Car shopping and ran into the whole sun roof thing. I hate the idea (and when did they stop saying moon roof). But is there any practical advantage to the things?
Emergency bubble soap kept in the cabin, for deployment in traffic jams (the long bad ones, like a jack-knifed tractor-trailer being removed from a freeway between exits). Open the celestial-object-roof and assign co-pilot to bubble duty.
Well no, nor soap bubbles. Or water balloons. Painted thusly into corner I fall back on birds. Or rather they fall back on sunroof targets. But FO-roof sounds like faux roof, which they really are. I was headed thataway.
I believe I have personally witnessed water balloons flying. And many, many soap bubbles engaged in a similar behavior, though perhaps in deference to their more refined sensibilities it ought to be called floating then. Or wafting. But I don't think I've ever heard the thing called any name but sunroof or moonroof, no matter what other things one might be able to do with or through it. (And I'm not sure the sun or moon are really things one can do, so perhaps that's not the key to naming it, anyway.) One can allow sun or moon to pass through it (in, ideally, a figurative sense) for the enjoyment of occupants. Or, perhaps, it is better said that occupants may use it to observe the sun or the moon, again for enjoyment. A gedankenexperiment highlights the distinction. Suppose one's niece should pass, partially, through the—whatever it is—in order to better observe some fireworks. This may seem farfetched, but is a thing I have seen happen. If the key is what has passed through it, it is a nieceroof; if the key is what is observed, it is a fireworksroof.
https://twistedsifter.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/dog-sticks-head-through-sunroof-video.jpg?resize=300 woofwoof
You can wave at pedestrians and other drivers. Bonus: other people in your car usually won't know if you waved one finger or five.
Sunroof has come to be the generic or umbrella term for all of it. (sunroofs, moonroofs, panoramic roofs). Moonroof is typically the glass one (sometimes glass sunroof). Sometimes, it's just the person listing it that's lazy to learn the proper term. (I was told the Gen 3 had HID headlights by a salesman at the dealer, even though it's LED cause he just made an assumption and likely forgot his training). I like moonroofs for the extra light (I don't live in a hot climate) but also for fresh air without having wind blown in my face during spring/fall.
I feel like the old-old definition was that a sunroof was a glass (smoked or clear) panel in the roof of the car that could be opened for ventilation. Moonroof was an opaque, usually metal panel that slid out of the way to give sky access. Either way, it's a big deal to get that sky. I bought an Outback with a glass panoramic sunroof 10 years ago and absolutely loved it. I'd never had any of the good kinds of hole-in-the-roof before and I was instantly hooked. One of the best features of that car. I'm sad that the modern Outbacks (and the Mazda I later bought) just have the "standard" little rectangular openings.
When do you most like getting that sky? I've had ideas about when I'd most like it, but most of them have been wrong. Nice light, but too much heat beating down on my head, or one thing, or another.
It really depends on your location. I think the reason why fixed pano roofs are getting popular is because they don’t require any motorised mechanism so there’s less headroom intrusion and lower cost. And I assume glass manufacturers have improved the glass such that they can offer large panes that can withstand 10+ years of shock and vibration and twisting force. And some people don’t like moonroofs because they’ll never open it or had the fact that “it’s another thing to break” so a fixed glass one is a compromise. Plus, if you can get the cool factors to the kids in the back and have them convince their parents to splurge for the option, then marketing wins.
It's a bit like dining al fresco... it can be a real delight on a warm spring day or a cool fall day. Admittedly useless in summer. In the winter I liked the extra light in general. A brighter cabin tricks me into thinking a tiny car interior is spacious, and I like that effect. There aren't many miles of interstate highway in my area, so a quite a lot of our driving is lower speeds, and this is part of the key to enjoyment.
And because I'm into words and I had a minute, I looked it up. The term 'sunroof' was the original, and the earliest sunroofs were generally canvas, leather, or metal. Ford Motor Company introduced the term 'moonroof' to differentiate a new type of sunroof with a moving glass element for the launch of the 1973 Lincoln Mark IV. So I had it backwards before, but now we have the truth.
Our Model A, 1928 and 1931, had a frame and weatherized canvas covered cabin roof. It helped with making the center of gravity less bad. But the rest of those cars were pretty bad and dangerous. Bob Wilson
