Success can hinge on the right handle

By T. Uncle

KNOWING what we do today, some of the potential disasters designers inflicted on car owners in the past seem incredibly irresponsible.

Take the simple door hinge for example.

Maybe it was okay when cars were only allowed to proceed along the road if a flag-waving individual walked down the road ahead of them, but it would seem pretty logical that, by the time the horseless carriage was capable of moving along at substantially more than walking pace, a door that opened into the direction of travel was not a sensible option.

But car designers didn't seem aware of this and the rear- hinged "suicide" door, capable of wrenching itself wide open as it was picked up by the slipstream if left slightly ajar while the car was on the move, remained in wide use until the 1950s.

The door handle itself did not start receiving major attention until somebody realized, in the late 1950s, that a jutting piece of swiveling, chrome-plated metal that may work well in stationary situations could inflict serious and maybe unnecessary damage on a hapless pedestrian.

So in the 1960s, as carmakers started to crank up their research into safety engineering, the idea of the noninjury door handle was born.

This was not really such a difficult thing to do. Just as the designers made cars safer to operate by simply placing the door hinges towards the front, it was easy to design door handles flush with the outer skin and less likely to snare pedestrians.

But some carmakers reacted reluctantly.

In many cases, although they dropped the lethal "hook" design most cars from the 1950s retained a jutting grab-handle that was only half-recessed into the body and still capable of clouting pedestrians, or cyclists, if they ventured too close.

Such designs, today, are history of course.

With ever-growing safety awareness among carmakers -- assisted by the need to comply with legal standards -- the humble door handle is no longer a hazard to those unfortunate enough to be walking, standing or riding close to heavy traffic.

The issue today for car designers is divided between deciding whether the handle should be so unobtrusive as to be completely invisible, or whether it should be one of the vehicle's styling elements.

The "hidden" door handle has its attributes as far as aesthetics are concerned, but is generally lacking when it comes to pure function.

Hidden door handles do not, for example, work particularly well in situations where the light is poor and can result in unnecessary fumbling, causing scratches on the paint or, at the very least, unsightly handprints around the door.

Concealed handles can even be a little frightening.

In some cases, such as Mazda's RX-7, the handle is hidden at the rear edge of the door frame and it is necessary to feed the fingers into a recess in the frame to open the door. The scary part is closing it. There is a distinct risk of slamming the door onto the fingers if your hand is slightly out of position.

Other carmakers use door handles as a styling element to distinguish their vehicles in a world of increasingly anonymous designs.

The handles on the Australian Ford Falcon were a major and relatively expensive part of the present vehicle's development -- even if they do look today a little similar to the forward-canted lines used in the side windows of a Greyhound bus from the 1950s.

Other carmakers try to combine practicality with aesthetics.

The new Saab 9-5, for example, was designed so the door handles are highly visible and therefore, easy to find and operate in poor lighting conditions.

Rather than following the familiar route of color-coding the handles to match the rest of the body, Saab deliberately molded the handles in a uniform gray plastic that stands out regardless of the car's color.

The operation of the handles is also important.

One of the first things a female buyer with long fingernails will notice about a car is how user-friendly the doors are.

A poor design that will catch and rip the nails will often be enough to deflect a potential buyer towards another brand with better designed handles.

The door handle may seem a relatively minor part of a car but it is usually the first thing a potential buyer will actually touch, or use.

And it's that initial impression that counts.