The Slow Death Of The Three-Door Hatchback Is Happening, And We're Not Happy
It’s the little things that make the difference in car ownership. Sure, you might own a 10-second Subaru Impreza, but it’s the work you carried out on it yourself that makes it special to you. Little mods, photos you’re particularly proud of or even just small design cues that really appeal to you on some level are all potential building blocks for the bond between you and your car.
That’s why we’re a bit sad to learn that the three-door hatchback is on the endangered species list. A three-door car was always the one that we wanted when we were first setting out into the awesome world of driving. A three-door version of an otherwise ordinary (and therefore affordable) model was the sportier, more purposeful-looking version. It was the flawed but more interesting version that said you wanted style before practicality. It was cooler.
It was the choice that said: I’m young, I’ve made an illogical decision based on image because I wanted to, and I don’t care what you think. Mates that wanted a ride just had to deal with climbing past the front seats. Plus, we always secretly liked to think that the minor weight saving in three-door cars was basically worth an extra 10bhp…
Sales figures are showing a massive swing away from these less practical machines, though, even among the smallest classes, where paying extra for rear doors used to be seen as a pointless waste of cash. Unless we’re much mistaken, as recently as six or seven years ago the sales mix was still in favour of fewer doors among superminis like the Fiesta.
You still can pick up new three-door cars, of course, particularly among small cars, but the larger stuff; the kind of thing you might look at as a second or third car after passing your test, is dying out. Audi says that the next A3 is ‘likely’ to drop the three-door model, while Ford, Honda and Opel/Vauxhall have already done so with the Focus, Civic and Astra. Going down a class, the Seat Ibiza and Renault Clio both come with five doors only, and that number could easily rise in the coming years.
Kia has more-or-less announced that the next Pro_cee’d will be a longer, five-door shooting brake design. We won’t complain if the finished product looks anything like the deeply pretty concept we looked at yesterday, but we do quite like the current Pro_Cee’d GT and we prefer it to the five-door Cee’d GT. We’d prefer to own the three-door.
We can’t fight commercial realities. If every car enthusiast in the world went and bought a brand new three-door hatchback every two years then things would be different, but as a rule of thumb that’s not how we work. The world simply doesn’t buy enough new ones any more, and ultimately, as they get dropped the second-hand market will eventually dry up. It’s not the end of the world, but it’s one more piece chipped out of that shrinking sphere of little things we love about cars.
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I just traded in my 2012 4-door Volkswagen Golf for a 2-door model of the same model year. I’ve found that the windows on 2-door cars are much easier to see out of because of their larger size. The B-pillar on the passenger side of the 4-door would at times obstruct my view when I tried to see out of that window. On turns where I would have to lean forward and back to look around the pillar, I can now just lean forward slightly and have a complete, unobstructed view. It’s too bad that 2-door cars are disappearing. I’m hoping for a comeback of the 2-door hatchback, since I would prefer a hatch over a sports car, or I’m hoping to be able to find good cars that fit my needs in the used car market. I certainly hope to have my current 2-door Golf for a very long time. I love the car. Not only is the visibility so much better than in my previous one, it looks better too.
This is very sad… I love me a good 3 door
#SaturnAstraFTW
The irony of this post is ridiculous. Because all of the same people who say “we want 3 and 5 door hatchbacks, why are they dying?” are the same people who drool over crossovers and suv’s. Unless you stop supporting that, hatchback cars will die, because everyone is too busy finalizing the lease of their new, gay, nissan rogue.
After being in top of the range Jetta’s (sport, then GT) TDI’s a change in vehicles for my wife meant I could go back to a much missed car - or as near too now - a 3dr Polo GTI (I had the 6n3 1.6 16v version) in the shape of a 2015 Polo BlueGT 1.4TSI 150ps 3dr in Black. Some points meant the current GTI too pricey on insurance for me. Anyway yes it’s unpractical but so nice a car the Polo 6c in 3dr and now the Polo 6c last model to be available in 3dr as new Polo is going to be 5dr only & grown to the size of a old Golf - demise of 3dr blame it on constant “upsizing” by car makers on each design & the horrible hedious things that are SUV’s can’t stand them. So another casualty missed off the now dead 3dr cars.
Did someone say….3 DOORS?!?!?
Did someone say… 3 DOORS?!?!?
I think that decline began much earlier then we think. It started in 2006 with Fiat Bravo. Fiat Stilo was a financial disaster so next car had much less development budget. If you have both three and five-door versions of the same car then development and manufacturing costs are higher. B and C segment are already overpopulated and returns margins are low. Develop only one version and you are making savings. Manufacture only one version and you have cheaper production and you use fewer workers. Thus, we got only five-door Bravo. Soon, more and more manufacturers followed. Those who buy C segment cars usually have a limited budget and choice is immense. If manufacturers want to sell cars they must offer more car for less money, hence profit is less, hence you must cut development and manufacturing costs, hence R.I.P our beloved three-door hatchbacks.
Disclaimer: I had three cars over the course of 14 years and all were three-door hatchbacks.