A hatchback is a type of car that began to make an appearance in the course of the late 30’s and early 40’s. A typical book explanation of a hatchback generally has a vague explanation, such as “a vehicle having a door across the entire width at the rear end that opens in the upward direction to offer convenient access for packing.” whilst correct, there’s a lot more than this fact to the hatchback!
Typically it is a style of automobile where the rear seating and the trunk space share, with a fifth “door” on the rear of the vehicle that is utilized for trunk space. Compared to a typical sedan, a hatchback may possess smaller or virtually no boot area, however with the potential to fold the back seating over itself, enabling additional trunk space or perhaps in certain instances, boot space equivalent to a standard sedan, which is why hatchbacks are thought to share trunk room with back seat space.
The first example of a hatch back was with the design of the Traction Avant Commerciale by the French motor firm, Citroën in 1938. This vehicle pioneered the hatch back style with its two portion tail gate.
From this point on, these compact cars started to climb in popularity, with new styles appearing from motor companies such as Pininfarina, Volkswagen, Jaguar, Toyota, Audi, Datsun, Ford and Fiat.
Originally, the vehicles had made their first appearance in Europe, but ultimately made an appearance in America, when General Motors unveiled the Chevrolet Vega in September 1970. This model of car was a big success, with General Motors producing more than Two million Vegas in 1971-1977, which accounted for about 50 % of the number of Chevrolet Vega’s ever made. This marked the start of these compressed, 2 and 4 seater cars growing to be widely preferred in the United States on account of often being a good value for money auto, while also remaining very economical.
This popularity prompted car companies in Asian countries to begin producing hatchbacks, which were so profitable that Chevrolet began importing hatchbacks from Asian firms like Suzuki and Izuzu.
In later years, when the hatchback had created a solid hold on the motor world, hatchback sports cars began making their debut. Cars such as the Chevrolet Camaro, Pontiac Firebird, as well as Ford’s hallmark muscle car the Ford Mustang are all examples of racy and desirable sports cars that are also hatch backs.
Today, automobiles possessing a 5th doorway in the back continue to be hugely popular, and new models are increasingly being mass produced all the time. Product sales figures of economy cars are continuing to rise across the globe that further reinforces their attractiveness.