?- Evolution of the Car Door - ?
#1
11-27-2011, 09:15 AM
?- Evolution of the Car Door - ?
Evolution of the Car Door Ok now what are you posting `Space ? 
I thought a few member's would find the below interesting & informative ? Let us know `if you did ok ? Oh, Please don't SLAM the DOOR
And you thought they were only good for entering and exiting your car.
<CITE sizcache="48" sizset="129">By Erik Sofge of MSN Autos</CITE>
Lamborghini Murcielago LP640
The story of the car door has more twists than you could ever imagine. From the doorless coupes of the Model T era to more recent aftermarket machines in which the doors fold, Transformers-like, into the vehicle's frame, designers and engineers have experimented with how passengers access their creations from the very beginning of the automobile. Although a status quo has developed — the conventional front-hinged, side-mounted door — some creative modes of egress and ingress have survived in niche categories, and some have made unlikely comebacks. Here's a look at the major variations on the car door throughout history, and which ones have made it past the concept stage and onto the showroom floor.
Bing: Automotive Innovations
Front-Hinged Doors
Click to enlarge picture
Ford Model T Sedan
They were flimsy things, sometimes removable — one version of the Model T featured four pop-off doors — with handles and materials straight out of a horse-drawn buggy, but most car doors on early automobiles had the same basic configuration as today's most common vehicle door. The front hinge allows the door to swing sideways, and in case of a sudden opening during driving, wind resistance should keep most passengers from tumbling out — a crucial design feature before the seatbelt was invented.
View Slideshow: Made in the USA
No Doors
Click to enlarge picture
Ford Model T
Henry Ford was the Shakespeare of the automotive world. His every tinkering project and one-off model seems to show up eventually, in some form, in the research labs of modern automakers. Except, that is, for his 1909 no-door Model T coupe. It was the forerunner of a no-door trend that never took root, with one major exception: the Jeep. So long as they have side mirrors attached, most doorless Jeeps are officially street-legal; they meet side-impact safety regulations despite the gaping holes. Then there's the Citroën Lacoste, a concept car unveiled in 2010, with its single roll bar for a roof and a retractable windshield.
Read: Dead but Not Forgotten
Suicide Doors
Click to enlarge picture
Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe
The more delicate term is "rear hinged" — a door that opens toward the back of the vehicle. But "suicide door" sounds sexier. The origins of that term are lost in the exhaust of automotive history, forcing stumped experts to point to the obvious connection: A rear-hinged door that pops open on the road will stay open, inviting an unsecured occupant out and tragedy in. On the plus side, suicide doors are eye-catching, and make access to the vehicle more graceful, as passengers simply swivel their way in or out. In the heyday of the suicide door — they showed up as early as 1923 in the Model T and were fairly widespread during the 1930s — safety was an afterthought, and nearly always ran second to style. With few exceptions, rear-hinged doors disappeared from production vehicles after World War II. But they have made a recent return in 3-door vehicles, such as pickup trucks fitted with two rows of seats, and the Honda Element.
View Slideshow: 10 Outrageous Options on Luxury Cars
Gullwing Doors
Click to enlarge picture
Mercedes-Benz SLS
Like most nontraditional doors, there's no reason for gullwings. In fact, they're a design hassle, typically requiring more substantial hydraulic lifting systems right where you don't want them, alongside the passenger and driver. And because of their geometry, they need more efficient water seals than a traditionally hinged door. When they debuted on the racetrack in 1952, and on roads in 1955 with the Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing coupe, gullwing doors were still a work in progress. With the doors raised, passengers had to vault over a lip that was half the height of the car. The short-lived DeLorean DMC-12 became the iconic gullwing car after its star turn in the "Back to the Future" movies in the 1980s, but Mercedes won the gullwing spotlight back in 2010 with its SLS AMG, a modern take on the model that introduced the pointless majesty of a car with a wingspan.
Compare: Mercedes-Benz SLS vs. Aston Martin DB9 vs. Ferrari California
Canopy Doors
Click to enlarge picture
CityCar
German automaker Messerschmitt had a good excuse for pioneering the automobile canopy; the company's original specialty was fighter planes, which it was prohibited from building after World War II. Thus, the 1953 Messerschmitt KR175, the first car with a canopy, was essentially a fighter plane's cabin on wheels. It even had tandem seating, with one seat up front and another directly behind it. Canopies never made it out of the microcar category, appearing in a few models, including the KR175's replacement, the KR200, and the 3-wheeled Bond Bug in 1970. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are developing a high-tech microcar, called the CityCar, whose features include a windshield that lifts away, canopylike, in place of doors.
