Sometimes the wheel – or the door – just doesn’t need reinventing. Car makers have played around with rear-hinged doors for years but, for plenty of reasons, they’ve never really caught on.
Unless you’re Rolls-Royce, that is. Rear-hinged doors are very much a Rolls-Royce thing. The Cullinan, Phantom and Ghost back doors are all rear-hinged. Even the giant single doors on each side of Spectre all-electric coupé pivot from the rear. Does it make them any easier to get out of? Not really, but it certainly adds to the grandeur.
Ferrari is having a go with the Purasangue – it’s kind of SUV. But in my view the Purasangue lacks one vital ingredient that SUVs must have: usability. That is: making it easy to get kids, bikes, dogs and other stuff into a car. Rear-hinged doors might look great on the red carpet, but they don’t help here.
The nickname of ‘suicide’ doors doesn’t help the cause. Today, rear-hinged doors are perfectly safe, but years ago if the door unlatched when the car was moving it would be forced open by the wind. A rear passenger, who wouldn’t have been wearing a seat belt back then, might grab the door and be thrown out.
Despite that, it seems rear-hinged doors are making a comeback in the mainstream. Kia has just revealed its EV2 concept, complete with rear-hinged back doors. Now it seems they’re going to be making it into production. Whether it’s in the Kia EV2 (or more likely, a larger upcoming SUV model) remains to be seen, but Kia’s design boss Karim Habib told me at the Kia EV2 Concept unveiling: “rear-hinged doors? You won't have to wait that long – but that's all I'm going to say.”
Any car maker must think about economies of scale when it comes to tech – and rear-hinged doors fall into that category. Kia is part of the Hyundai Group which, as well as the obvious one, also features posh brand Genesis. Last year Genesis revealed its own concept car with rear-hinged back doors – the Neolun – that’s been confirmed for production as that brand’s range-topper.
Any car maker must think about economies of scale when it comes to tech – and rear-hinged doors fall into that category
The Neolun is a large SUV, so one might reasonably expect that the technology used in that car to make rear-hinged back doors work without the need for what’s called a B-pillar (that normally sits between the front and rear doors) will filter through to a similar car in the Kia line-up.
With the potential for a Kia EV7 and EV8 to slot in between the existing EV6 and EV9 in Kia’s line-up, my money would be on the EV8 being a posh, five-seater SUV with Neolun-esque doors.
That’s not to say it’s out of the question for the little EV2, but rear-hinged doors are going to be more expensive to engineer than traditional doors – especially with side-impact crash safety to consider – and every penny will count to keep the cost of the EV2 down.
Vauxhall and Opel managed to make a car with rear-hinged back doors with the Meriva, a small family car that was around for about seven years from 2010. The Meriva still has a B-pillar that both front and rear doors closed onto, with the doors opening wide for easy access.
But here’s the problem with cars like the Meriva, as I discovered when we went out in one with the whole Fowler family on board.
Rolls-Royces don’t tend to get parked in car parks next to other cars. They roll up outside posh hotels or at premieres where there’s plenty of space to glide out comfortably. Rear-hinged doors allow white-gloved doormen to be more discreet when releasing A-listers and royalty from the rear seats, and they allow someone in a dress or a skirt to exit more gracefully.
But Merivas don’t go to Hollywood premieres, they go to Tesco where, when you park next to another car and open the front and back doors at the same time, you and your family end up trapped in a little holding pen between the open doors, having to negotiate who moves where so one of the doors can be shut to allow you to escape.
And here’s another thing: good ideas are copied. I can only think of one mainstream car that currently has a rear-hinged back door – the Mazda MX-30. Like the BMW i3 and Mini Clubman before it, the rear door is a small one (keeping the car compact) and only opens once the front door has been opened.
It’s all a bit complex, clumsy and probably costly – which is exactly why every car maker doesn’t do it. And which doesn’t make it a good idea.
Concept cars are showy, and fancy doors have been a thing with concept cars for years. They will continue to be so. But other than Rolls-Royce, which car company has persevered with rear-hinged doors at the front or the back? Will a whole new generation of four-door Ferraris follow the Purosangue’s lead? I doubt it.
A word to the wise for Kia: don’t bother with rear-hinged doors. Your cars don’t need gimmicks, they’re good enough as they are.
