How many types of car doors have you read about or seen? There are numerous car door types besides the conventional design. Some of these include:
- Scissors doors,
- Butterfly doors,
- Swan doors,
- Sliding doors,
- Pocket doors,
- Suicide doors,
- Front-hinged doors,
- Canopy doors, and many more.
All these car door types have their charm, and you can see them on exotic and expensive cars like McLaren, Ferrari, Lamborghini, etc. Out of these, today I’m going to discuss with you all exotic butterfly doors.
Cars with butterfly doors
Butterfly doors, often confused with scissor doors, are a popular variety associated with Lambo. However, the first-ever car to have these butterfly doors was the mid-range sports car Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale that led to the evolution of this door type and encouraged other brands to follow the same.
Today, exotic cars like Mercedes Benz SLR, BMW i8, Ferrari Enzo, Ferrari LaFerrari, BMW Z1, and McLaren F1 are popular names installed with these butterfly doors.
Design-wise, a butterfly door includes hinges attached to the top corner of the door to enable twin motions – outwards & upwards. Such a complicated mechanism depicts a butterfly opening its wings.
So, that’s how the doors got their name. While these doors offer massive space for entering the car and exiting it, there is a downside associated with its design.
Since these doors open upwards and outwards, the cars need more space on their sides than other door styles. Apart from this, butterfly doors appear remarkable when opened and when installed on the following cars.
1. Ferrari LaFerrari
Ferrari may have launched ample models to illustrate it’s luxury and rapport; none of them even hang around their LaFerrari or “the Ferrari.”
It’s one of those Ferrari beauties enhanced with incredible speed, streamlined body lines, and enormous pricing at £1,150,000.
It’s a two-seat supercar fitted with a powerful 6.3-liter Ferrari V12 engine, KERS-Esque battery pack, and electric motor worth 950bhp and 663lb-ft of torque.
It’s so special that Ferrari manufactured just 499 of the LaFerrari, and sadly, all of them are out of stock at the moment.
Talking about the power, it feels like the power of 1000 horses is integrated into a single car. If you have seen a LaFerrari from inside, you would know that its interior constitutes lightweight yet strong carbon.
The seats appear like carbon tubs covered with pads to give you a comfortable ride no matter how long.
If you are passionate about hypercars and are ready to shell out a whopping amount of £1,150,000, look no further than “the Ferrari.”
2. McLaren F1
Their F1 is nothing less than a technological masterpiece engineered with extraordinary power, tempo, and peerless quality for the brand McLaren.
The company claims F1 to be the greatest supercar ever built, and it’s completely so. It took no less than four years for the company to plan, design meticulously, and manufacture the masterpiece F1. The company manufactured just 106 cars in its record period.
The McLaren F1 features a robust 6.1-liter V12 BMW powerplant engine that generates a huge power output worth 620 bhp.
Due to this, the engine pumps out tremendous heat. However, its designers were clever enough to install the best heat reflector, i.e., pure gold, over the engine bay.
Since the F1 is full of loadings, the company paid heed to minimize the weight from everywhere by using more carbon.
That’s why it was the first car with a carbon chassis. Besides the tons of carbon components, you will also find lightweight yet strong magnesium alloy wheels, titanium sub-structure & toolkit instead of heavy steel.
If you have noticed, F1 doesn’t feature any spoiler or wings on struts. Still, its stability at intense speeds is unmatchable due to the aerodynamic principles used in its engineering.
3. McLaren P1
Another beauty from McLaren with butterfly doors is their P1. It truly follows the footsteps of McLaren F1. According to carmakers, McLaren P1 is a meticulously designed sports car with real substance and style.
The company has designed every part of the car as if it’s for an aircraft. Like the other exotic cars, this McLaren P1 was a limited edition car manufactured between 2013 and 2015. The exact figure of P1 was 375 samples.
Compared to its closest rival, LaFerrari, P1 came out faster than the two by 0.34 seconds. With a hybrid engine capable of producing tremendous power worth 903 bhp and 664 lb-ft of torque, you can’t ask for more from a car!
Report-wise, the car can reach the speed of 62mph in 2.8 seconds and 124mph in 6.8 seconds, much more than the expectations of normal human beings. Out of all its color variants, the iconic orange one seems the perfect one!
