins can be traced back to motoring. What we now call a car coat was originally developed in the early 1900s for motorists to wear when driving, most automobiles at the time being open-top. In its infancy, the car coat embodied a kind of duality: rebellious spirit paired with manor-born indulgence. It was the de facto uniform of the ‘scorchers’ - early motoring enthusiasts (who tended to be exclusively upper-class) with a zest for high-speed peril at a time with few road rules and few sealed roads.

Warmth was the key factor here, and as such the original car coats tended to be very long and often fur-lined, and they also provided protection from the dust kicked up on unsealed roads - hence the name of the adjacent duster coat. With the advent of heating in cars, the car coat style began to evolve. It  became lighter, shorter, and more A-line, in order to facilitate ease of getting in and out of one’s vehicle with a minimum of fuss, crystallising into the shape that we know today.

For our Crane Brothers car coat, we’ve taken the style and added a couple of extra touches to make it truly a coat for all seasons. The Loro Piana Storm System wool we’ve used for the shell is uniquely water-resistant, giving you extra protection from the inevitable rain, and the coat features a detachable quilted lining, allowing you to add or remove an extra layer as required. Finished with a high stand collar and side entry welt pockets, it’s perfect no matter the weather - or your preferred mode of transportation.