Forgive the rather distant photo but I didn’t want the six occupants of that 1958 Ford Fairlane to turn around and see me very obviously photographing them. Yes, six occupants – not a single convertible today has two rows of three abreast seating like this Fairlane. Even the four- and five-passenger, intermediate or full-sized convertible is a rare breed. And isn’t that a shame? Do you wish this body style were more popular?
Heck, try and find a convertible that isn’t a prestige German or a pony car. The Toyota Solara, Pontiac G6 and Chrysler 200 are all gone, much to the chagrin of Floridian rental fleets. The Volkswagen Golf and Buick Cascada remain but they’re a bit on the small side.
Their sales numbers may have paled in comparison to their coupe, sedan and wagon counterparts, but larger convertibles like this Pontiac Grand Ville were truly striking and utterly American cars.
While we’re at it, who would love to see the four-door convertible return? Here was a body style that never really amounted to much in terms of popularity, and yet the most famous four-door convertible, the 1961 Lincoln Continental, is truly an iconic vehicle even if its place in history carries infamy.
Mercedes-Benz tantalized us with the stunning Ocean Drive concept, but the closest we got to that was the regrettable Maybach Landaulet. Sad. The Ocean Drive would have been a very unique niche offering.
Cadillac also had a four-door convertible concept, the brash, retro and unapologetically American Ciel.
Personally, convertibles aren’t my style. I’ve never even owned a car with a sunroof. And, interestingly, the entire world has gone crazy not for convertibles but for crossovers, which as a trend makes a lot more sense. I’ve been tempted in the past but I find that body style generally too practical for my liking. I would never use the space! But what happens if you merge the two? Nissan tried and failed with the overpriced, overweight and overwrought Murano CrossCabriolet, and now Land Rover is trying with the Range Rover Evoque convertible. Is that a niche you want to see take off?
Ok, so I didn’t think many Curbsiders would go for the Evoque convertible (I know I wouldn’t). But, I dare say we will approach more unilateral agreement with the body style pictured above: the four-door hardtop, exemplified by this 1974 Ninety-Eight.
Or is there another body style you fancy, one that was once popular (or perhaps never was at all) but you wish were popular now? Share below!
The shift (no pun intended) from benches to buckets and consoles becomes more clear when we consider the physical space interior designers and seat engineers have to work with. Before the late ’70s, full-size cars were always around 78″ wide, which gave them the interior space to actually fit three adults across in relative comfort. Then the downsizing began. Now it seems that no car, even those occupying the full-size segment like the Impala, Taurus, and LaCrosse, is wider than 73″ at most. The Chrysler LX platform is the outlier at 75″.Couple the decreased overall width with thicker doors full of sound-deadening materials and wide door pockets, and thicker pillars for better rigidity, and it’s no surprise that manufacturers would rather just make a console the default, at least for the front row. The final “full-size” sedan with a front bench seat, the W-body (mid-size platform!) Impala, was wide enough to fit two people and a small child. Any buyer wanting comfortable three-across seating in all rows must look at the only vehicle which has never lost width: a full-size pickup or Tahoe/Suburban LS (still available with a front “bench” for a $250 credit), which is quite obviously not the appropriate vehicle for everyone.
This situation has always intrigued me. Besides the obvious weight loss that would occur, what role does narrowing a vehicle actually play in fuel efficiency, if any? I can understand the drive (heh) to eliminate excesses in wheelbase and overhangs, but what advantage do we get from making the car noticeably narrower inside? Is it really so simple as, “It’s just less car to push around”?
The average US passenger and driver have widened somewhat since the ’70s — do you think three of them could fit on a front bench seat, even 80” wide?
Not three average-sized, but two average-sized (my father and a friend of mine) with a below-average-sized (me) can fit on an ’08 F-350 bench just fine. In this case, the discomfort is not in hip room, but in figuring out where to put your legs with a stick shift and manual 4×4 in the way, as well as the transmission hump.
The point is that when three-abreast seating was popular in the U.S. was before the implementation of draconian child safety seat laws, when you could use the space to carry another kid. Now, that’s not feasible, so there’s not much point except maybe in large SUVs or trucks.
TIL it’s “draconian” to make special seats so the next generation of human beings isn’t killed by airbags.
I don’t mean that child seat laws are de facto draconian. However, ours are often, uhh, strange. Example: Someone I went to college with has a daughter who, at 10, was already 5’10 and still growing. Child seat laws changed such that she was required to be in a child safety seat until age 12, regardless of height/weight, despite being taller than me and I think at least as tall as her mom. By this logic, adults shorter than 5’5″ or so should also be required to have booster seats to protect them from airbags, which suggests that there have been some basic disconnects in the way the various regulations are delineated and the ways they overlap.
That notwithstanding, the point is that the principal use for occasional seating, including both middle bench positions and +2 seating in coupes, was as a place to stick another child of middle school age or younger. Since that use is now more or less illegal, the market for such seating has diminished a lot, and the two trends are not unrelated.