Bing: Urban Cars
Front Doors
Click to enlarge picture
BMW Isetta 300
Only a handful of vehicles have had front doors. The 1953 Iso Isetta microcar was the first; its entire front end, windshield and steering wheel included, swung open. Later Isettas built by BMW had the same unique design, which was presumably an efficient way to get at the car's 2-seat bench. In 1957, the Zündapp Janus upped the oddball ante, with a front and a rear door. Like the car's two-faced namesake, it looked almost identical coming or going. The problem with front doors, as with canopies, is safety. While a rollover pins a canopied car's occupants, a head-on impact with a front door offers scant protection.
View Slideshow: Yesterday's Flops, Today's Collectibles
Retractable Doors
Click to enlarge picture
BMW Z1
It seems 1953 was a busy year for car doors. Along with canopies and front doors came the first type of retractable door, the pocket door, in a number of models from Kaiser Motors. Pocket doors are similar to many sliding doors found in homes; in Kaiser's case, the doors slid forward into the vehicle's frame. Again, other than novelty, there was no engineering upside to retractable doors, just downside, as the vehicle's front end had to be longer and wider to accommodate the door pockets. These doors began and ended with Kaiser. In 1989, BMW's Z1 featured doors that retracted downward, but not far enough, mirroring the problem with early gullwings. Four years later, Lincoln showed off a concept vehicle whose doors lowered completely, curving underneath the car. The design never made it to production, but the firm that built the concept, Jatech, is now marketing the technology, hoping to customize individual cars with the retractable design.
View Slideshow: 10 Features We're Most Thankful For
Butterfly Doors
Click to enlarge picture
Alfa Romeo 33-2 Stradale
Finally, an exotic door design with a goal. Butterfly doors, which first appeared in the Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale in 1967, offer the fastest access to a vehicle, short of having no doors at all. Designed to get out of the way during pit stops, butterfly doors — or dihedral doors, for technical purists — flip with a forward angle, and survive to this day in racing vehicles as well as race-inspired sports cars. Although they've become famous on high-performance rides such as the Enzo Ferrari and McLaren F1, butterfly doors have remained a popular choice for customized cars of all makes and models, and for concept cars such as the Saab PhoeniX, which was unveiled at the 2011 Geneva Motor Show.
Bing Images: Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale
Sliding Doors
Click to enlarge picture
Chrysler Town & Country
Not to be confused with retractable doors, sliding doors are one of the core selling points of minivans. In 1968, Volkswagen pioneered the ability to slide a door along a track, at least in a consumer vehicle, with its Type 2 van, both predating and ultimately birthing the minivan. Sliding doors, first limited to one side of the vehicle, and later evolving into the dual, powered doors found on today's Chrysler Town & Country minivans, became a parent's best friend, providing more access to the cabin than traditional doors, and making loading cargo or securing a horde of car-seated children that much easier.
Compare: Chrysler Town & Country vs. Honda Odyssey vs. Nissan Quest
Scissor Doors
Click to enlarge picture
Lamborghini Countach LP 400
Our final entry isn't a new one. The past three decades have seen a return to discarded or less-used door alternatives, as opposed to entirely new designs. In 1974, Lamborghini released the Countach, with its distinctive, pivoting scissor doors. Similar to both gullwings and butterflies, scissor doors are hinged at the front and rotate upwards. Lamborghini designers supposedly wanted to offset the car's unique width, providing drivers with an escape when wedged into a tight parking space. While other automakers, such as Alfa Romeo and Spyker, have incorporated scissor doors into their vehicles, the complexity and expense of the hinge mechanism has restricted them to the upper end of the market. In a bid for even more exclusivity, Swedish automaker Koenigsegg has made that mechanism even more complicated — though with a smoother overall action — with its dihedral synchro-helix system, which pushes the door away from the car as it rotates, and completely negates any space-saving qualities.
I thought a few member's would find the below interesting & informative ? Let us know `if you did ok ? Oh, Please don't SLAM the DOOR And you thought they were only good for entering and exiting your car.
