Have you ever been using something you’re very used to, something so habitual that the details and specifics of it almost disappear into a cloud of familiarity, but then find yourself suddenly confronted with the strangeness of it? Like when, say, you’re waiting in a doctor’s office and you get hungry so you pull out and assemble your portable pocket jerky-smoker to properly prepare a chunk of mutton, and then you catch a glimpse of your reflection through the smoke of the contraption in the receptionist’s window glass and it all seems wildly peculiar? I just had a situation like that.
It wasn’t my portable jerky-smoker, though, it was my 1990 Nissan Pao, and this happened when I was in an auto part store parking lot topping off my oil. As you yourself may do, I find the easiest way to add oil to my car is by opening the hood, as trying to punch my way through the hood is messy and tends to lead to unwanted body damage, to me and the car.
I opened the hood, and then started thinking about how most cars today open their hoods, and realized that I’m doing it backwards.
The Pao has a forward-hinged hood. A lot of cars of its era did, and these were really common in the ’60s through the 1990s, with, it feels like at least, a pretty good-sized spike in the 1980s.
I think at least some of the initial thinking behind these sorts of forward-opening hoods was that they would be immune to the terror of an improperly-latched hood flying open at speed and smacking into the windshield, causing loss of the ability to see where you are going, which is, of course, bad. This happened to me once on the highway in a Volvo, and it was absolutely no picnic. This reason alone, you’d think, might be enough to justify their existence.
I’ve heard people complain about engine access with forward-opening hoods, but I’ve never really found this to be a big issue.
Plus, some forward-hood-opening cars, like that Saab up there, really drop the hood down and away, and it seems like you’d have access as good to the radiator and other components up front. I mean, it’s not like most modern cars offer all that great access to the accessories and parts at the very front of the engine bay as it is. I guess you can’t lean over from the front of the engine bay, and there are contexts were that could be an issue, but overall? It’s just not that bad.
In some cases, forward-opening hoods seem to give even better access, like in this old Bugeye Sprite: [Ed note: The frame YouTube grabbed for the video preview shows a front-opening hood. I assure you, you’ll see a rear-opener when you click! – Pete]
They sort of look cool, too, especially those like on that Sprite or something like a Dodge Viper where the whole front clip seems to hinge forward.
Forward-opening hoods also offer some under-hood privacy, allowing you to sob and scream without judgment when you drop a socket down a spark plug hole or catch your tongue in a valve spring or something.
There were front trunks that opened this way, too, like on the Renault 8 and 10, and in these cases, I think maybe a rear-hinge is better.
So why are these forward-hinged hoods effectively extinct? Are modern hood latches so good that they’re now just obsolete? Is the engine access actually worse?
Does anyone else miss these sorts of hoods? I’m pretty sure it’s not just me, and I’d like to hear what you think, because I’m nosy.
I have owned two cars with forward hinged hoods and one of the cars needed a new radiator and no matter how hard I tried by wiggling, moving and angling that damn radiator, I could not get it out without removing the hood! 🙁
So for some things, a forward hinged hood does limit access to the engine compartment for servicing.
My 2020 Aston Martin DB11 has a front-hinging hood/bonnet.
Because in a crash, they can turn into a guillotine that slices through the front window and potentially your dome. With just a latch holding it down, it can pop open and the impact of the crash pushes it through the window.
Hey, I had a hood fly open on the highway in a Volvo as well! Happened in a very, very, not-good neighborhood and a suboptimal situation all around.
I loved the front hinge on our ’91 Saab 900. Plenty of access to the front of the engine compartment, and much better access to the back compared to a rear-hinged hood. Plus you usually got curious looks when you opened it up at a gas station or in public. People seemed to think it was an ‘exotic’ car with the hood open all the way. Which, in a sense, it really was.
Hood safety latches making huge strides in the windshield not hitting the windshield. If we still commonly replaced windows we would still have reverse hoods.
Hood hitting the windshield.
I like them.
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52548022975_0197f0c229_c.jpg
Crash safety, pedestrian and crumple zones. The hood is flexible with hinges in the rear.
Easier access to the engine and better ergonomics.
Manufacturing simplicity so lower costs.
I have a front-hinged bonnet on my Triumph. As it’s rather over-engined and under-radiatored, being able to open a hole at the back of the engine bay does wonders for cooling on a summer’s day.
I’ve had Saabs and BMWs with forward-hinged hoods – and of course on my Spitfire the whole front of the car is forward hinged. On the Saab, it was fine, because the engine is in there backwards anyway. So good access to the front of engine stuff that was now against the firewall, and Saab put the various fluids and the fusebox back there too. Not much you needed to get to on the radiator end, and the whole hood was very easily removable if you did need to. Clever design. On the BMW, it was mostly a pain and the hood was usually in the way. The Spitfire is great, you can sit on the front tire while you work on whatever. And given how tall I am, my back would kill me if I had to work on that thing bent over. Not that it often needs much work.
The BEST solution is what Volvo and Mercedes figured out long ago – hinges that allow the hood to go completely vertical and out of the way. Perfect access to everything from the front of the engine bay to the back. I don’t think I have seen any other makes do that.
Even better is a Wrangler. You can flip the hood past vertical and rest it on the windshield. Also, on a Jeep it’s not uncommon for me to be sitting/kneeling/standing on the front bumper when doing something under hood.
