This fact became the topic of discussion a little while back on the platform that truly delves into the depths of automotive minutia: the Autopian Slack channel. Here, the website staff feverishly takes on topics like frunks and OEM wheels when admittedly we should be writing posts. Preparing a posting about an Australian Cars & Coffee that David had attended, he mused about how there is an acceptance and possibly even a preference for four doors down under:
Was that a command? I couldn’t tell, and nobody responded, but I assumed I might be the one that had to take a look since a.) I do that sort of stupid Photoshop crap and b.) if boomer muscle car fans get mad about messing with their sacred cows they can type angry U AR GONNA GiT IT BOY GoBBLESS messages but I’m anonymous so good luck finding me. Anyway, as David noted, in Australia four door muscle cars don’t just exist but they are highly revered. This respect came the hard way as well; sedans competed and emerged victorious in grueling races like Australia’s own Bathurst 1000 or the World Cup Rally. That’s right- the Targa Florio stickers on that Leyland P76 below aren’t like LeMans logos on a Pontiac. A P76 competed in the 1974 World Cup Rally and won the Targa Florio section and placed 13th overall; this from a car with a trunk sized to accommodate a 44 gallon drum. (Freaky Jason Detail Alert! The P76 is like most seventies Australian cars in that it has no separate backup lights; the amber rear turn signals illuminate simultaneously when you put it into reverse).
source: wikimedia The Bathurst 1000 is sort of like Australia’s Indy 500, if the Indianapolis track was four miles long, had 23 turns, and changed elevation nearly 600 feet. This intense race has very often been run in four door saloon cars, and the late Peter Brock won it nine times. Brock had a road version of the 1985 Holden Commodore VK HDT Group A he competed in, and this daily driver of his sold recently for $1.057 million Australian. However, even without celebrity history, the sale price of a car would likely still be stratospheric.
source: Drive and Carsguide Arguably the Holy Grail of these four doors is the Ford Falcon GT HO Phase III from 1971. It came about its notoriety from what is considered the most famous photo ever to appear in Wheels, the Australian car magazine. The journalist and photographer (in the back seat) had overslept; they needed to get the Phase III press car back to Melbourne, 200 miles away, in two hours. They pulled into Ford HQ fifteen minutes early; that’s the needle of the speedometer on the right nudging past 140 miles an hour.
source: whichcar Despite looking a bit like the Falcon your Great Aunt Jane used to drive to Grace Methodist Church every Sunday, the GT HO was reportedly rock steady at that pace. Mad Max antics like that helped to push this thing into legend status. Legends don’t come cheap, and even without any celebrity provenance whatsoever an example sold not long ago for $1.3 million Australian.
source: whichcar Why are Americans so averse to hot sedans? Do four doors really mean mom-and-the-kids? Does the performance suffer that badly? The competition victories in Australia say no. What about appearance? I’m not going to lie and say that there isn’t a sleekness to two doors, but would adding four doors to some muscle car icons really kill them, or their fans? Let’s Photoshop a few and take a look at, say, a 1969 Charger and a 1969 GTO:
source: Favcars, Barrett Jackson, and The Bishop Well, nobody died, right? I think neither of these look too bad. In fact, the mock GTO in the picture below is NOT a Photoshop but a Real Thing. The builder took some serious liberties with his creation but the end result is, to my eyes at least, pretty damn nice.