<CITE sizcache="48" sizset="129">By Erik Sofge of MSN Autos</CITE>
Lamborghini Murcielago LP640
The story of the car door has more twists than you could ever imagine. From the doorless coupes of the Model T era to more recent aftermarket machines in which the doors fold, Transformers-like, into the vehicle's frame, designers and engineers have experimented with how passengers access their creations from the very beginning of the automobile. Although a status quo has developed — the conventional front-hinged, side-mounted door — some creative modes of egress and ingress have survived in niche categories, and some have made unlikely comebacks. Here's a look at the major variations on the car door throughout history, and which ones have made it past the concept stage and onto the showroom floor.
Bing: Automotive Innovations
Front-Hinged Doors
Click to enlarge picture
Ford Model T Sedan
They were flimsy things, sometimes removable — one version of the Model T featured four pop-off doors — with handles and materials straight out of a horse-drawn buggy, but most car doors on early automobiles had the same basic configuration as today's most common vehicle door. The front hinge allows the door to swing sideways, and in case of a sudden opening during driving, wind resistance should keep most passengers from tumbling out — a crucial design feature before the seatbelt was invented.
View Slideshow: Made in the USA
No Doors
Click to enlarge picture
Ford Model T
Henry Ford was the Shakespeare of the automotive world. His every tinkering project and one-off model seems to show up eventually, in some form, in the research labs of modern automakers. Except, that is, for his 1909 no-door Model T coupe. It was the forerunner of a no-door trend that never took root, with one major exception: the Jeep. So long as they have side mirrors attached, most doorless Jeeps are officially street-legal; they meet side-impact safety regulations despite the gaping holes. Then there's the Citroën Lacoste, a concept car unveiled in 2010, with its single roll bar for a roof and a retractable windshield.
Read: Dead but Not Forgotten
Suicide Doors
Click to enlarge picture
Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe
The more delicate term is "rear hinged" — a door that opens toward the back of the vehicle. But "suicide door" sounds sexier. The origins of that term are lost in the exhaust of automotive history, forcing stumped experts to point to the obvious connection: A rear-hinged door that pops open on the road will stay open, inviting an unsecured occupant out and tragedy in. On the plus side, suicide doors are eye-catching, and make access to the vehicle more graceful, as passengers simply swivel their way in or out. In the heyday of the suicide door — they showed up as early as 1923 in the Model T and were fairly widespread during the 1930s — safety was an afterthought, and nearly always ran second to style. With few exceptions, rear-hinged doors disappeared from production vehicles after World War II. But they have made a recent return in 3-door vehicles, such as pickup trucks fitted with two rows of seats, and the Honda Element.
View Slideshow: 10 Outrageous Options on Luxury Cars
Gullwing Doors
Click to enlarge picture
Mercedes-Benz SLS
Like most nontraditional doors, there's no reason for gullwings. In fact, they're a design hassle, typically requiring more substantial hydraulic lifting systems right where you don't want them, alongside the passenger and driver. And because of their geometry, they need more efficient water seals than a traditionally hinged door. When they debuted on the racetrack in 1952, and on roads in 1955 with the Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing coupe, gullwing doors were still a work in progress. With the doors raised, passengers had to vault over a lip that was half the height of the car. The short-lived DeLorean DMC-12 became the iconic gullwing car after its star turn in the "Back to the Future" movies in the 1980s, but Mercedes won the gullwing spotlight back in 2010 with its SLS AMG, a modern take on the model that introduced the pointless majesty of a car with a wingspan.
Compare: Mercedes-Benz SLS vs. Aston Martin DB9 vs. Ferrari California
Canopy Doors
Click to enlarge picture
CityCar
German automaker Messerschmitt had a good excuse for pioneering the automobile canopy; the company's original specialty was fighter planes, which it was prohibited from building after World War II. Thus, the 1953 Messerschmitt KR175, the first car with a canopy, was essentially a fighter plane's cabin on wheels. It even had tandem seating, with one seat up front and another directly behind it. Canopies never made it out of the microcar category, appearing in a few models, including the KR175's replacement, the KR200, and the 3-wheeled Bond Bug in 1970. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are developing a high-tech microcar, called the CityCar, whose features include a windshield that lifts away, canopylike, in place of doors.
Bing: Urban Cars
Front Doors
Click to enlarge picture
BMW Isetta 300
Only a handful of vehicles have had front doors. The 1953 Iso Isetta microcar was the first; its entire front end, windshield and steering wheel included, swung open. Later Isettas built by BMW had the same unique design, which was presumably an efficient way to get at the car's 2-seat bench. In 1957, the Zündapp Janus upped the oddball ante, with a front and a rear door. Like the car's two-faced namesake, it looked almost identical coming or going. The problem with front doors, as with canopies, is safety. While a rollover pins a canopied car's occupants, a head-on impact with a front door offers scant protection.