Very good point about the absurdity of certain child safety laws. When said law is only concerned with age but not weight/height, it is just bad legislating.
Same with air travel. We took a long-distance flight with our 9-month old daughter last year. On the inbound flight, the airline put us in a bulkhead row so our child could be in the bassinet, being under 10kgs. Wonderful, everybody wins.
On the return flight, we had to switch airlines. Same row, but different rule: no bassinet for infants over 6 months. Never mind that she could fit in well and was well below the maximum allowed weight: she’s “too old”. Chief stewardess was an inflexible she-dog about this: “The captain cannot take off until you agree to have your child on your lap.”
Result: a 12-hr night flight with a squirming baby.
It’s only not a matter of fitting; folks nowadays just wouldn’t want to. Who ever did, expect for being forced to? Nobody ever called “middle seat”!. Being the middle on a bench seat always sucked colossally. That’s precisely why three row wagons and minivans were invented.
The bench seat needed to die asap.
Frontal area has as large an impact on aerodynamics as the CD. Also parking is easier.
As I understand it the other problem with benches is providing head restraint and shoulder belts for the middle passenger.
On the other hand my ’01 Taurus wagon has “split bench” front seat that is either a bench or the bottom folds out to make a console and the back folds down to make an armrest, and as far as I can tell from looking at it, the seatbelt rolled up inside it has never been deployed.
“As I understand it the other problem with benches is providing head restraint and shoulder belts for the middle passenger.”
Ford does both with their current 40/20/40 “bench” in the F-150, as does Toyota in the Tundra. Apparently, though (and this came as a surprise to me), you don’t have to provide these for the middle passenger–neither GM nor Ram trucks have a middle head restraint or a shoulder belt.
Aside from reducing aerodynamic drag, reducing width can produce substantial weight reductions. Trimming the width of the fenders a bit obviously doesn’t make much difference, but actually reducing the central body width does — by a lot more than reducing overhangs.
Think about it: If you reduce central body width by even an inch or two, you’re trimming weight throughout the structure, including bumpers, hood, floorpan, roof, windshield and backlight.
I’ve never understood the sedan, particularly small ones. When the Fiesta first came out I mostly saw sedans, now I see hatchbacks 4 to 1. It seems people eventually figured out that fully accessible hatch space is more effective then the theoretically larger, but harder to fit stuff into trunk.
If you need the storage space get a wagon, if not get a hatchback. I love the look of 2 door wagons but 4 doors make more sense. While I and others lament the passing of the wagon (and spurning of the hatchback) they are stronger then ever. It’s just that the manufacturers inflated everything about them, except the interior space, and call them SUVs and CUVs
As an aside …..Why do chicken coops have 2 doors?
If they had 4 doors they would be chicken sedans.
Ah, but a chicken sedan could have two doors as well! Or have you not heard of the 2-door sedan?
Pre-facelift the Fiesta sedan was substantially cheaper than the hatch, and the base trim level was sedan-only for the first year or so. They’ve since added a base hatchback and cut the price premium for the hatch option in half.
Having owned hatchbacks as well as sedans and coupes, the problem with the hatchback is that it’s noisy (less insulation between you and the rear suspension) and cuts into structural rigidity (cutting a giant hole in something tends to do that).
Also, the actual utility of the hatch depends directly on how much thought has gone into the design. I’ve seen a fair number of three- and five-door hatchbacks that had such a high liftover height, intrusive rear shock towers, and/or rear seats that didn’t fold flat or didn’t split (or both). They might be better suited for carrying an awkwardly shaped item (like a big CRT television), but I can’t really say they’re all that useful.
I was actually pretty happy with a coupe, utility-wise. I don’t generally need a lot of cargo space and having a coupe cut down on the number of people asking me to help them move. The only reason I even “need” a sedan most of the time, aside from the fact that there aren’t that many modern coupes, is that the extra doors can have a calming effect on insurance companies.
Personally, I can’t look at a 2 box hatch car without thinking they’re two thirds of a real car. I won’t dismiss those who like them but I found they waste a lot of HVAC efficiency warming and cooling a storage area behind and above the passengers, not so much in a Fiesta sized hatch but in larger wagons, CUVs, SUVs and minivans take seemingly forever to get comfortable in on the worst of days. I also second Aaron on hit or miss usable storage capacity. 3 box sedans with fold down seats I find to be extremely useful in that regard. No I can’t haul 55 gallon drums without bungee cords, but my toxic waste disposal isn’t THAT often where a tall hatch is useful 🙂
I will say the trend toward high beltlines, tall trunks and swoopy styling has been a bane to the sedan since the lift over and opening size are a joke. The trunk volume of a new Mazda 6 dwarfs my 94 Cougars despite the cars themselves being about the same dimensions(minus height) but you can’t get jack into it without careful planning.
Well, do I even bother to chime in, because EVERYONE on here knows what I’m going to say?
Here goes: Two- and four-door HARDTOPS!