4. BMW i8
Though no longer in production, the BMW i8 successfully lived as a hybrid car that will keep inspiring its successors.
The company sold over 20,000 units of i8 between 2014-2020 and made the world record of the highest-selling plug-in hybrid cars of all time.
BMW i8’s best model Roadster had the best mileage of all models at 69mpg. However, almost all BMW i8 models have exceptional mileage per gallon (mpg), which became a talking point in the exotic cars market.
5. Ferrari Enzo Ferrari
Ferrari Enzo Ferrari got its name after the brand’s founder, Enzo Anselmo Giuseppe Maria Ferrari.
It features a tech-laden V12 engine with a capacity to produce 650 horsepower, thus making it one of the fastest Ferrari cars ever.
Nearly based on McLaren F1, the car comes loaded with features like an automatic-shift manual transmission, butterfly doors, lightweight yet strong carbon-fiber body, composite brakes, and a V-shaped hood.
However, Enzo Ferrari invited certain criticisms from the critics, citing its “flashy” and “overstated” design.
6. Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren
Today’s Bugatti Veyron resembles this Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren from the front angle. This SLR is the joint creativity of BMW’s luxury and McLaren’s features that ruled over the heart of people.
It features a supercharged V8 engine that produces a power of 617bhp and 575 lb-ft of torque. Despite this, Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren remained as one of the most affordable supercars in the world.
7. Toyota Sera
You might not believe a mid-range and non-exotic car to have butterfly cars, but Toyota Sera will prove you wrong.
It’s an inexpensive car with butterfly doors exclusively built for car fanatics not to spend equivalent to the expensive exotic cars.
It features in-line four engines that deliver 104 horsepower and 97 pound-feet of torque though not much power.
Toyota Sera comes in two styles – one with a 4-speed automatic and a 5-speed manual transmission.
Initially, the Japanese carmakers decided to carry on Sera’s production and sale in Japan’s local market and sold approximately 15,000 units in record time.
8. Ford GT
Ford Motor Company, or just Ford, began producing GT’s first-generation between 2004-2006, however, using the conventional door style and mechanism. It was not until 2017, the starting of Ford GT’s 2nd generation, that the carmakers decided to install butterfly doors.
The price of the Ford GT starts from $500,000, and the car features a twin-turbo V-6 engine that produces 660 horsepower and 550 lb-ft of torque.
What is the cheapest car with butterfly doors?
The world’s cheapest car with butterfly doors is Sera, a creation of Japan’s renowned carmakers Toyota. It is a 3-door 2+2 hatchback coupe locally manufactured between 1990-1995.
It features butterfly doors hinged at the top center of the windscreen and the bottom of the A-pillar.
Being an affordable sports car, it came with a decent capacity 1.5 L in-line four petrol engine to deliver 104 hp and 132 97 lb-ft of torque.
Toyota Sera was initially for the Japanese population and thus carried the right-hand design and metric speedometer & odometer.
However, it later got export permissions from its manufacturers and required minimal changes for the same.
Which BMW has butterfly doors?
BMW i8 is the classic BMW ideation with butterfly doors. It’s a lightweight yet powerful supercar with an out-of-the-box design and superior mileage.
It’s tremendously fast and boasts a turbocharged 1.5-liter 3-cylinder engine with an 11.6-kWh battery pack and two electric motors.
Thus, it can easily produce 369 horsepower for everyday use, unlike the other exotic cars. Its economy is decent and stands at 35 MPGe.
Being a 2-seat car, you might feel cramped sitting inside, but that’s common with supercars. From the driving point of view, the car’s flashy design makes you feel the bumps in the road.
Conclusion
Out of all the savvy car doors types mentioned initially, the butterfly doors are the most in-demand doors that look great on exotic cars.
They appear like a butterfly is spreading its wings since its working mechanism allows the doors to open both upwards and outwards.
Though such doors look fabulous and are more practical than other types, you can’t ignore the fact that they require extra space on the sides for functioning.
If you’re planning to purchase an exotic car with butterfly doors, the above models (who are still in production) are the best to go with, provided your bank balance supports you in this regard.
