Door handles...did you ever wonder?

[2011G6E]

OK, a couple of photos first to illustrate a point:
Remember these?



Now walk out to your Falcon or whatever, and you will see something like this...



Ever wonder why flush-fitting door handles were replaced by "sticking out" door handles?

It went in a cycle...cars door handles used to stick out from the bodywork, then around the seventies and eighties, cars all went to "flush fitting" door handles. It was widely advertised as a safety feature by manufacturers...if the car rolled or was side-swiped, then there was a pretty good chance a flush-fitting door handle would still be able to allow the door to be opened, unlike the old type which would probably be knocked off or damaged more easily. This was especially trumpeted by four wheel drive makers, because roll overs or brushing against a tree or a post was something more likely to happen out off road.

Then things changed in the sometime after the year 2000...cars started to appear with door handles that stuck out from the bodywork again. No mention was made of safety or a real reason why, but it happened.
You ever wonder why? It's one for a trivia night.

Back when four wheel drives began to become "SUV's" in America, they decided to try and sell them to a much larger market than the "traditional" off roaders and farmers and people on the land.
A female head of production design at, I think, Ford was quoted on a documentary about SUV's as saying she wanted to increase sales to, especially, women by pushing "safety" and "you're up high above the traffic", and so on (even though they're actually less safe than a car).
So she actually got her designers and engineers to all dress up as women, and then climb in and out of SUV's and see what they noticed...things like dresses getting caught on seat adjusters, door catches, high heels snagging on things, etc.

One thing they noticed, and which this woman was very proud of having introduced across the board, was the removal of flush-fitting door handles that meant you had to put your fingers up underneath to open, because it meant you might break your long fingernails! They did away with flush fitting door handles, and went to ones that stood out from the body in a loop, so that women didn't break thier fingernails!

So, what had been a well-accepted safety design, was removed purely for fashions sake, and she was very proud of the fact that it had been her idea.

Form over function, fashion over safety.

Unbelievable.