#DesignTop5 4-door saloons

Thanks to a car designer named Matteo Licata I wanted to expand on another Twitter discussion. At this link Matteo complied a nice write up of his Top 5 saloon cars (with 4 doors). Since the first day I saw the Rover SD1 that my father bought from our neighbour (in 1987?) I have always preferred a more sleek silhouette to the 4 door 3 box type of car. As a family we grew up with hatchbacks, estates, and even that Rover fastback. At some point my dad was forced to drive company cars which included some saloons, such as a Sierra Sapphire (a comfortable little shed), and even a Ford Orion (not as bad as we expected it to be), but mostly given a choice we had hatchbacks. I’ve only ever owned one saloon car myself in 24 years, and that was a Hillman Avenger. Nevertheless I decided to choose my own favourite designs in this globally popular car shape. In no particular order…

Firstly I agree with Matteo that the Citroen DS is possibly the greatest “saloon” car ever designed. It looks nothing like a traditional 3 box saloon! It is so different I don’t even count it myself, it is just so far removed from all preceding or following designs. So that might be my no.1. and 5 runners up could be…

Mercedes W124

Surely the definitive Mercedes? Solid, but light, formal but elegant. Not too big, not too small. I’ve driven one briefly and it felt (and looked) like granit formed into a car shape, from exterior right through to it’s wonderful interior. Never to be bettered?

Alfa Romeo 164

Yes the Alfa 156 is truly stunning. Beautiful and interesting at the same time. The 164 though, is outstandingly restrained and beautiful. Formal, and informal. Quite utilitarian looking for an Italian car, with its many plastic panels and rubbing strips- but at the same time it is elegant and sophisticated. Pure magic that only Italian designers can conjure up!

Rover Sterling

Yes, I loved the SD1 and was amazed that Rover replaced it with a saloon (but rapidly added the fastback style too). I had a Matchbox model of this, and it predated the Alfa 164 with a similar look (two-tone body) by one year (1986, then 1987 for the Alfa). I loved this linear, modern high-tech look in my youth. It is so wonderfully 80s, but at the same time expertly executed in it’s design details. The original styling model is shown here, from 1983! Find out more from Keith Adams excellent website.

Lincoln Continental 1961 – 1969

The definitive long, low, wide and truly American saloon car design. The Wachowskis new what car was needed to represent the peak of the 20th century in The Matrix, and it was this one (a 1963 model actually).

Jaguar XJ40

Controversial, but again my love of rectangular saloon shapes means I genuinely prefer the XJ40 over the XJ series III that it was supposed to replace. The subtlety of this design is fantastic. It borrowed from global design trends then expertly mixed those with more traditional forms of Jaguar.

Audi A6 (C5)

The design lecturers example. Perfect proportions, almost to the point of not knowing if it’s FWD, or RWD or perhaps AWD (Quattro as intended). The arc of the DLO and it’s perfectly balanced placement within the wheelbase, combined with the dangerously unadorned rear end (imagine a tow hook added, or an exhaust pipe!) this was the Apple iPhone of saloon cars.

Skyline R32

An oddity. When I discovered these existed I was amazed. Did they design the 2 door first, then just extend it to be a saloon? Like coach built limousines. To see a sporty shape like this, as a core part of a saloon design (not bulged and added post-design) is unusual. Subaru used this theme on many saloons after, but Nissan did it first!

Lagonda Taraf and Aston Martin Rapide

Declaring a personal interest here as quite a lot of my friends, and even family, work at Aston… but I really can’t help loving all the 4-doors they have produced over the last few years. The Rapide was a beautiful if somewhat impractical +2 development of the DB9 shape. Then later Lagonda was reborn with the astonishing low volume Taraf model. Enormously long, but aimed at giving a massive amount of rear passenger space, the shape reminds of the original William Towns Lagonda while also connecting with other Aston form language. This design might have inspired many other big saloon designs that have followed, such as the VW Arteon or the Mazda Vision Coupe. I’ve cheated a bit here including both, but there’s actually 7 cars mentioned in this post!

Update: my inspiration for this post has now created a YouTube video showing his choices! Check it out, it’s fun! https://youtu.be/CcbLSEBHyNA

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