Cars With Pillarless Doors or Popup Headlights

dino_martini

Active Member
Joined
May 15, 2005
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Location
Calgary Alberta Canada
Car(s)
2007 Saab 9-3 Aero
So, I have always been a huge fan of popup head lights and Pillarless doors on cars. But they seem to be disappearing from cars. So, can anyone think of some cars with Pillarless doors or Popup headlights. We all know cars like the Ferrari F430 has pillarless doors, but what other more obtainable cars are there? The Subaru Impreza used to have pillarless doors, but the new generation doesnt. I cant even name a car with popup headlights that you can buy brand new.

Why are popup headlights and pillarless doors disappearing from cars? Do they cost more money to design then standard doors and headlights?
 
The Subaru Legacy has pillarless doors as do the CLS and CLK.
 
AFAIK pop up headlights are banned in some countries for pedestrian safety reasons :(
 
It's not easy to design a pop-up headlamp that can pass pedestrian safety requirements, so they're not used any more. I'm not sure why pillar-less doors have gone out of fashion, though. If I had to guess, I'd say it's because they're not where the money is (you can't lord it over your competitors' cars in a 30 second TV commercial), and they probably have more issues with weather sealing than traditional doors do.
 
AFAIK pop up headlights are banned in some countries for pedestrian safety reasons :(

Also, when they are open, they cause quite a lot of drag.
 
Impreza's up to the 2007 model year have pillarless doors.
 
Pillarless doors cause problems with wind noise, thats why many people don't like them.

They also make it much easier to break in to. On my Legacy forum there was a thread about someone who locked their keys in the car and got in no problem through the window, I have to dig that up..
 
They also make it much easier to break in to. On my Legacy forum there was a thread about someone who locked their keys in the car and got in no problem through the window, I have to dig that up..

Quite true, but unless it is an STI, who in the world steals a Subaru? They have got to be ranked really low.
 
Subaru's get stolen quite a bit actually, they are very popular cars for those who like speed and alot of parts are interchangeable between normal Impreza and STi.

Pillarless doors while pretty cool have problems with wind noise after a certain amount of time. That is mostly due to glass being a slow moving liquid rather than an actual solid. So over time the seal between the glass and the car's body gets worse causing the windows to "flap" a little bit at higher speeds creating quite a bit of noise (pretty annoying).

Pop up headlights have been banned by SAE AFAIK. Also they are an absolute nightmare to work on and weigh an assload. I was helping a friend do a Sil-eighty conversion on his S13 240sx and it took like a half hour to remove them, mostly because it was very difficult to get to the bolts. The Silvia lights took about 2 minutes for both of them.
 
Dodge neon, at least the original one had pillarless doors.
 
1st and 2nd generation MR2s had both; I'll miss them.
 
ST184 and early GT4 Celicas have pop ups and pillerless doors
 
A lot of japanese cars have pillarless doors but i like the proper look with no b-pillar at all.
Nissan did it with the Passage and Laurel. Chassis strength and rigidity looks comprimised.

C33 Laurel
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Miata has pillarless doors, used to have popups. Trust me they aren't fantastic, just more parts to fail and block your vision.
 
BMW 3 has pillarless doors, I think the 1 does as well. 911s do too...

There are endless old cars that have pillarless dorrs. But they tend to be more finiky when you have to do any adjustments. The window on my car still isn't fully lined up properly.
 
BMW 3 has pillarless doors, I think the 1 does as well. 911s do too...

There are endless old cars that have pillarless dorrs. But they tend to be more finiky when you have to do any adjustments. The window on my car still isn't fully lined up properly.
THat would absolutely suck on my car one of my doors is slightly missalligned
 
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