SlashGear Japan
Back in the days before everything was done on computers and changes of design could be actioned with a few rough tweaks of an innocent mouse, rich car companies would commission expensive concepts featuring whatever crazy feature they thought would make them another few billion. One such example has just turned up on eBay – a 1993 Lincoln Mark VIII prototype with disappearing doors.
The brainchild of executives concerned about narrow parking spaces, the one-off concept was created by Jaalta Design Inc. (who still own the many patents covering its mechanics). Handleless doors – one to each side – rapidly retract under the floor of the car from a plip on the remote control, and although only one of them is currently working (on the passenger side) the other could apparently be coaxed back into life by a determined engineer. Make sure to check out the video of the door in action!
As of writing the bidding has reached $19,000 (not yet meeting the reserve); expensive for a fourteen year old car with 43,250 miles on the clock but pretty cheap for a piece of unique auto history. Expect to see similar doors appearing on pimped-out showcars soon.
eBay listing [via Autoblog]
9 Responses to “Lincoln concept has disappearing doors”
niclet July 10, 2007
Wow! amazing. But what about in a rainy day or a winter storm!!??
-1Bob Cheney July 11, 2007
cool all cars should be like this
-1bahath July 11, 2007
i like ur model very much. i like to do a paper presentation on this model so i want more information in this model so please send to my e-mail ID.
-8Kamarin Lee July 12, 2007
VERY COOL! It looks like a version of Robo-Cop’s patrol car…or a different version of the DeLorean from Back to the Future 2…
-1JS July 12, 2007
That’s very interesting and the video proves the concept seems to work smoothly and quickly. However, what would the safety rating be in the event of a side impact? I imagine it wouldn’t be a pretty sight.
Neutraldrapes July 12, 2007
I think it probably was not put into production due to side impact concerns. The governement wouldn’t allow a car with some sort of solid crash bar along the door, and that design probably wouldn’t be able to support that.
+1drapes July 12, 2007
Correction, the government wouldn’t allow a car WITHOUT side impact bars.
NeutralNextLevel July 12, 2007
the doors open with co2, so you have to fill the tanks or the doors won’t open.
the driver door is broken..
the under carriage is pretty busted up looking along with atleast one door having a big chip in the paint..
not wourth 20k+ for a 14 yr old car, could buy a car like that for around 5k in mint shape, it would not cost 15k to do that to the doors, and since it was done so long ago, there is prolly better ways to actually do it.
all that said it is neat looking.
NeutralMatt July 12, 2007
How are you suppose to pop the hood if the battery goes dead?
Neutral