re: Origin of term "Spider"

[Dana Loomis <dloomis@domain.elided>]

Concerning the origin of the name "spider," for open cars, Simon wrote: 

>Italian coachbuilders...started building open carriages with
>tall wheels and lots of suspension travel...so Italian
>families could take a ride out to the countryside on really bad roads
>for a picnic. They called these open carriages Spiders because they
>had the "long legs" needed to go over all the bumps on the crappy dirt
>roads in the countryside. 

Nice story, but there has to be more to the etymology.  The problem is that
"spider" isn't an Italian word (at this moment, I can't remember the name
of the arachnid in Italian (only the Spanish name will come), but it
doesn't matter).  The question is, if the name refers to the resemblance of
these open carriages to an arachnid, then why didn't those Italian
coachbuilders use the Italian name?  And, if they chose not to use their
native language, why did they choose an English word--if it is indeed from
the English?

Dana Loomis

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