Even without the disappearing doors, the BMW Z1 is still one of the more exotic looking models the company ever released.
Sometimes, they’re the only option, or the most affordable, but I always feel like there could be a better way. In a shed application, they’re hard to seal, hard to latch, and hard to secure from the wind taking them away. Also, in a place with huge temperature and moisture variables, the ground moving up and down absolutely wreaks havoc with them. A crowbar used in a chipping and prying fashion in January loses its appeal as soon as you get out of the truck. Pocket doors in a house aren’t problem-free either, especially with all the hardware buried in the wall. Those sliding barn doors for interior applications actually work pretty slick, but that comes at a price, and again with odd latching hardware if necessary. In the automotive world, I always thought the sliding door idea stopped with one example, the Kaiser Darrin. It had doors that eased in towards the interior, then slid forward into the front fender. They had problematic aluminum hardware that jammed up. Though they tried replacing some parts with nylon if memory serves me correctly, they still ended up with either dry-seizing or dirt accumulation if greased too much. Incredibly, the Kaiser Darrin was not the only automaker to try sliding doors on a production car. The BMW Z1 had them as well, and I’ve gotta say, I think they’re an even crazier design than the Kaiser.
The BMW Z1 was produced from 1989 to 1991, and if you’re anything like me, you’ve probably never seen one in real life, nor paid attention any time seeing one in film or print. The good news is, it’s okay, you really haven’t missed out on much in thirty years, as the Z1 never saw rave reviews. Apparently, the driving experience was quite underwhelming. There was no air conditioning due to the small size, and the body was made of removable plastic panels, which certainly doesn’t scream “luxury.” What the Z1 did have going for it, however, was a gimmick. I remember when power windows were a rare luxury, around the same time that the Z1 had power windows and power doors, both of which rolled down. It’s hard to describe, and even harder to believe that it made it to production, but when a button on the side of the car is pressed, the door slides down into the rocker panel while the window simultaneously slides down into the door. Once inside, a button is pressed, and both roll back up. Honestly, in my research of them, they worked pretty well for exactly eight thousand cars produced. The only real problem I found was they were quite hard to manually “roll down” if the battery were to die. I’ve even seen pictures of people driving with the whole assembly down, kind of like a Jeep with the doors removed. It’s a cool feature, but where do you rest your elbow?
Have a question or comment for Kelly? Post it at lmtimes.ca/kirk
