There was a time when making a living for a mass-market business involved a door-to-door regional beat from the comfort of your vehicle. The catch was that the roving salesman - who either purveyed immediately usable items, or carried with him "salesman samplers" to demonstrate - needed storage. A common, everyday trunk wasn't satisfactory enough, while a half-ton truck was ill-suited for cruising endless miles of the countryside several days on end. Detroit's solution: the business coupe. These two-door cars had all the creature comfort of the ordinary family ride, but without a conventional rear seat (or none at all) for added capacity.

In our latest edition of This or That, we're tipping a hat to the nearly forgotten profession by taking a closer look at just four examples from the immediate prewar era, each of which is currently available in the Hemmings classifieds.

So which do you select: a 1939 Plymouth, a 1940 Packard, a 1940 Ford 01A or a 1941 Buick Model 56 business coupe?