Think back to the fun and sporty cars of the 1960s and ’70s, and you’re almost certain to paint a mental picture of the coupe. The sleek two-door styling bespoke a powerful engine and high performance. For those wanting to make a motoring statement, no stodgy sedan would do.
But in the last decade, the coupe has fallen on hard times. Just how hard can be seen by examining sales figures for two categories the auto industry terms small specialty and midsize specialty cars.
Both comprise exclusively two-door models. The small specialty group includes nameplates such as Ford Mustang and Escort ZX2, Chevrolet Camaro, Chrysler Sebring, Saturn SC, Eagle Talon, Dodge Avenger, Toyota Celica and Honda Prelude and del Sol. The midsize specialty class includes Chevy Monte Carlo and the Pontiac Grand Prix.
According to George Pipas, sales analysis manager for Ford Motor Co. in Detroit, the two segments reached their volume zenith in 1979, when they accounted for 29.2 percent of all car sales, and 21.7 percent of all vehicle sales. In 1996 the categories made up 10.7 percent of all car sales and 5.9 percent of all vehicle sales.
The slide appears even more dramatic when unit sales are examined. Last year, 913,000 cars from the two segments were sold, down from 3,165,000 in the peak sales year of 1978.
So what has caused the coupe to droop? Numerous theories have been floated from rising birth rates to safety issues. One theorist is Mike Flynn, associate director of the Office for the Study of Automotive Transportation at the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute in Ann Arbor.
Flynn says simple demographics, specifically those of the aging Baby Boom generation, have played a big part in lower two-door sales. “I would think the popularity of the coupe is highly susceptible to family formation rates and the presence of children,” he said.
Flynn cites General Motors Corp.’s launch of new midsize vehicles in the mid-1980s as proof. The company banked on the coupe’s popularity continuing from the late 1970s and early ’80s, and loaded its lineup with two-door models.
“But when they actually came out in the 1986-1987 time frame, they were duds,” recalled Flynn. “Buyers’ needs had changed, and the mini-van was becoming popular with Baby Boomers.”
And it wasn’t just that Boomers were having children and seeking a simpler way of getting their kids into the back seat, he added.
“During that time, the Baby Boomers were aging, putting on a little weight, needing a skosh more room in their Levis and also wanting easier access in and out of that car,” he said.
Flynn also says that as average car lengths shrunk about four to five inches between the late 1970s and today, buyers decided smaller two-doors weren’t as appealing as larger coupes had been. “If you look at the (current) two-door Mustang, for instance, the back seat becomes just about unusable,” he argued. “I wonder if the two-door wasn’t dependent to a certain extent on size?”
Jeff Davis, senior research associate at the Office for the Study of Automotive Transportation, agrees with Flynn that larger families helped grease the coupe’s skid in the last decade. But he believes other factors contributed.
One of them relates to the National Safety Council’s Air Bag Safety Campaign, which recommends that children younger than 12 should ride in the back seat for safety. Before the air-bag era, he recalled, it was deemed acceptable for children to ride upfront and even for infants to be held on the laps in the front seat. This change alone could explain recent gains by sedans, he said.
“Also, in the old days, the coupe was always considered to be the sportier alternative to the sedan,” he observed. “But today, equipment levels and the size and performance of engines are fairly comparable between four-doors and two-doors. Good examples of well-equipped four-doors are the (Ford) Taurus SHO and the Nissan Maxima.”
He added that Cadillac offers perhaps the ultimate example of a four-door with a reputation for performance once reserved for the coupe.
“The four-door Cadillac Seville outsells the two-door Cadillac Eldorado by a significant margin (37,261 to 20,113 in calendar year 1996). They have comparable levels of performance and acceleration and similar engines and transmissions.”
Does all this mean it’s three strikes and out for the two-door? Flynn doesn’t think so, arguing that a certain percentage of American auto buyers will always want a coupe.
“The question is whether it’s a niche only one manufacturer can be successful in or can more than one come out with coupes?” he said. “There’ll always be a niche for the sports coupe like the Miata. The problem is that they’re not very useful. They have to be second cars.”
He also believes the coupe will stage a comeback, a resurgence most likely to take place in eight to 18 years, when the “Baby Boom Echo” kids reach their car-buying years. “Remember, sedan convertibles went away and they’re back,” he noted. “I’d expect (coupes to make) the same kind of return.”
Davis, however, isn’t so sure. “I was always a coupe driver before 1988,” he recalled. “But I didn’t like dealing with that big heavy door. It’s a nuisance in a parking lot because you hit things with it. And I like being able to open the back door and drop a briefcase into the back seat. The last two cars I’ve bought have been sedans, and I’ll probably never be a coupe driver again.”
Ford’s Pipas feels the coupe will never see a return to its glory sales years because buyers have more options.
“Way back when, four-doors lacked any personality, so you went with a two-door,” he said. “But today, trucks can give you that personality, and so can some four-doors. So now the buyer has at least two other ways to express himself.”
