I understand that little sports cars like a Miyata or a Spyder are natural coupes. They’re generally two seaters and have no need for another pair of doors.
But there seems to be a lot of fairly large cars, WITH back seats, designed as coupes. My neighbor has a Honda Accord coupe, longer than my 4 doors sedan, and its doors are almost as big as my 2 doors on each side put together. Yet still, the driver or passenger in font has to fold their seat forward for somebody to fit into the back. There seen to be a fair number of hefty muscle car coupes in that same vein – big doors, but not big enough to avoid inconveniencing the people in the front to allow access to the back.
What is the point? Is this some pure style/aesthetic issue? Or something perhaps more practical – does one large door weigh a lot less than two smaller ones?
Coupes have traditionally been built lower to the ground. The Accord sedan is something like 1.5" taller than the coupe. Doesn’t sound like much, but it’s a different visual profile.
I can’t – I don’t see that car would be any moe or less cool with 4 doors instead of 2, but assuming it has rear seats, 4 doors would be a lit more practical.
Perhaps it’s a way to say “Fuck You!” to practicality?
I drove a large coupe for years, and the selling point was that it was a convertible. That made backseat access easier, at least in good weather, but certainly the doors were inconveniently enormous.
IME, coupes are for people who don’t have kids, or don’t have kids with them when driving the coupe (and, perhaps, wish to subtly advertise this circumstance). The back seat is available for seating, in a pinch, but it is mostly used for bags.
Two doors instead of four is less expensive. Which either means that the car can cost less, or at the same cost, other parts of the car can be higher quality.
The vast majority of cars are driven by one person the vast majority of the time. Making it slightly more of a hassle to load up > 2 people, but saving, say, $500, or having a better built-in sound system is a reasonable tradeoff for lots of people.
My parents had a Monte Carlo in the 80s I believe it was. Enormous doors as mentioned. In most parking spaces it was almost required to be a contortionist to enter or exit the back seat.
To me, it has the appeal of luxury and presence. I especially like the long lines without the b-pillar and the convenience of two extra seats on the rare occasion that you need the room.
It’s not a sports car. It’s a GT.
There are plenty of smaller ones too, like the MB C and E class coupes. Also the BMW M3/4 and Audi S5, etc…
It’s an ingrained idea in many U.S. drivers that four-door cars are uncool and stodgy. Two-door cars are considered sportier and better looking. I still believe this myself up to a point, but practicality won the last time I bought a car, and it has four doors.
I know there are plenty more of them, which is why I started the thread. Because I don’t get it.
Even in the picture you linked to, there is a “b pillar”, at the handle end of the door, though it might have been moved slightly forward if there was a second door behind it. The appearance difference would be some more breaks in the outer skin of the car, framing the back door, and a second exterior handle. The vehicle silhouette would be virtually unchanged.
100%. On most modern cars, the 4 door is the stiffer chassis because it has smaller openings. The weight difference is negligible, with the coupe often being heavier because of the larger rear window.
That said, the Accord is a great example of how automakers can force the coupe version to be objectively better. Want a V6 with the manual? Can’t get it on a sedan. A lot of coupes have sport options not available on the sedan version. Ever hear the exhaust on the old G35 coupes? And then on the G35 sedans? The sedans sounded boring, plus a large chunk of them had a heavy and unsporty AWD system, and 99% were automatics. But that’s got nothing to do with the number of doors and everything to do with the market.
Some GM vehicles, such as the Saturn S-series coupe, had a ‘third-door’ option to allow entry/exit to the rear seat without moving the front seat back forward. You had to open the driver’s door to get access to the handle. Much like the third-door option on some extended cab pickups.
Especially in the US, the more practical and economical the car, the less “cool” it’s considered to be. Which is why station wagons are so uncool as to be almost non-existent in the US. Minivans are close to that status. SUVs are better because they have the perception of off-road ability, and are less economical and practical than minivans. Coupes and convertibles are cool, as are pickup trucks that are much bigger than necessary.
There’s a lady with one of those who shows up at the casual carpool pickup zone I use. I’ve ridden in the back seat of it a couple of times and it kinda sucks. I’m 5’ 10" and I have to slouch in the seat to keep from bumping my head on the roof. I avoid that car now and hop in the next 4-door.
The standard term for cars without a B pillar (or post) used to be “hardtop.” I had a '67 Caprice Sport Sedan 4 door hardtop. It was great. Cars without B pillars are rare these days.
It ticks me off that Mini calls one of its cars a “hardtop.”
