Thanks for the information. I don't know very much about the early
Fords. I guess it might have been a model A or some other model. The
story that I read was that the original designer of the Beetle, who I
believe was Ferdinand Porsche, came over to America and visited a Ford
factory and saw that Ford was putting his hinges on the front, so that's
where he put his hinges. Several other makers also followed Ford's lead
in a similar fashion. The point of the story was that the decision to
put the hinges at the front was in some ways arbitrary, and not based on
safety or ease of entry/egress.
Rog & Jan van Hoy wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> I have heard that the person most responsible for today's American
> and European cars having doors hinged at the front was Henry Ford, who
> put the hinges at the front on the model T Model T's didn't even have
> a driver's door [until late in their run]. There was a ridge made to
> look like a door.
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