With more and more new models coming out, it seems like they have all turned to the chop top look of the 300/Charger. They may not look like it from the outside, but when I drive newer cars at work, being a tech, I find that they have larger blind spots and the bottom of the side windows are getting higher. No I don't sit in the basement when I have to test drive a car.

My big complaint is that the a pillar seems to be getting much larger. There has been two occasions that I can think of where I've gone to pull of the parking lot of our shop. I would look around to check traffic and the a pillar was partly in my line of sight when looking to the left.

Is this going to become of the norm because of certain regulations that are being passed? I love the 300/Charger HEMI cars and wouldn't mind owning one. I do understand the blind spot in those cars, because of the design. I think it is something I can live with and accept. But these other cars, Forester/09 Vibe etc, I wouldn't expect to have similar line-of-sight problems.

 

tougher impact standards...

 

I think the high belt line look started off as a trend but as people seemed to become more accepting of it, engineers took advantage of it for the advantages it provided in chassis strength, safety, road noise, etc.

 

I was of the mind that windows were shrinking in an effort to reduce the knuckleheads who dont wear seatbelts from being thrown form the vehicle - IMO

 

Is ejection from side windows really that common?

 

Good question, wish I could say for sure, but I've seen it happen. It just seemed to me a shorter side window would minimize yet another point a body can be tossed from the car.

 

I've definitely noticed the high belt-line on new cars. I don't think the tops are getting chopped, I think it's just the top of the side doors are just getting taller.

I don't like it.

 

I don't think the short side windows contribute that much to chassis strength. The door's only attached to the chassis by three or four points so it doesn't add much to the overall strenth of the structure ... so the ratio of steel vs. glass isn't a big deal. I think the trend is mostly for style; the higher beltline definitely makes the car *look* more substantial.

Regarding the A-pillars, they're getting thicker for chassis strength (it definitely matters here), plus airbags are installed on them now too.

 

I would guess not, but have you ever seen a car where the bottom of the windshield was at a different level than the bottom of the side windows? I suspect that's a styling no-no, and so if you want to raise the cowl, you have to raise the beltline too.

That said, I don't think that the rising cowls and beltlines has much, if anything, to do with passenger ejection.

 

Actually quite a few cars, if not the majority, are like this. Most hide it by using the side mirror to blend it ... the cowl lines up with the top of the side mirror and the greenhouse starts at the bottom. A couple of the more noticeable examples are the LT1 Camaro and first-gen CTS; they go so far as to project the mirror's lines down most of the front fender. But most modern cars do this to some degree.

 

I think you probably come the closest to nailing the reason.

It is about style, but it also likely plays a role in side impact safety as well. The door may be attached to the body at onlt 3 points, but the door itself has provide protection.

 

There is also this mysterious law in Europe requiring 4 inches of space between the hood and the engine, in the case of a pedestrian impact.

This raises the beltline by a few inches - take a look at new cars, outside of Corvetter, nobody really has a low hood/beltline. Jaguar compensates by having a hood that blows up 4 inches when it detects frontal impact.

This is what I think is the reason for it.

My Mazda's A-pillar is atrocious. The Audi that I have is significantly smaller, AND it has airbags in the a-pillars. As for strength of chassis... I wouldn't even compare the tin-can mazda to the audi. So, I'm not sure if that thick a-pillar is that necessary, or whether it's a cost-cutting measure of using more cheaper, lesser strength metals.

 

The side impact protection comes from the beams inside the door, not the sheetmetal itself. And the beams are a lot lower in the door structure than the glass/sheetmetal transition area. Whether the glass starts 2 or 3 inches higher or lower, has very little effect on the door structure's ability to withstand a hit.

 

I have been ranting about this for several years now. The Chrysler 300C kinda started it (well, the LX cars in general), or at least started it toward being mainstream. The new Malibu has it. The new Buick Lacrosse is even worse. The Volt might as well have gun slits for windows (though they curiously disguised the fact by painting the area just under the windows black, making the greenhouse look less crushed).

We don't need to go back to the old school early '90s Park Avenue, Aurora, etc. But a look at the G8, for example, shows that you can make a very stylish car without entombing the passengers.

The new Camaro has this problem big time as well, by the way. It's my main beef with the car, besides being a little heavier than I'd hoped.

 

x2.