As someone who exists outside of the norm, I am a fan of anything out of the ordinary – I love when risks are taken and I love when ground is broken. As the modern automotive landscape continues to homogenize into blobby crossovers with 2-litre engines and full-width light bars, I look toward the designs that dare to be different, the designs that spark curiosity and the ones that forge desirability. One way that a car can stand out is through the design of its doors. While most cars have traditional front-hinged doors that just do their job and do it well, there are many cars with daring door designs that ended up changing the world forever.
The spirit of innovation motivates growth and change, and it lends itself to cars that have a certain je ne sais quoi, the it-factor that lands on the inspirational and aspirational, walls of childhood bedrooms. Below I’ve compiled my favourite mold-breaking door designs – some cooler than others, but all designs that dared to be different.
Kaiser Darrin
One of my personal favourite classic cars is the 1954 Kaiser Darrin, which had unorthodox looks and innovative sliding pocket doors that vanished into the bodywork when open. The Darrin had a rough time competing with more established roadsters and ultimately not even 500 units were produced, making it a rare beauty with some of the industry’s wackiest doors.
Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing
The Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing is one of the most well-known cars with unique doors. Its timeless design still sets hearts ablaze nearly 70 years later, and th attention-grabbing gullwing doors influenced many future designs including Mercedes’ own SLS AMG.
Lamborghini Countach
The Lamborghini Countach is one of the most striking designs to ever enter production, and it remained a statement piece from its inception in 1974 through its demise in 1990. It was the first car to introduce upward-swinging scissor doors to the market, which became a Lamborghini staple.
Mini Cooper Clubman
The Mini Cooper Clubman entered the world as a ‘tweener model that fit between the prohibitively diminutive Cooper and the crossover-like Countryman. It brought with it an unusual rear-hinged quarter door on the passenger side only, and two side-opening barn doors instead of a traditional hatch. I always loved these funky little machines, but they were widely regarded as ugly, and the following generation got four traditional doors but maintained the rear barn opening.
BMW Z1
The BMW Z1 featured a different kind of pocket door that retracted vertically into the sill of the body. To open the Z1’s door, you just press the lock, the window automatically retracts and the door slides down into the sill to allow access. The design was very complex but allowed doorless driving, which was not readily available to any other sports car at the time.
Toyota Sera
The Toyota Sera was the first series-production car to feature butterfly doors, and even Gordon Murray drew inspiration from its enchanting door design for the record-smashing McLaren F1. The tiny Sera featured gigantic doors that hinge in two places and feature a T-Top-style glass roof once the doors are closed, and the driver’s door actually opens wider than the passenger door for ease of access.
Koenigsegg CCR
The Koenigsegg CCR entered the supercar world with quite a splash, and an entirely new door design that the world had never seen before. Koenigsegg calls them dihedral synchro-helix actuation doors, and they actually provide a conveniently large aperture for humans to enter and exit through. How you safely open them next to a curb eludes me, but these are some cool and flashy doors.
Ford GT
The Ford GT was a heritage model produced for Ford’s 100th birthday, and rapidly rocked the automotive world with its retro looks and modern performance. Its door design doesn’t have a Ford-designated name, but “Top Gear” titled them guillotine doors since a cranium could theoretically get pinched when shutting them. People also cannot stand up once they’ve exited the car until they have stepped out from under the roof panel. Not super practical, but super retro and super cool.
Rolls-Royce Spectre
The Spectre’s doors are the longest of any Rolls-Royce, stretching nearly 1.5 meters long. They are electronically operated, conceal a signature Rolls-Royce umbrella, and can be had with the Starlight option that puts 4,796 backlit perforations in the leather. I think all Rolls-Royce coach doors are inherently weird, but the Spectre takes the Rolls-Royce weird door cake.
Tesla Model X
Tesla’s Model X rattled the car market as soon as it was introduced, thanks in large part to its Falcon Wing rear door mechanism. Despite being the culprit of some horrifying quality control woes in its early days, these doors are way cooler than sliding doors on minivans and traditional doors on competing crossovers. Hypebeasts flocked to the Model X for its Falcon Wing doors, and it’s still a unique feature in todays automotive landscape.
Hyundai Veloster
The humble Hyundai Veloster had a very weird door situation, with a traditional coupe-style single long door on the driver’s side and two shorter doors on the passenger’s side. The logic behind this decision eludes me, but it can either be viewed as a coupe with a bonus rear door or a handicapped hatchback. Regardless of your stance on this trio of strange doors, it was certainly unique among competitors.
Smart Crossblade
The Smart Crossblade makes no sense. It’s a microscopic two-seat car without even a windshield, let alone a roof or real doors. Only 2,000 were ever produced, and honestly that’s a surprisingly high production run given this car’s drawbacks. The “doors” on the Crossblade are more akin to the doors on a CanAm OHV than a regular car, but they seem sturdy. They’re single beams that sit at a normal car’s beltline and swing out of the way to allow entry and exit. This is certainly one of the strangest door designs ever put into production, and I really want one, dammit.
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