Do You Have A Favorite Shatchback?

There’s a fascinating type of car, that at first seems like one of the most regular cars you can think of. It’s a four-door sedan, right? But looking at the dimensions, it’s obvious it’s a hatchback first and foremost, with a trunk grafted on. Over the years this has been done well, or cooked up hastily, resulting in some terrible looking three-box cars.

This differs from the introduction of a model range (for example, the Ford Mondeo) where you have a four-door sedan, a five-door liftback and a wagon all available from the get-go: instead, the sedan is often brought to the market later to bring in buyers that wouldn’t for some reason choose the regular hatchback, often sold under its own model name.

It’s a sort of a hatchback backlash: perhaps luggage should travel in its own distinct compartment and not share cabin space with the passengers.

The Volkswagen Jetta is one of the earliest examples of this. The Mk1 Jetta was introduced in 1979, five years after the Mk1 Golf and Rabbit hit the market. With North American sedan buyers in mind, Volkswagen created a seemingly larger car just by engineering a trunk onto the 1974 Golf’s rear end.

The result was a large and tall enclosed cargo area and a more formal three-box design that didn’t completely look like an afterthought, even if it was developed from a smaller econobox. Especially in four door form, the longer Jetta reached a bit above its Golf origins. Volkswagen replicated this with the second generation Jetta, introduced a year later than the Mk2 Golf, seen in this 1988 VW lineup photo from 1988.

Earlier, Volkswagen had had a go at this with the smaller Polo from 1975, which spawned the two-door Derby sedan variant in 1977.

Interestingly, the second generation 1981 Polo was initially available as an upright “Steilheck” wagonback only, with a more regular shaped hatchback (Polo Coupe) introduced a couple years later, to join the wagon and Derby sedan. The near vertical rear wasn’t as palatable as VW had imagined. The first generation Polo was also sold as an Audi 50, but the second gen wasn’t, and the 50 never got a sedan.

Ford’s front-wheel-drive Escort also got a sedan variant in Europe, but not in America. While Ford Europe started selling the sedan, called Orion, in 1983, the American Escort was sold as hatchback and wagon only, with the Escort-derived Tempo bridging the gap between the Escort and the Taurus. The Orion was likely deemed too small, and it’s not difficult to see the Tempo as the FWD version of the Ford Sierra (Merkur XR4ti in the States).

With the Orion, Ford was also able to appeal to buyers that had preferred the ruler-straight lines of the earlier Taunus/Cortina to the round 1982 Sierra, which only got a sedan version at the 1987 facelift.

This also brought the Sierra further away from its Probe concept car roots, seen above in this design studio shot. You can read more about this period from Adrian’s earlier piece.

The sedan Sierra, also marketed as the Sierra Sapphire, was an interesting notchback development of a far more round car, yet the redesign looked satisfying. It also coincided with the modernizing facelift that brought the Sierra larger headlights and integrated indicators instead of the television shaped headlights of the earlier car.

Ford also created an RS Cosworth version of the Sapphire, which certainly helped improve its image. Later ones were available with four-wheel-drive.

Saab’s 900 and 9000 also gained sedan versions years after the originals were introduced. With the 900, the story is somewhat convoluted: the 900 was based on the 99, which was first and foremost a sedan when it came on sale in 1968, with the three-door “Combi Coupé” introduced in 1974. The longer 900 was sold from 1978, and for the first years, only the Combi Coupé version was sold (with three or five doors), with the sedan only joining in 1981. Saab’s designers managed to combine the curving side window line with a low sedan rear, in a way that looks quite harmonious. It was sold in two- and four door-form, and the two-door 900 also formed the rear half of the 99/900 mashup called Saab 90.

For the 9000, the range started in 1985 as the 9000 CC with five doors, with the 9000 CD sedan sold from 1988. Saab didn’t drop the ball here, as the 9000 CD was smooth work.

