When I was a kid, I remember we had an old Honda hatchback something, and a Toyota, might have been a Corolla. This was in the mid 80’s, and my parents must have gotten the car in the previous 5-10 years. There was a quirk in the door locking mechanism (this was before we had power door locks and key remotes). You could lock the door, close it, and the lock would pop back up from its locked position to unlock. In order to lock it, you’d have to hold open the handle while closing the door, only then would the lock stay closed.
Why did they do this? Was it some kind of safety thing? Or were doors so cheaply made that it was a built-in flaw that they couldn’t get rid of? I find that hard to believe, considering we have had door locks for thousands of years and I never had to do that with the house doors.
I’ve got a 97 Civic, and they still do the same thing. I assume it is to keep you from locking the keys in the car in the case where you just set the lock and close the door.
My speculation would be that it was an attempt to prevent you from locking your keys in the car. The thought being that the door couldn’t accidently close (at the hand of a toddler, perhaps) leaving you out in the cold. The added process of holding up the handle would cause one to think about it…I suppose.
What chacoguy said. The idea is that the extra step required to slam-lock the door required you to think a bit about what you were doing. Otherwise it’s all too easy to simply shut the door, out of habit, the same way you would if you weren’t meaning to lock it, and if the keys happen to be in the car you’re in a jam.
Of course, it didn’t work very well. About 98% of the times you get out of a car, you’re going to lock it. So muscle memory quickly takes over and you hold the handle up without thinking, since that’s how you usually have to close the door.
Saved my butt once with a Toyota Corolla - clsoed the door lightly, realizes the key was still in the lock… the door was almost latched, locked, could not open it - butt-check it fully closed and the lock popped up, got it open, got the keys. Otehrwise it was a long walk home.
It seemed like it was primarily Japanese brands which had this “feature”.
I note that my wife has a newer Mazda (2007 CX-7) with a similar sort of idiot-proof feature. It has a keyless ignition system (the car has to recognize the chip in the key fob), and it will not let you lock the car, while it’s not running, as long as the key fob is in the car. I imagine this is to prevent you from turning the car off, opening the door, using the “lock” button on the key fob, then accidentally leaving the fob in the car when you close the door.
I remember the same sort of mechanism in a Holden (GM Australia) from 1963. The front doors required you to push the button in the outside door handle as you closed it to lock the door if you’d pushed down the button inside. Otherwise the button would pop up when the latch closed. The back doors didn’t have the same mechanism so you could just push the button down inside and slam the door to lock it. Back then central locking wasn’t around for any make or model that I know of, so every door had to be locked either from inside by the driver or as each passenger got out and shut their own door.
Back when cars were locked with those knobs sticking up out of the door panel and you used open windows for AC, it was pretty easy to inadvertently lock the door with your arm. I’m pretty sure this has saved my butt a few times. (Although, once locked out, the cars with the knob-style locks are laughably easy to open with a coat hanger.)
We had a 1964 Buick Le Sabre station wagon that had a handle with a button underneath, as described below.
Our buick had no electric locks, no electric windows, and no radio. (That would have been an extra charge and my Dad was proud of not letting the car companies trick him into giving them money for something that he didn’t need. He also didn’t trust the automatic transmissions of the time, so it had three on the three.)
I take back the no electric windows comment. The rear window could be lowered using a slider button on the dash or a key in the tailgate. The windows in the doors all cranked, though. They weren’t allowed down at highway speeds, though, because a bug could fly in and at those speeds it could put out your eye. At highway speeds, only the windwings were allowed open. (In later years he had a rant about the conspiracy to remove wind wings as a ploy to sell air conditioning.)
Electric locks on a 95 Camry, if you try to lock the doors with the key in the ignition, and the any door open, It will pop all 4 door locks into the unlock position. Irritating to say the least.
Forgot to add, this was a time with no electronic nag tones. My current car will nag me if I open the driver door with the engine off and the key still in the ignition. Not an option in 1964.
And not only were there no nag tones for seat belts, there were no factory installed seat belts available. At least for that model.
