Sunday, May 18, 2008

Slide-under car door

Slide-under car door.
It sure looks cool and like it has a lot of advantages. Though it's hard to believe that it takes up as little space as they claim, and won't be very expensive.

6 comments:

Monsieur Beep! said...

I take it this is a firm which converts existing cars. Amazing, but what about the rigidity of the frame? The B - column (ie middle column) is removed, after all.

There's a car with factory built-in sliding doors, which slide backwards into (or along) the side of the car. It's from Renault, if I remember correctly.

Certainly an interesting feature which makes access to the car in narrow spaces easier.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

"I take it this is a firm which converts existing cars."

That's not at all clear to me, though I thought so too at first.
It would be obscenely expensive.

I think they are trying to get this built into new cars from the factory.

Alex said...

I really get irritated by people who offload infants on the drivers side. We always made our kids get out kerb side, even if it meant the eldest had to climb over the little-un's seat.

As for the b Column removal, they stated that the cars were designed for slide under. I should re-read the page, do they do it for vehicles other than Lincolns?

Bert said...

Their claim of being able to modify "whatever vehicle you choose" is ludicrous at best. Sure, if you redesign the whole body...

I too have my doubts about the impact on shell rigidity. The doors cannot be made extremely thin either, for security reasons. Just look at all the junk Saturn had to add inside the doors just because the side panels are polymer, and you'll see that an empty, collapsible door design is ruled out.

There must therefore be a significant penalty in interior clearance (they claim that you maintain road clearance at all times). Not for me, who's quite tall yet with short legs: many many cars already barely offer enough head room!

Finally, from an aesthetic point, the straight, absolutely vertical door edges look awful (methinks it's not a coincidence if they show only dark cars).

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

"Not for me, who's quite tall yet with short legs: many many cars already barely offer enough head room!"

That true. Me too, I'm 6.4 (194cm), and most of that's in the spine.

Anonymous said...

The classical music tells me it's frightfully, frightfully expensive.