source: Hot Rod I’m all in for making four door versions of these famous cars, even today; it isn’t a difficult task to do since mechanical upgrades and front clips typically just bolt on regardless of the number of doors on the passenger compartment. Purists will scream but, if we can just throw build sheets and Marti reports out of the window for a moment, why can’t we make it easier for the whole family to enjoy the smell of burning tires? Can we finally be like our friends down in Oz and accept four doors as serious street machines? Think you’re too cool to drive a muscle sedan? Come back to me when you’ve won as many Bathursts as Brocky, mate. Australian-market cars tended to have shorter overhangs which makes their proportions almost more European – when the original Ford Falcon was adapted for Australian production they took some length off the ute and wagon versions, allegedly to prevent scraping on rough dirt roads or steep driveways. If you look at a side view of the XY Falcon the proportions look more balanced than on an American sedan of the same era – or maybe it’s my bias creeping in. Would Americans look at that and think it’s oddly short and stumpy? https://assets.primecreative.com.au/s3/cougar-assets/momo-media/17157181/ford-falcon-xy-gtho-sideview.jpg There was also a Brougham for a couple of years which just had an extended c pillar to create a premium model with more second row space and no changes to the doors. Australian market was just too small to drive all the model types so even the coupes have carry over parts also not sure there was as much $$ in the middle class. All the racing was driven by win on Sunday sell on Monday mentality. The high priced sedans generally all have racing provenance and homologation efforts. Still big premium on 2 door models in Australia when you compare apples to apples. Whether it be a falcon coupe, early monaro, valiant charger, torana etc. The Leyland p76 is calling out for a deep dive review. Odd car, unfortunate story and some interesting tech for a locally made car at that time in Australia. I think the difference in context is that the Falcon and Holden sedans were considered the standard ‘full-size’ cars of the time in Australia (despite being ‘compacts’ in the US), so they set the design benchmark going forward and get seen as ‘normal’ by people here. Meanwhile, the common ‘full-size’ cars in the US were a size category larger and had the massive overhangs, which are what I thought look a bit off. Because of proportions, fastback sedans really become hatchbacks, like the Saab 900 or Rover SD1 (both of those peg the cool meter if you ask me). Or today’s current crop of sedans that are fastbacks BUT substitute hatch doors for tiny trunk lids so loading cargo is akin to stuffing a mailbox. In the 90’s (possibly before, but I only know what I was around for), it seemed like any 60’s / 70’s GM that was still rust-free enough to paint could be easily turned into clone of a desired version of the car on the same chassis. I feel like that’s when people started to go nuts on the ‘numbers matching’ thing because there were so many clones around. But four doors are so much cheaper that nobody is going to care if you mess with it and turn it into something more desirable. Almost thirty years later… guess what was still around?? GM’s loss was Ford’s gain https://www.theautopian.com/could-a-two-door-model-pull-a-coup-detat-on-boring-crossovers/ https://www.curbsideclassic.com/automotive-histories/the-most-obscure-special-editions-and-forgotten-limited-run-models-mopar-edition-part-iii-a-trip-to-aspen/ Regarding four-door cars, it took BMW, Audi, and the Lancia Integrale in the 80’s to start making four-door cars cool for actual driving. For that, I am grateful. I think a good sport sedan or hatchback is the ideal automobile design. That sounds so bitchin’ They’re as popular now with the contemporary version of the crowd that was drawn to the originals it seems. The Chevy II and Impala, up to the mid-60s, could have the SS package ordered on all models- including 4 doors and wagons. Later, you could get the impala with a 427 and 4 speed with any body style but not the SS package. I recently saw a Holden 215, and was reminded of its peculiar posterior lighting arrangement; It had only one central brake/taillight, as they weren’t required by law here until the late 50s, and GM was apparently tight-ass enough to test that regulation. This got me thinking; “What if cars were still only required to have one taillight (and perhaps headlight)?” Think of wacky 60s ford afterburners! alien looking citroëns, and what would the 80s heckblende-era have looked like if lights had never traversed as far as the corners of the automobile? (Bonus trivia – less than 500 Targa Florios were built, and only 73 in Aspen Green as per the car in the picture) https://www.whichcar.com.au/features/leyland-force-7v-flashback Just saw the pretty good Samaritan movie with one of my sons the other night – a lot of tributes to Robocop in it, so I loved it.. – and I imediately thought the main bad guy car was something Australian beneith all that grey paint, but it was “just” a four door Gran Torino: https://pics.imcdb.org/5169/6.358.jpg The GTO is great, though a bit of slope would help it as well. An AMC Hornet would look good with 4 doors. Tried a more sloping roof or side pillars in back but just not working since the trunk isn’t long enough. Ended up looking like a hatchback. Still, look at those Aussie cars- they don’t even pretend to be coupes.
