They say the best weapon is one you never have to fire, and if you ask us, the best door is one you never have to touch. Many stores in Japan share the latter opinion, with Star-Trek-like sensor-driven doors completely absent of human fingerprints, and even the taxis in Japan have doors that open and close automatically.
Now a non-Japanese company called Jatech claims they can install this rather amazing portal on your car, which is not only automatic, but seems to disappear altogether during entry and egress. Is it real? The video above and their website definitely raise some questions: the narration is in British English, yet the cars are left-hand drive. The company is also listed as an LLC, meaning it was created and registered in the 'States. With any luck the truth will soon come to light; in the meantime, enjoy a video of what is either brilliant engineering or clever CG.
via fahad
Can anyone out there point me in the right direction on getting these on my car. I have a 1987 Lincoln Mark VII. Maybe Kevin Coleman since he has a Mark VIII or Thor S since he’s seen the mechanics.
LOL. I have personally seen this vehicle and inspected the mechanism. The door telescopes into a compartment under the seats. This does take away approximately 4 inches of headroom but the door is not exposed to the outside when open. Sorry Mr. Ashton, it is better to be quiet and be thought a fool than open your mouth and remove all doubt!
This is a new concept that uses curved (or folded) space to store the door in an area under the car's frame. A small warp field generator (about 30 millicochranes) is all that is needed to generate the localized space curve. This is a minimal drain on the battery so the door can be in the "open" position for several days if needed. Once the door is "closed" the generator is turned off. It's all quite simple. The only problem I can foresee is if two cars are parked very close together and have adjacent warp fields active at the same time that are slightly out of phase. This could create a feedback imbalance in one or both generators possibly creating a wormhole beneath the cars sucking in a good chunk of the area around either car. But if you park several feet from other cars it shouldn't be a problem.
This is fake. Look carefully. if you know how to judge this stuff, you can tell its a fairly good, but not excellent, digital fake. I give them a B-. There are many tipoffs. The 2 most glaring: [1] The standard curved windows on the actual Continental are simulated, and seem to retract downward automatically, yet would break when the door folds as it supposedly retracts under the seats. And there are no seams on the door, to fold there must be seams. [2] The fake would have been cleverer if they had put a higher floor onto the car. The floor inside is standard height. There would be no room for the door to fold under. Trust me, I know car design. This is as fake as the "proof" that there were WMDs in Iraq.
Listen, this is fake as you can see problems with the video near and around the door. Although some cars exist that similar features, these are fake, the British accent is not very good on the guy and the cars all have left side drivers as well as the license plate is not European in style. Clever, but not quite
Can you imagine being in a situation where the electrics failed... or where the car battery died.. how would you get out...?
E.g. If you were in a head on collision and the door was structurally damaged or a side collision where the door was damaged... how would the door open?
i used to work for this company... they used to call themselves joalto design until they embezzled too many millions from their investors, w/o coming up with any product. the doors were very problematic and we only drove them to demo's in the summer... to CrisX's point, yes, if they were covered with dirt it would destroy the finish and any sort of ice build-up in winter would render the rocker-panel-skirt useless and cluttered.
I think the reason we don't see this on production cars is the cost. Not only would it cost more in electric gizmos to get the door moving up and down (an thus introducing another fail point to something that works reasonably well already) but most cars need a B pillar for a reason! You'll probably find that these cars weigh a ton since they've had to reinforce the chassis so it doesn't fold up. As an example the 2009 Camaro has had a B pillar introduced since it wasn't cost/weight effective to build the DLO featured in the concept. Now whilst this kind of door is then impractical for side cabin entry, it'd work quite well for a rear tailgate on an SUV (although forget carrying a spare since it'd take up a lot of space under the rear). But then since Americans (and myself) love their split tailgates that you can park your ass on whilst chilling out with friends we wont see this happening anytime soon, well except for Pimp My Ride.
And would someone fix the template for this site so your comments don't run outside the pagewidth!
So is the outer paint work exposed still as it is underneath the car? If so, all it will take is a slightly uneven surface or rock to leave a great big scratch down it
Normally all car become dirty after a few days how would this car look with a permanent cleaner or smudged door (I don't know if the system works without a touch), If you look to the door from inside you will see no design at all everything is like a stretched fabric on the face of the interior door and that doesn't look too secure or beautiful. And what if is raining the entire interior door will become a wet or dirty after the door was opened?�And of course you must be a ballerina to propel your self outside the car�.And the result is that this door cannot work for the real sedans world. Sorry.
This was done before. Lincoln built a car prototype like this but didn't think the market was ready for it. They ordered the destruction of the prototype, but somehow the orders weren't carried through. :-) The prototype was sold a few months ago on eBay! See:
Good idea, but the part about still being able to get in your car when parked close together won't work. Nearly every American is twice as fat as that gap they left. Some of the cabooses I've seen this holiday season wouldn't stand a chance.
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Comments
Can anyone out there point me in the right direction on getting these on my car. I have a 1987 Lincoln Mark VII. Maybe Kevin Coleman since he has a Mark VIII or Thor S since he’s seen the mechanics.
I just purchased one of these Mark VIII's. Can anyone help me get more information on my specific one?
There are 2 of these prototypes that were built. I worked extensively on one of them 1997-1999
There are many tipoffs. The 2 most glaring: [1] The standard curved windows on the actual Continental are simulated, and seem to retract downward automatically, yet would break when the door folds as it supposedly retracts under the seats. And there are no seams on the door, to fold there must be seams.
[2] The fake would have been cleverer if they had put a higher floor onto the car. The floor inside is standard height. There would be no room for the door to fold under. Trust me, I know car design. This is as fake as the "proof" that there were WMDs in Iraq.
If this is a fake then what is parked in my garage?
If this is a fake then what is parked in my garage? Would like me to send you a picture?
E.g. If you were in a head on collision and the door was structurally damaged or a side collision where the door was damaged... how would the door open?
Great Idea..
But Not safe...
And would someone fix the template for this site so your comments don't run outside the pagewidth!
http://jalopnik.com/cars/found-on-ebay/the-1993-lincoln-mark-viii-rolling-door-concept-car-hides-your-heavy-doors-276295.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_Z1