It’s likely crash safety and insurance costs as others have mentioned. Hoods flying open on the highway wasn’t common, but not super rare on old cars, but it’s not something I’ve heard of happening to anyone or seen on the side of the highway in a long time and I’d bet that if it did happen, it was due to damage/neglect/careless closing. I think the front hinge looks cool and particularly liked the way Saabs worked, but they could also be a lot worse for access depending on how they did it. E-Types come to mind—the extended phallic hood restricted the opening angle and, since it was virtually the entire front clip, when raised, the bottoms of the fenders were always readily waiting to bite. I liked that the S30 Zs front hinged and access wasn’t bad (plus it had the smaller doors on the sides of the hood), but I think they came misaligned at the front from the factory (plus the hinges had a lot of wear points) and rear hinges would have probably made that easier to fix (that or they’d just be misaligned at the vent panel).
Oh I have a story about that
A supercharged bug-eye Sprite seems like about the coolest car I’ve heard of in a long time.
It all depends on the angle of the hood when it’s open. My Scout II hood is front-hinged, and came from the factory with an unaided hood prop that stopped at about a 75˚ angle, making work on the radiator or belt system a challenge. But you could pop the bar out of the stay and put the hood up at a 90˚ angle by using a dimple pressed into the underside of the hood. I recently upgraded this to an aftermarket gas strut system, which makes opening and closing the hood easier, but locks the hood in at about an 80˚ angle.
One downside to front-hinged hoods: the fire department doesn’t often know how to get these open in the event of an engine fire, making the damage that much worse. I’ve seen the remains of a beautiful Scout and a Saab after this kind of event; they just pull out the big crowbar and absolutely mangle the front clip of the car.
Engine access is definitely worse. I’d say when I’m working on something in the engine bay, I spend at least 50% of the time standing at the front. Might even be closer to 75-80%.
Could I do the same work from the sides without too much extra difficulty? Maybe. Would things have been designed differently to make working from the sides easier if my cars had forward-opening hoods? Maybe.
They do look cool when they’re open though.
I owned a Saab 900, and the access was terrific. It’s key that the hood covered the tops of the fenders. Also owned a Renault Caravelle (R8 based) but never used the trunk anyway.
Three ways into the engine instead of two.
The end.
Having worked in a body shop in the late 1970s, in a Jag dealership that had some few other front opening hood brands and models, I can tell you that it is probably the insurance companies who put an end to this. When rear opening hood models run into something, it is rare that you would need to replace the hinge assemblies or firewall supports. There was lots of commission for me when they needed to be replaced, but not so much even with Lancias, which had inner and outer front sub-frame assemblies. Now that I’m waxing poetic, I used to make the most when someone would prang into the back of a large American car with their TR7 or TR8 at night. The headlight assemblies (all parts) and the core support that would get ripped out were gold for me. Anyway, yes, insurance companies are always the culprits.
You can blame insurers and lawyers for almost anything and not feel bad about it.
I guess we need an OEM to make a hood that opens in two ways, like old station wagon tailgates.
My 2007 Europa has a forward opening hood/bonnet. It also has a weird shaped vent in the front and, for reasons of expediency, the interior lamp mounted low between the seats.
The result of this is at night, with the bonnet and driver’s door open, you get a bat signal projected out of the front of the car.
60s Lotus solution: unhook a spring, take the hood off and lean it up against a wall. Cheap, light sliding front-pivot arrangement with no extra parts if you just need to check the oil.
That’s what I did with my track car.
Light, simple, cheap and it only came off accidentally that one time.
Fun fact, forward hinged hoods on large trucks WILL open at speed if you forget to latch it. But its ok because it will also close itself once you slow down.
I do think there is a residual fear of forward hinged hoods going back to the Chevy Vega. They had to recall them, which was a big issue back in the day. Seems when Vega’s had relatively minor front end collisions, it would send the hood through the windshield and decapitate the occupants. Not a great outcome. The fix was to install two hooks on the rear part of the hood that would grip the firewall and cause the hood to buckle instead of being like Maximilien de Robespierre and chopping off heads left and right. The Vega and Pinto had so many colorful issues, kept the 70’s entertaining.
This. The rear-edge hooks on my old BMW 6er were awe-inspiringly robust.
Imo, my w126 Mercedes has the correct approach, The hood hinges at the rear, but has two stages.
Stage 1: Normal, hood up at an angle for checking fluids and such.
Stage 2: You flip a latch on each hinge, and then can continue opening the hood until it’s standing completely vertical, and then locks in that position.
This gives you full access to the entire engine bay, unobstructed.
Here’s a photo of a w140. Most, if not all Mercedes of that era have this feature.
My favorite feature of old Mercedes is that the grilles was attached to the hood – opening with the hood and allowing easy access to the radiator for servicing and cleaning the bugs off.
This is the problem with Mercedes. At some point they had managed to answer every last question about how to make a perfect car and now they have had to move on to answering questions nobody asked. That vertical hood is now probably only available with a $700 special order software, or a subscription.
Old Subarus did that, too, though they used a strut, so you’d slide it out of the standard anchor hole and move it to a secondary mounting point located on the right strut tower to get the hood open 90*.
Front-hinged hoods look great….until upu need easy access to.something up front. I think the current standard is much easier to work with from a maintenance standpoint.
Imagine trying to put a modern Audi in the service position (aka, take the whole front of the car off) with a front-hinged hood?
I’ve never owned a car with a front-opening hood, because they’re snooty and pretentious and way to bougie for me.
The FB RX7 would like a word with you.
1985 Buick Electra’s would also like to have a word.