Ford aims to outclass Rolls-Royce with an innovative suicide door patent
Ford may introduce rear-hinged rear doors on its premium vehicles someday in the future, CarBuzz reports referring to a recently discovered patent application. The so-called “suicide doors” are already a thing in Rolls-Royce cars as well as some luxury and tuning cars (see video), but Ford ups the game by getting rid of the b-pillars.
Production cars almost never feature this door design due to numerous limitations. One exception that comes to mind is the Mazda RX-8, but you cannot swing its rear door open separately from the front one. The b-pillars generally help keep the body of the car rigid, protecting the passengers from injuries during collisions.
Ford has apparently found a way to work around these design limitations. The company proposes using swinging doors that you can open individually from one another thanks to reinforced locking mechanisms built into the floor and the roof instead of the b-pillar. When both doors are closed, their edges join to form a sturdy pillar not unlike the standard middle pillar in traditional cars, thanks to integrated stainless-steel frame parts.
Furthermore, the manufacturer proposes to equip this system with servomotors and environmental sensors so that the car would determine when it is safe to open any given door and by how much – this can come in handy, for example, when the car is parked in a tight spot.
It remains unclear when – or whether – any of this technology may trickle down to the mass market. In the patent application, Ford argues that the innovation will make its cars more comfortable.
Editor Andrew Raspopov
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