Swan doors

Last updated
Aston Martin V8 Vantage with swan doors Aston Martin V8 Vantage - Flickr - Alexandre Prevot (62).jpg
Aston Martin V8 Vantage with swan doors
Jaguar C-X75 concept with right side swan door open Jaguar c-x75 concept1.jpg
Jaguar C-X75 concept with right side swan door open

Swan doors or swan-wing doors are a type of door on performance cars or concept cars. Swan doors operate in a similar way to conventional car doors, but they open at an upward angle. [1]

Contents

Door

This design helps to clear curbs, especially on lower sports cars, by opening slightly upward and away from the curb. [2] The name comes from their resemblance when open to a swan with its wings open. Although there is no formal definition, swan doors are generally considered to be different from butterfly or scissor doors as they are hinged below the A pillar, open both upward and outward, and do not tilt outward like butterfly doors.

The most well known usage of swan doors is by Aston Martin, and their sister company Lagonda, who have used the design on many of their models, starting with the DB9 in 2004. [3] A number of cars from other manufacturers have also used the design, such as the Hennessey Venom GT and Vencer Sarthe. [4] Some concept cars have used swan doors as well, including the Bentley EXP 10 Speed 6 and EXP 12 Speed 6e, Nissan URGE, Bertone Nuccio, and Lamborghini Asterion.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Suicide door</span> Automobile door hinged at its opposite side rather than the front

A suicide door is an automobile door hinged at its rear rather than the front. Such doors were originally used on horse-drawn carriages, but are rarely found on modern vehicles, primarily because they are less safe than a front-hinged door. Being rear-hinged, if the vehicle was moving and the door opened, the driver/passenger would have to lean forward and out of the vehicle to close it. As seat belts were not in common use at that time, the risk of falling out of the car and into traffic was high, hence the name "suicide door".. Another reason could have been that while a door was open on a city street, a speeding car moving in the same direction as the parked car could rip a front-hinged door off the parked car but someone in side the adjacent seat, even if moving to leave the car, could not get scratched. However, with a suicide door, someone inside or partially outside the passenger compartment would get struck by the suicide door forcefully swinging back to a shut position due to the impact of the speeding car.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aston Martin Vanquish</span> Aston Martin luxury vehicle

The Aston Martin Vanquish is a grand tourer introduced by British luxury automobile manufacturer Aston Martin in 2001 as a successor to the Aston Martin Vantage (1993).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aston Martin Bulldog</span> Motor vehicle

The Aston Martin Bulldog, styled by William Towns, is a British, one-off concept vehicle produced by Aston Martin in 1979. The code name for the project was DP K901. Initially, a production run of 15–25 cars was planned, but the project was deemed too costly and only one was built.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aston Martin DB7</span> Aston Martin vehicle

The Aston Martin DB7 is a car which was produced by British luxury car manufacturer Aston Martin from September 1994 to December 2004. It was designed by Ian Callum and Keith Helfet as a grand tourer in coupé and convertible bodystyles. The prototype was complete by November 1992 and debuted at the Geneva Motor Show in March 1993. The six-cylinder DB7 was positioned as an "entry-level" model below the hand-built V8 Virage introduced a few years earlier. This model was the most-produced Aston Martin automobile up to that point in time, with more than 7,000 built before it was replaced by the DB9 in 2004.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shooting brake</span> Car body style

Shooting-brake is a car body style which originated in the 1890s as a horse-drawn wagon used to transport shooting parties with their equipment and game.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gull-wing door</span> Car door hinged at the roof

In the automotive industry, a gull-wing door, also known as a falcon-wing door or an up-door, is a car door that is hinged at the roof rather than the side, as pioneered by Mercedes-Benz 300 SL, first as a race car in 1952 (W194), and then as a production sports car in 1954.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Butterfly doors</span> Type of car door

Butterfly doors are a type of car door sometimes seen on high-performance cars. They are slightly different from scissor doors. While scissor doors move straight up via hinge points at the bottom of a car's A-pillar, butterfly doors move up and out via hinges along the A-pillar. This makes for easier entry and exit, at the expense of requiring more side clearance than needed for scissor doors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aston Martin Virage</span> Series of luxury cars by Aston Martin

