The Disappearing Car Door Design
December 15th, 2007The design principle of a car door has not changed much since the very first concept automobile, save for a few advancements in high end supercars (such as the scissor door design, made famous by the Lamborghini Countach). Scissor doors, however, also suffer from the same hindrance as conventional doors and can impede access to some extent.
The Disappearing Car Door design seeks to change all that. This modification reworks the vehicle architecture to allow the front and rear doors to be concealed under the framework, thus providing some significant benefits as described in the video.
The principle structural design change is the elimination of the B pillar. While this modification may reduce the structural integrity of a conventional vehicle, some reinforcement can be designed into the A and C pillars, as is the case with convertible designs.
In addition to the benefits described in the video, the Disappearing Car Door design could also aid rescue efforts in the event of a collision by reducing the need to cut vehicles open. It would be quite interesting to see if this kind of traversal from conventional design is adopted by car manufacturers in forthcoming models.