For a really good looking hatchback derived sedan, you have to go to the 1999 Jetta, which was sold as the Volkswagen Bora in Europe. It’s one of the rare occasions where you can hardly tell where the design originally started, as the Bora/Jetta only shares its front doors with the Mk4 Golf: earlier Jettas had used Golf rear doors as well.

The roofline and rear quarters of the Jetta Mk4 have a pleasing swoop, instead of the pronounced back of the ‘90s Mk3 version that’s genuinely “Oops! All Trunk!”. As a result, the Mk4’s cargo area isn’t cavernous, but maybe it’s not a bad sacrifice when the design is so easy on the eye.

The sixth generation Jetta was far more its own car than earlier Jettas, as it didn’t share any body panels with the corresponding Mk6 Golf.

The 1990s Seat Toledo is the opposite of a hatchback derived sedan: it’s technically based on the Mk2 Jetta, but it’s a hatchback that looks like a sedan. Instead of a small trunk opening, it has a large fifth door hinged above the rear window, not terribly dissimilar to a Dodge Shadow/Plymouth Sundance.

Another reversal of the process is the AMC Gremlin, which was just an AMC sedan with the rear sliced off – and that showed, too.

Japanese manufacturers have also had a go at creating sedans out of hatchbacks. Take the second generation Suzuki Swift, which was sold as the Suzuki Cultus in its home market and the Geo Metro in the United States. In 1989, Suzuki supplemented the range with a sedan, which it called the Cultus Esteem. The Esteem name would return with the Baleno’s sedan version, which was also sold in North America. That’s the Better Call Saul car.

The Swift’s sedan derivative was also built in India for over a decade, as the Maruti 1000, and despite having just a 970cc engine it was considered nearly luxurious compared to the small hatchbacks that had been dominating the Indian market up to that point. It’s amazing what the addition of a trunk can do.

While the Mk2 Jetta was produced in China for ever and ever, French manufacturers competing with Volkswagen have also created their own “Jettas” there, out of cars that didn’t get sedan versions in their original markets. A good example of this is the Citroen ZX, which was quite successfully refreshed into a sedan for the Chinese market in the late 1990s.

A less good looking car is the 2006 Peugeot 206 sedan, which was initially introduced for the Iranian market, but which has also been sold in Eastern Europe, Turkey, Russia and some of the Balkan countries. The sedan bodywork just somehow hangs on top of the rest of the car, like it was draped on it.

One of the likely worst looking examples is the Renault Symbol, based on the second generation Renault Clio. The C-pillars of the Clio hatchback are so pronounced, with a waterfall roundness to them, that it’s really difficult to integrate a trunk smoothly into that rear end, and it shows. The trunk just looks huge and nothing less than an afterthought, even if there only was a year’s gap between the hatch and the sedan’s introduction.

The Symbol/Thalia also suffers from the same visual problem as the 206 Sedan and the Mk3 Jetta: there’s a lot of stuff above and behind the rear wheel, which is also quite a bit forwards. You’re just driving a huge trunk around. The other thing is that when you’re building a bigger car out of a small hatchback, the rear seat space often remains unchanged.

The Symbol wasn’t even sold in mainland France, but in Eastern Europe, Middle East, and in South America, sometimes as the Renault Thalia. In Mexico, it was badged as the Nissan Platina.

A far better looking Renault was the late ’70s Renault 7, or Siete, which was a sedan version of the R5 or “Le Car.” Should it have been sold in the States?

The UK-based motoring website Petrolblog has taken to calling these sedan hatchbacks “Shatchbacks”. While that’s certainly a mouthful, it’s a term that’s stuck at least in parts of Weird Car Twitter and “Weirdcarbs” aka Weird Car Bluesky.

My personal favorites in a Sickos-Yes sort of way are the Skoda Fabia sedan and the Nissan Versa, especially in the light fudge sort of metallic brown that they always seemed to be. I also like the Toyota Echo, probably because we never got it here in Europe. It’s just a Yaris with a trunk, and it was even sold as the Echo Coupe in two door form. Make mine beige.

(Top image: Volkswagen)