View Slideshow: Yesterday's Flops, Today's Collectibles
Retractable Doors
Click to enlarge picture
BMW Z1
It seems 1953 was a busy year for car doors. Along with canopies and front doors came the first type of retractable door, the pocket door, in a number of models from Kaiser Motors. Pocket doors are similar to many sliding doors found in homes; in Kaiser's case, the doors slid forward into the vehicle's frame. Again, other than novelty, there was no engineering upside to retractable doors, just downside, as the vehicle's front end had to be longer and wider to accommodate the door pockets. These doors began and ended with Kaiser. In 1989, BMW's Z1 featured doors that retracted downward, but not far enough, mirroring the problem with early gullwings. Four years later, Lincoln showed off a concept vehicle whose doors lowered completely, curving underneath the car. The design never made it to production, but the firm that built the concept, Jatech, is now marketing the technology, hoping to customize individual cars with the retractable design.
View Slideshow: 10 Features We're Most Thankful For
Butterfly Doors
Click to enlarge picture
Alfa Romeo 33-2 Stradale
Finally, an exotic door design with a goal. Butterfly doors, which first appeared in the Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale in 1967, offer the fastest access to a vehicle, short of having no doors at all. Designed to get out of the way during pit stops, butterfly doors — or dihedral doors, for technical purists — flip with a forward angle, and survive to this day in racing vehicles as well as race-inspired sports cars. Although they've become famous on high-performance rides such as the Enzo Ferrari and McLaren F1, butterfly doors have remained a popular choice for customized cars of all makes and models, and for concept cars such as the Saab PhoeniX, which was unveiled at the 2011 Geneva Motor Show.
Bing Images: Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale
Sliding Doors
Click to enlarge picture
Chrysler Town & Country
Not to be confused with retractable doors, sliding doors are one of the core selling points of minivans. In 1968, Volkswagen pioneered the ability to slide a door along a track, at least in a consumer vehicle, with its Type 2 van, both predating and ultimately birthing the minivan. Sliding doors, first limited to one side of the vehicle, and later evolving into the dual, powered doors found on today's Chrysler Town & Country minivans, became a parent's best friend, providing more access to the cabin than traditional doors, and making loading cargo or securing a horde of car-seated children that much easier.
Compare: Chrysler Town & Country vs. Honda Odyssey vs. Nissan Quest
Scissor Doors
Click to enlarge picture
Lamborghini Countach LP 400
Our final entry isn't a new one. The past three decades have seen a return to discarded or less-used door alternatives, as opposed to entirely new designs. In 1974, Lamborghini released the Countach, with its distinctive, pivoting scissor doors. Similar to both gullwings and butterflies, scissor doors are hinged at the front and rotate upwards. Lamborghini designers supposedly wanted to offset the car's unique width, providing drivers with an escape when wedged into a tight parking space. While other automakers, such as Alfa Romeo and Spyker, have incorporated scissor doors into their vehicles, the complexity and expense of the hinge mechanism has restricted them to the upper end of the market. In a bid for even more exclusivity, Swedish automaker Koenigsegg has made that mechanism even more complicated — though with a smoother overall action — with its dihedral synchro-helix system, which pushes the door away from the car as it rotates, and completely negates any space-saving qualities.
#2
11-27-2011, 09:50 AM
I'm bad because I am still waking up and didn't read the complete article but I did skim it fairly well. I didn't see what I think is the most innovative design on a production car. That car would have been the early fifties Kaiser Darrin in which the doors slide forward into the quarter panel. The other design that I really like is the gull wing design used on the Deloreon DMC 12 and a few Mercedes coupes. The design that I appreciate the most is on my Town and Country. The sliding rear door. The other thing I like about them is that they give the appearance of rear fender skirts. I wish fender skirts would make a comeback. I think they give a look of elegance to a car. I have been working on adding them to my 86 Lincoln Towncar. I hope one day soon to get back to work on that project. It will make a nice old cruiser.
#4
11-28-2011, 07:13 AM
Hi Mike & Gregg,I keeping learning about new cars everyday on the MCF. I did not know what a Kaiser Darrin was until I did a serach
Neat Doors....Slider : )
1954 Kaiser Darrin Images (Kaiser-Darrin Roadster) | Conceptcarz.com
Click above to see & learn more...Thanks for your posts & contribtuions 4-Sure
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