Abstract The need to address the problem of thermal comfort inside a car cabin is becoming more significant for the automobile industry especially as recent developments in vehicle styling entail an increase in the glazed surfaces of the car, in particular for sky-roof models. The extended glazed surfaces produce an increase in radiative thermal loads on the area involved and so greater attention is being given to the enhancement and upgrading of the heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning system capacity, and efforts are being made to find solutions to the problem of thermal comfort inside the cabin. This paper is a first experimental study which focuses on assessing the performance of four different types of special laminated sky-roof (with a low-emissivity internal surface). A performance comparison between special and traditional sky-roofs has been carried out in a field test (on the road) in summer conditions. The main results show that the special sky-roofs allow the temperature inside the car cabin to be reduced.