#coupe #cas2023 Our Vanishing 2-Doors, Chicago Auto Show 2023 movie

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The first time I went to a Chicago Auto Show in February 1964, #GM, #Ford, #Chrysler and #AMC all had two door coupes and hardtops and convertibles in their lineups. Lincoln, Ford's luxury division, even offered a 4-door convertible!

#Studebaker had ended production in South Bend, IN in December of 1963, taking the GT Hawk and the #Avanti to their graves and for the next two model years consolidating all car production in Canada.

Volkswagen and its rear swing axle Beetle had 50% of the entire imported car market here. Japan and Korea weren't even players back then.

2-doors were what the cool drove. Hardtops especially, after #Buick and #Cadillac brought them out in 1949, but if your 2-door sedan had a loud enough V8 ("there's a mean '55 lookin' for you!"), you were in the club. 4-door sedans were the stuffy province of dads, executives and cops. 4-door hardtops were a little cooler -- just a little, with all the windows rolled down. And if you saw someone driving a pickup truck, you knew he was in the trades or a farmer. Jeeps? CJ, Wagoneer, Gladiator? The outdoor type.

And now, we've come to today. I can understand people with families needing four doors, so they can strap kids into those car seats. But single, child-free people with a 4-door anything? Single people or DINK's who never carry anything bigger or heavier than a 50lb bag of dog food or redwood mulch, buying a class two, crew cab pickup with an 8-foot bed?

4WD in the Sun Belt? Well, after the last two winters, especially Texas (32 degrees in snowbird central Brownsville), I'll give 'em that one. But as this winter has proven, the only place to be when there is glare ice on the road is home, waiting for the salt spreaders to finish their work. And if you do have to be out: S-L-O-W ---- D-O-W-N.

Now, EV's. The one thing U.S. drivers do not want to put up with is inconvenience. And up to 8 hours to fully recharge an EV, when filling up an ICE gas tank takes 10 minutes tops? Being told to dial back on using heat in the winter and A/C in the summer so the battery doesn't wind down quite so fast? Getting used to an EV losing up to half its battery capacity in below-freezing weather, which the northern U.S. and increasingly the southeast has on a regular basis in the winter? Inconvenience with a capital "I".

And the elephant in the room: EV purchase prices. Almost $30,000 to start for a base #Nissan Leaf, and EV prices zoom skyward from there. If your new car loan is pre-approved for $20,000, you're looking at Corollas, Civics, Versas, Subaru Imprezas, Ford Mavericks. Maybe a Mazda 3, if you catch one at the end of the model year. None of the Big Three sell a car in that 20 grand price range. The Chevy Bolt and Fiat 500 are both almost $30,000. Until EV prices and charge times come down -- waaay down -- EV's will continue to be a niche market. The Model T of EV's, which makes them mainstream and takes them soaring to 50% of the vehicles on U.S. roads, (they are currently 6%) has yet to be built and sold here. A Model eT? Not yet.

Now, back to the dearth of two-doors. The first time I did one of these, in 2016, it took two separate videos, 10 minutes each. This year, it's down to one video, under 8 minutes. And when that Charger SRT muscle EV concept comes out, it will more than likely NOT be a two door. And the Challenger, Camaro and 2-door Mustang ICE's, while still in production, are on the bubble. Things are looking bleak