The Aston Martin Virage is an automobile produced by British luxury automobile manufacturer Aston Martin as a replacement for its V8 models. Introduced at the Birmingham Motor Show in 1988, it was joined by the high-performance Vantage in 1993, after which the name of the base model was changed to V8 Coupe in 1996.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aston Martin Vantage (2005)</span> Motor vehicle

The Aston Martin Vantage is a series of hand-built sports cars from the British automotive manufacturer Aston Martin. Aston Martin has previously used the "Vantage" name on high-performance variants of their existing GT models, notably on the Virage-based car of the 1990s. The modern car, in contrast, is the leanest and most agile car in Aston's lineup. As such, it is intended as a more focused model to reach out to potential buyers of cars such as the Porsche 911 as well as the exotic sports and GT cars with which Aston Martins traditionally compete.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scissor doors</span> Type of car door

Scissor doors are automobile doors that rotate vertically at a fixed hinge at the front of the door, rather than outward as with a conventional door.

A glossary of terms relating to automotive design.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aston Martin Rapide</span> Motor vehicle

The Aston Martin Rapide is a sports saloon car, built by the British marque Aston Martin from 2010 to 2020. It has four doors and four seats. It was first presented as a concept car at the North American International Auto Show in 2006 and the production version was shown at the 2009 Frankfurt Motor Show.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Car door</span> Type of door, typically hinged to the body of a car

A car door is a type of door opening, typically hinged on its front edge, but sometimes attached by other mechanisms such as tracks, for entering and exiting a vehicle. Doors most often integrate side windows for visibility from inside the car and can be locked to secure the vehicle.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sliding door (car)</span>

A sliding door is a type of door that is mounted on or suspended from a track for the door to slide, usually horizontally and outside. It is a feature predominantly found in minibuses, buses, and vans, so as to allow a large unobstructed access to the interior for loading and unloading of passengers or cargo without the doors interfering with adjacent space.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aston Martin Atom</span> Motor vehicle

The Aston MartinAtom is a prototype automobile built by Aston Martin (AM). Construction of the car began in 1939 and was completed in 1940. The Atom is one of the first fully functional concept cars ever built. Aston Martin explored several new technologies with the Atom, and its chassis design was the basis for the platform used by AM's post-war models well into the late 1950s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BMW Z</span> Series of sports car models produced by BMW

The BMW Z models are a line of roadsters manufactured by German automaker BMW. The Z stands for zukunft, and has been produced in four different series with six generations consisting of roadster, coupé, sports car, and concept variants.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aston Martin CC100</span> Motor vehicle

The Aston Martin CC100 Speedster is a concept car produced by the British car company Aston Martin to celebrate its 100th anniversary, announced in May 2013 at the ADAC Zurich 24 Hours of Nürburgring race. Only two were produced and both were sold to very loyal customers. One of the owners plans to keep it in his private collection, while the owner of the second car plans to get regulatory approval so it can be driven on public roads.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aston Martin Vulcan</span> Track-only sports car

The Aston Martin Vulcan is a two-door, two-seat, high-performance lightweight track-only car launched in 2015 by British luxury automobile manufacturer Aston Martin at the 2015 Geneva Motor Show.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aston Martin Valkyrie</span> Hybrid sports car

The Aston Martin Valkyrie is a limited production hybrid sports car collaboratively built by British automobile manufacturers Aston Martin, Red Bull Racing Advanced Technologies and several others.

References

  1. "Which unusual car door is most awesome?". Field Notes: The Turo blog. 2018-02-09. Retrieved 2019-01-20.
  2. DeMuro, Doug. "Here Are All The Weird Quirks On My Aston Martin V8 Vantage". Jalopnik. Retrieved 2019-01-19.
  3. "Aston Martin - Rapide S". me.astonmartin.com. Retrieved 2019-01-19.
  4. Toma, Sebastian (2018-09-10). "Eccentric Doors - Your Guide to The Difference Between Butterfly And Dihedral". autoevolution. Retrieved 2019-01-19.