Two-door post larger, non-sporty SEDANS with rear side glass that ROLLS DOWN!
Pivoting vent windows on the front doors.
Lots of actual COLORS available on any car. Please impose a semi-ban on: white, silver, beige & black.
Most important to me now is: cars you can SEE OUT OF!
I apologize for shouting, but perhaps someone might hear.
I don’t disagree, but if someone actually does want silver, beige, etc., there’s no reason to ban it. Mennonites (and possibly other groups) require their members to buy only black cars. And white must always be available for fleet cars. Are we counting those pearlescent shades on luxury models to be different colors than straight white?
“Pivoting vent windows on the front doors”–would those be “smoker windows”? I thought the whole point of having A/C was never having to open your windows on the highway to get fresh air.
I thought two-door full-size sedans went away because the people that normally bought them were better served by smaller sedans, either two- or four-door.
Hardtops would be awesome, but I dunno if they could be done with side-curtain airbags.
I’m reasonably sure the current S-Class and previous CL- and CLS-Class coupes had side airbags, and all were pillarless two-door hardtops.
Neat! But the CLS-class is a “four-door coupe.”
My bad, I meant the smaller CLK-Class.
A proper successor to the original Land Rover (Defender), please, one that puts function before style, where function follows form and the result just works.
Personally, I’d like to see a few more small hatchbacks that really focus on the driver: essentially, I want a MINI without the stupid faux-retro looks and with perhaps a bit more legroom and a semi-usable back seat. Small wagon versions are of course more than welcome, too. And make it affordable, please, the Audi A1 is not the answer I was looking for (and the back seat is useless).
However, since that isn’t all that practical, there’s probably more of a future in cars like the Scion xB (a car that was never available where I live, so I’m just going by the picture I have of it). A taller hatchback that doesn’t look like either an MPV or a CUV. A BMW X1 without the nonsensical body cladding, for instance. The concept of the X1 is great: much more legroom, a slightly but not much higher seating position, much more space on a relatively small footprint, perfect for both the city and longer distances. Surely it can’t be too difficult to make it look better without placing the windscreen 1,5m away.
Two-door hardtops, and coupes with t-tops!!
I think the modern T-top might turn out to be the new panoramic sunroofs on some models (although granted, none of these models are coupes, and most aren’t even the traditional car). All the open feeling of T-tops without any of the leaks.
As an avowed sunroof-hater, I’ve always been sort of mystified by T-tops. If you’re doing a brochure photo shoot, I guess they look cool, and they add a certain jazziness to otherwise lackluster coupes (e.g., early downsized A/G-Body Grand Prix/Monte Carlo/Cutlass Supreme/Regal). But I would never want to live with them. Almost all the drawbacks of both sunroofs and convertibles with none of the advantages.
There’s the advantage of being able to launch the roof panels into the air if you install a powerful motor and launch too hard. Especially in the unibody GM F-body cars.
That’s really alarming!
Zaftig
A V-8, RWD, MT with 2-door hardtop, 2-doot post, and 4-door hardtop bodystyles available, rather than just the 4-door sedan.
Put me down in favor of four door hardtops also.
Since others were more specific, I’ll throw my two cents’ in as well. I’d like to see what I consider the best of old and new: 200″ length, 80″ width, 115-120″ wheelbase, rwd with a straight six. To make it more versatile, have a performance option with a six speed manual and at least one turbo. Split bench with column shift (automatic AND manual available) front, split fold rear standard with velour upholstery, optional buckets/console and leather. Bring back different levels of equipment such as manual windows and locks and AM/FM radio (with an aux input jack). Optional AWD, traction control and limited slip diff. Include a wagon body as well.
Hardtops in 2 and 4 doors, bench seats with ample fold down center storage armrests, column (or even dial, if it must be) shifters. Boulevard cruisers and turnpike gliders. The truth is that in today’s driving world while it’s nice that handling is a major concern, much of our driving is in straight lines on flat surfaces, so let’s make that ride as comfortable as possible. My 300M is a great combination of big car ride and good handling, but for a large car the interior is a bit cramped, and ingress and egress could be a lot better, and road noise and pavement irregularities are a bit more intrusive than ideal in a big comfortable American car.
The 4 door hardtop style entered its boom period in the mid 1960’s……The hardtop roof looked sharp on a 65 Impala or Caprice
Definitely the wagon. Here where I live they’re popular, and diesel wagons are everywhere, mostly with an Audi, BMW or Mercedes badge, but there are also contenders from Ford, Hyundai, Renault, PSA, Toyota, Volvo, etc. The US should adopt them more, as most of the time they are actually more stylish than the sedan counterparts…
I know it’s unlikely, especially since cars are giving way to crossovers generally, but I’d love to see the four-door hardtop come back. Of course, with styling like it is, a modern hardtop wouldn’t be anything like the old, three-box cars of yesteryear.
A real full-size station wagon would also be great (beyond the ones being offered by BMW, Mercedes and Volvo, of course).