The body structure of a passenger vehicle is one of the important functional groups of a vehicle. A crashworthy car body structure is so conceptualised as to absorb considerable amount of the impact energy by deforming in definite areas, and thereby reduce the deceleration experienced by its passengers to survivable levels. The non-deforming areas of the car body structure are designed as stiff survivable space for the passengers. Using different material, structural and manufacturing concepts for constructing these car body components, various construction and design concepts have been developed over the years. This paper presents an overview of simplified constructional concepts of automotive body structures. This includes a brief historical background of an automotive body design concepts. The main concepts used in the present-day automotive industry relevant for our research work, are also presented.