At one time, full-size cars with two doors littered the American highways. Why were they so popular, and what happened to them?
Imagine a full-size Chevrolet Suburban or Lincoln Navigator whose only access points were two enormous doors over 6 feet long and weighing as much as a small refrigerator. Sounds illogical, no?
Yet if you, your parents or your grandparents grew up in the 1950s, `60s, and `70s, this was one of the most popular automotive designs of the day.
Back then, SUVs were nearly nonexistent. American families relied on a full-size station wagon or car to get to and fro. While most of these vehicles had four doors, a significant number employed only two. Although technically a two-door sedan, auto execs branded these behemoths “coupés,” and they sold faster than beaded bracelets at a Taylor Swift concert.
Credit: SPECIAL
Credit: SPECIAL
It’s hard to say what the attraction was.
Perhaps driving a coupe, albeit one nearly twice the size of a Mazda Miata, engendered a sense of individuality, a last gasp at the swinging single lifestyle one had before getting married and raising a family. Or maybe it was just a generational thing, passed on from the heyday of America’s love affair with the car when everything was better bigger — even two-door coupes.
Two-door luxury coupes were once considered status symbols
For the better part of three decades, there were two types of big luxury coupes. Like the Cadillac Coupe de Ville, one was simply a two-door version of its sedan counterpart. Yet, Cadillac’s big coupe sold in huge numbers, making up nearly one-third of all sales for the 1976 model.
The other was a dedicated coupebearing an exotic-sounding name like the Cadillac Eldorado, Lincoln Mark series, Buick Riviera and Oldsmobile Toronado. Stretching as long as 19 feet, these massive luxury barges were status symbols that showcased their owner’s success, good taste and need to be seen.
Yet for all their size, their interiors were not exceptionally spacious, at least not for rear-seat passengers (which may have been the point). After all, two’s company, three (or more) is a crowd. Still, for those who managed to wedge themselves into the rear compartment, there was abundant luxury, including individual ashtrays with built-in lighters, reading lights and a folding center armrest.
The Cadillac Eldorado even included a second door release handle so claustrophobic captives could free themselves. Contemporary European manufacturers looked down on these cars with scorn and derision. Ironically, these same companies would carry on where the Americans left off, offering big coupes like the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, BMW 8 Series, Bentley Continental GT and Rolls-Royce Phantom.
Full-size family coupes: Heavy doors and cigarette lighters
Equal in size to their luxury counterparts, the full-size family sedan and coupe were far more plentiful. Almost every big American sedan had a coupe twin, including the Chevrolet Caprice/Impala, Pontiac Bonneville/Catalina, Oldsmobile Delta 88/98 and Buick Electra/LeSabre.
Ford had the LTD, Mercury offered the Grand Marquis and over at Chrysler, names like New Yorker, Newport, Polara, Monaco and Fury followed suit.
Credit: SPECIAL
Credit: SPECIAL
Because these big coupe had the exact interior dimensions as their sedan counterparts, they worked as family haulers. Kids seemed even better behaved back then.
After all, any mother who could swing out an 80-pound door with one arm while holding a grocery bag in the other wasn’t someone to be trifled with. Accessing the rear seat required the flexibility to slide through a narrow space between the front seat back and the door opening, an inelegant maneuver for most.
Rear passengers got roll-down windows, usually manual but sometimes power-operated if the parents sprang for swank options. And many had cigarette lighters too. A 12-volt outlet charging a red-hot lighter. Just think of it in the hands of two preteens occupying the rear seat. What could possibly go wrong?
Sadly, by 1975, government-mandated front-seat shoulder belts required a redesign that added a center pillar and fixed rear glass window, making riding in the back seat tantamount to being entombed like an Egyptian mummy. Heaven help the kid who suffered from motion sickness.
Personal luxury coupes: Swiveling front bucket seats and eight-track tape decks
During this same period, the Big Three created a smaller, less expensive two-door for the average American. It was called the “personal luxury coupe.” You may remember Chrysler’s version, the sleek Cordoba (and its sultry spokesman, Ricardo Montalban, touting its “rich Corinthian leather”) or the Ford Thunderbird and Mercury Cougar.
Credit: SPECIAL
Credit: SPECIAL
Over at General Motors, there was the Chevrolet Monte Carlo, Buick Regal, Pontiac Grand Prix and the Oldsmobile Cutlass, which was the bestselling car in America in 1976 and again a few more times into the `80s — led by the coupe, not the sedan and wagon.
Keeping with the long hood, short deck and cramped rear seat theme, these cars were all the rage, as popular with parents as they were with their kids.
I remember my high school driver’s ed class was stocked with personal luxury coupes from local dealers hoping to hook a young, impressionable audience on cars their well-off parents might opt to give as a pricey graduation present. It rarely worked, but the seed was planted.
Cool features like swiveling front bucket seats, 8-track tape decks and fancy interiors made of the finest velour and vinyl lured in an entire generation. Oh, and T-tops, did I mention T-tops? These removable D-shaped roof panels made for the ultimate going-to-the-beach ride.
So, what happened?
By the mid-80s, the big coupes were all downsized and eventually phased out of the lineup due to poor sales.
The vehicles fell out of favor with consumers, who preferred more practical vehicles, including those for a two-working-parent household. Also, big, two-door personal luxury coupes were impractical and considered vulgar by a more environmentally sensitive generation. After all, why would one person need a heavy, 5,000-pound coupe with room for six that gets 12 miles per gallon just to go back and forth to work?
It was also a time when SUVs rose into the spotlight and younger generations became interested in more sophisticated designs offered by European and Japanese automakers, neither offering many large, two-door coupes.
The personal luxury cars did a bit better, with the Thunderbird and Cougar pushing into the `90s and the Monte Carlo retired in 2008. Maybe a more pragmatic generation didn’t see the point or preferred an SUV or minivan’s convenience and all-weather capability.
Whatever the reason, we’ll likely never see the likes of big, two-door coupes except at car shows or when passing the occasional OG holdout. Then again, if bell bottoms and vinyl records made a comeback, maybe there’s hope.
Joe Tralongo is an automotive writer for Kelley Blue Book and Autotrader, based in Missoula, Montana He has been covering the automotive industry since 2000.
The Steering Column is a weekly consumer auto column from Cox Automotive. Cox Automotive and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution are owned by parent company, Atlanta-based Cox Enterprises.
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