RANT: 2-door sedans vs. coupes

"AMC/Renauledge" (n2skylark) 07/25/2019 at 18:23 • Filed to: None

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The 1987 Nissan Sentra sport coupe on top, with the (clockwise from the rear) Sentra 2-door sedan, 3-door hatchback, wagon, and 4-door sedan also available.

I always wince when anyone posts stuff about AMC !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . I wince because the comment section (if not the article itself, which was not the case this time) always fills up with misconceptions about AMC or its vehicles. This time, however, most of the misconceptions centered around this idea that 2-door sedans are a lie just like 4-door coupes are.

Look at all the different sedans and coupes Plymouth offered in 1940!

Which is bullshit. And anyone who says otherwise should die of gonorrhea and rot in hell. Would you like a cookie?

1954 Hudson Hornet Special Club Sedan. Yes, it’s an honest-to-Xenu 2-door sedan. Not a coupe.

2-door sedans and coupes coexisted ever since closed cars became popular in the 1910s, and continued to be offered side by side in the same model range well into the 1980s.

1954 Hudson Hornet Club Coupe. See the shorter roofline and rear glass? It’s not a sedan because it doesn’t share a roofline with the “sedan” models. It’s its own thing. It’s a coupe.

While different manufacturers marketed their bodystyles according to their own logic and rules, generally 2-door sedans shared their rooflines with their 4-door sedan counterparts, just with 2 longer doors and shorter rear glass rather than 4 shorter doors. Sometimes these models would be called “Club Sedans,” but they’d be 2-doors all the same. Sometimes (often in perenially tightwaddish Willys’ case) 2-door sedans would literally be 4-doors, but with the back doors welded shut.

Hudson offered 3 different 2-door Hornet bodystyles for 1954. This one is the Hollywood hardtop coupe, which was based on the convertible and Club Coupe body, but featured a special steel roof with no B-pillar.

Coupes were usually cars with foreshortened rooflines not shared with any 4-door counterparts. They tended to be cheaper, lighter, and aimed at single people rather than families. Business Coupes often took this principle to the extreme, even deleting the backseat and elongating the deck area to appeal to traveling salesfolks who needed the extra cargo area to stow samples out of sight and didn’t want to spring for outrageously expensive wood-framed station wagons.

As Business Coupes fell out of favor in the late ‘40s and ‘50s, hardtop coupes took on the “coupe” moniker and referred to 2-door models with no B-pillar at all, and a special roofline, sometimes even mimicking to look of a raised convertible top. Until the 1970s, most medium and large cars were available as 2-door sedans and hardtop coupes simultaneously. Above is a 1964 Ford Fairlane 2-door sedan, which shared its roofline with the 4-door sedan. Below is the 2-door hardtop coupe, with its own unique, sportier roofline.

Coupes retained their popularity through the 1970s and mid 1980s when sports cars and SUVs became more prolific and gave buyers more choices to express their personal styles with. 2-door versions of mainstream cars began to fall out of favor, whether they were 2-door sedans, or coupes, or both. By the 1990s, most manufacturers decided to drop their 2-door sedans in an effort to consolidate 2-door customers into cars that were more distinctive than the bland sedans they were based on. Thus, 2-door sedans began to fade away. The last to be offered in the US was probably the 2005 Toyota ECHO.

By then, every other 2-door car based on a sedan platform used a unique roofline and rear body panels compared to the 4-door version and could thus be called a “coupe.” And thus, the collective consciousness of the “2-door sedan” began to fade away.

But they’re both very much real things. And anyone who says differently is a godless communist.

SiennaMan > AMC/Renauledge 07/25/2019 at 19:19

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I gotta admit I was skeptical at first,  but having read all the way through I see your point..

Thomas Donohue > AMC/Renauledge 07/25/2019 at 19:24

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Where do you stand on the new SUV 4-door coupe thing?

[ ducks, covers head]

AMC/Renauledge > SiennaMan 07/25/2019 at 19:25

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Yeah, these days, without any 2-door sedans b eing made anymore, it makes sense that people would think that 2-doors are definitively coupes.

But that thinking doesn’t apply to vehicles of the past. The various 2-doors offered in each model line had unique names because they were distinct cars for distinct purposes that buyers needed to know in order to avoid confusion .

AMC/Renauledge > Thomas Donohue 07/25/2019 at 19:31

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I don’t care for them in terms of design or marketing . And I think that calling them coupes makes confusion too easy when manufacturers still offer 2-door and even 4-door coupes in their lineups simultaneously. Calling the liftback 5-door version of the Mercedes GLE a “coupe” when Mercedes sells a 2-door E-Class “coupe” and a 4-door CLS “coupe” is confusing.

But, strictly speaking, all 3 uses of the term “coupe” I noted above are correct relative to its longtime use as a vehicle with a lower, sportier, or more closely-coupled roofline than a standard sedan version .

So it doesn’t bother me too much.

Longtime Lurker > AMC/Renauledge 07/25/2019 at 19:41

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2 door sedan

AMC/Renauledge > Longtime Lurker 07/25/2019 at 19:48

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Definitely.

ranwhenparked > AMC/Renauledge 07/25/2019 at 20:16

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Yeah, people on the FP can be shockingly ignorant about cars for allegedly being car enthusiasts. Its not like 2-door sedans are all ancient history either, the Volkswagen Beetle was made up to 2003 (for the 2004 MY). 

AMC/Renauledge > ranwhenparked 07/25/2019 at 20:26

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Yup. And the old Beetle was called the “Volkswagen Sedan” in Mexico the entire time it was on sale .

Hell, the BMW 3-Series came as a 2-door sedan until 1999.

WilliamsSW > AMC/Renauledge 07/25/2019 at 20:34

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This is the correct take.

JeepJeremy > Longtime Lurker 07/25/2019 at 21:55

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And I think BMW still makes a 4 door coupe of some kind 

carcrazydan738 > AMC/Renauledge 07/26/2019 at 09:28

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I’m here to agree with the rest of the commenters who don’t like the 4 door coupes of today. It really grinds my gears when companies like Mercedes or BMW have a sporty sedan or cross over thing and call it a coupe. To me a coupe will always be a 2 door sporty car. Sure I know that there are 2 door sedans out there but in order for it to be a coupe for me its gotta be a bit sporty in looks and performance.