In the distant past, automakers used to build one model with sometimes half a dozen or maybe more body styles. Take the second-generation Ford Fairlane as an example. In the late 1950s, you could have purchased your Fairlane as a two-door hardtop, two-door coupe, two-door convertible, four-door hardtop, four-door wagon, four-door sedan, and a coupe utility! Whew, I hope you weren’t holding your breath while you were reading that. Today, you won’t really find that much variation for one model. I suppose the platform sharing of today is sort of similar, but not quite exact. With that in mind, what four-door should have been a two-door? What two-door should have been four-door?
Even back then, some cars were available with just a few body styles. The 1969 Dodge Charger in the topshot did not start life as a sedan but as a two-door hardtop. Our talented dreaming secret designer the Bishop imagined what would happen if Dodge had sold it as a four-door sedan. Wild, right? On the flip side, the new Charger will be a coupe, just like in 1969!
I’m going to come from left field on this one. The Dodge Magnum was a great wagon. Sure, the interior was plastic fantastic, but some people have gotten around that by installing the interiors from current generation Chargers. The Magnum SRT8, specifically, sounds like an American V8-lover’s dream. You get a 6.1-liter V8 making 425 horsepower and 420 pound-feet of twist, rear-wheel-drive, and sprints to 60 mph in 5.1 seconds. It’s a sleek wagon that still holds up today.
Now, let’s make it better. First, I’d add a manual transmission. Then, I’d chop off two doors. Oh yeah, Dodge Magnum SRT8 shooting brake!
Here’s another: The Volkswagen Phaeton was something special. Built during the terrifying, wacky reign of Ferdinand Piëch, these were super sedans with the luxury and raw power of a Bentley, but restrained style of a Volkswagen. Here, just read a blip from my article on it:
Piëch allegedly set ten standards for which the Phaeton was to meet. Apparently, most of these standards never reached the public, but the few that did perfectly illustrate why the Phaeton is adored by hardcore Volkswagen fans. One requirement doesn’t sound all that sexy, but it was that the vehicle needed a torsional rigidity of 37,000 N·m/degree.
Another is that the Phaeton needed to reach 190 mph without vibrations. And maybe the most absurd, but the Phaeton needed to able to drive all day at 186 mph in 120 degree temperatures while keeping the cabin at a cozy 71.6 degrees.
How do you make the Phaeton even more hardcore? Let’s chop off those two rear doors. I’m not talking about making a Bentley Continental GT, but taking the Phaeton as it is and just shortening it into a sleek Volkswagen sports car. I’d buy that!
[Ed Note: The answer to this is simple:
Bring me back the regular cabs! -DT]
Here’s where I turn things to you. What four-door do you think would have been cooler as a two-door? What two-door really should have been a four-door? If you’re feeling really silly, tell me what should become a limo.
The ’68-70 Charger should absolutely have been offered as a 4-door hardtop, but not a post sedan like the lead image.
Chryco didn’t have a midsize 4-door h/t but had had the bones for one in the “too small full size” ’62-64 Plymouth and Dodge that were the base of all subsequent B- and R-bodies up to 1981.
928 4 door.
https://www.carscoops.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Porsche-928-H50.jpg
This just made me want to fantasy shop a Phaeton and then recoil in horror. Anything that has that Ae thing going on, like a Tool album or a Flux animation, you can’t trust em.
But man are they alluring. Aside from the Tool album. A great album no doubt but I forget why I added it to this analogy which failed.
The Subaru Baja should have been a two door
A Subaru Braja?
Okay DT. You go spend 50k of your own money on a brand new, regular cab pickup truck.
Speaking as a contractor/builder, regular cab pickups are wildly over hyped and romanticized.
What is the general public’s fascination with the 8 ft bed? Why do regular people pretend to care about the mythical sheet of plywood with the tail gate closed?
Straight up, if your business involves carrying mass amounts of material, you should just get a box truck, enclosed trailer or an extended van.
Better yet, if you have the option, pay some other schmuck to deliver it for you. It’s almost always the better choice if you value your time, and if something happens during transit, they are contractually obliged to send another.
The real win of a pickup truck is having a tough space to hold unpleasant items, separate from the occupancy area. Dirty, dusty tools, muddy wheelbarrow, a concrete mixer, fume emitting power equipment, tanks of gasoline (or even worse, diesel.) Bags of garbage. Greasy car parts. Slimy outboard motor. You’ll notice all of these items fit adequately in basically any size of bed.
If the pickup is owned by an individual or even a small company, it’s basically insane to spend new vehicle money on a truck that can’t carry 4+ people.
The only members of the general public buying regular cab pickup trucks NEW are old men as their ‘last truck’. It will basically be a toy to assist in their personal hobbies and projects around the house, which they are doing as slowly and laboriously as possible in the name of staying busy. (Their wife will have another car anyway)
Other than that, there will always be fleet buyers who would be happy to save the money on vehicles to equip their 1-2 person crews. That said, if the choice were taken away from them, they would simply adjust and move on. The only applications I can see being critical would be day-use chassis cabs.
This makes so much sense. I had a regular cab pickup as my first car, I loved the truck but hated that it was a regular cab. It was a constant source of annoyance, other than being an excuse not to drive my group of friends around, haha.
does this one count? Hyundai Veloster could go either way, Hyundai has right and left hand drive versions, so it would be pretty easy to make a 2 door or a 4 door.
Apart from a four-door Miata (which definitely is not the answer), I haven’t seen anyone suggest a Mazda. Certainly a revived MX coupe version of the 3 or any potential RWD 6 successor (an update of the beautiful final-gen MX-6 would be fine), or even a three-door 3³ hatchback, would be fun. But Mazda is going all in on crossovers – understandably, considering the constraints on their development budget – so blocking off the back doors to the +2-sized back seat of the CX-30 and going all in on a turbo rally version would distinguish it even further from the rest of the subcompact CUV crowd.
Although I wouldn’t mind one as it is, the Ford Focus RS should have been a 2 door.
Porsche Taycan. Tesla Model 3. And a 3-door Chevy Bolt hatchback would be sweet.
I’d like a Suburban with 6 doors.
The 3rd gen Twingo should’ve been a 2-door, it was one of the defining elements of the Twingo. But they had to go and badge-engineer a four-door platform. At least they moved the engine to the right place.
Pretty much any 2-door passenger station wagon was dumb, as history came to prove with the complete disappearence of that body style decades ago. Don’t get me wrong, I love 2-door station wagons, they tend to look amazing, and to be clear I’m not counting shooting brakes as 2-door station wagons, but ultimately a 2-door family car is a very dumb proposition.
The Mégane 4 RS should have been a 2 door dammit!