Gig (carriage)

A gig is a one-horse, two-wheeled open carriage with fork tiller for a horse, self-drive, so most small Serves seat behind the main seat.

She came in the 17th century, first in Paris and is a precursor of convertibles wherein both forms continued until the end of the 19th century; this mainly in France, the United Kingdom and the United States.

If a clamped horse went to his knees, it occurred at early gigs, that the leaf springs the scrapped that could throw off the coachman.

Variants of the gig are the Stanhope gig and the gig Tilbury both of which were developed by Fitzroy Stanhope.

Source

• Meyers Lexikon 1895