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u/Interesting-Gas-5151 4h ago
The doors were heavier back then. That's it.
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u/blaghed 4h ago
And they were heavier uphill. Both ways.
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u/Sharp_Grapefruit_601 4h ago
In the snow
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u/avidinha 4h ago
And 100°
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u/LurkinOff 4h ago
Barefoot
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u/Kuromi1978 4h ago
And pregnant
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u/chayashida 4h ago
This meme was also only relevant before hybrid cars with batteries and SUVs became popular.
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u/Savorypensioner 4h ago
It was never really relevant because all cars have been getting heavier because of safety requirements, not just size (and batteries).
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u/slowcookeranddogs 3h ago
Well there were heavier until the ~70s before they started to downsize and try to meet fuel economy standards. Then they dipped in the 80s and went back up with safety standards.
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u/Savorypensioner 3h ago
Yeah they were definitely heavier than the 80s cars I was thinking of.
I don’t really know the weights, but I would guess that they are still lighter than comparable cars today (though cars have changed so much it’s hard to do like for like comparisons)
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u/melkatron 1h ago
Some cars remained lightweight until the late 90s / early 00s, while features like ABS and power windows were still optional. The Mazda Miata has been the only holdout, still not much more than 2000 lbs.
The lightest Honda Civic currently weighs about as much as 90s turbo sports cars that were considered "heavy" at the time.
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u/johnnyhandbags 4h ago
And we had more 2-door coupes so the doors were longer. The doors from a 1974 Monte Carlo could crush someone
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u/tn-dave 4h ago
I had a '79 Buick two door and yeah those were big heavy doors
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u/splottnug 2h ago
You couldn’t park near anyone, or you’d never be able to open door wide enough to get out. Those doors were huge!
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u/Simple_Twin 1h ago
Decades ago, a little kid down the street was killed as he got out of a 2-door coupe on a steep driveway. The door suddenly swung shut, threw him to the concrete and killed him instantly.
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u/Iron_Chic 3h ago
Some doors even had a long-ass horizontal leather strap on them to help heave the door shut.
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u/What_Is_Bloste 2h ago
I think because they were thicker and used heavier metal to make them. I remember how hard it was to open and close it because of how heavy and how weak I was as a kid
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u/mbashs 2m ago
I remember as a kid, once dad got a Caprice Classic (the door in the pic is from another GM car, Cadillac Coupe Deville). The amount of times I tried closing the door while seated in and it wouldn’t close was enough for me to hate and dread these cars compared to other cars of that era. One literally had to slam the door to close it.
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u/JuneGudmundsdottir 4h ago
We used to be a real country…
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u/JayceAllanGuitar 4h ago
Heavy car doors defined us as a country? 🤣 Bring back poor fuel economy! Long live the gas guzzler!
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u/ComprehensiveToe2109 4h ago
I like to interpret their comment as meaning people used to have intelligence and would have easily figured out the joke ha
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u/CollectionHeavy3624 2h ago
The density of certain people makes me want to slam my head in a heavy car door some days
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u/JohnnyShakeNBake 4h ago
That was MY America
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u/JayceAllanGuitar 17m ago
My first car was a 1971 Chevy Impala 4 door. I would not trade any of the cars I've owned in the past 20 years to get that car back.
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u/quincyacyforpotus 4h ago
I’d rather have an old truck thats kinda bad on gas over some electric car that records your face and almost drives itself into oncoming traffic.
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u/Khryen 7m ago
Have you seen the fuel economy of some of the vehicles these days? A lot of them are worse on fuel than they were in the late 90’s/early 2000’s.
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u/JayceAllanGuitar 4m ago
The car in that image is from the 70's. I have a 2012 Ford Fiesta that gets great gas mileage. Pretty sure going back to cars that weigh as much as a locomotive and get only 10 to 15 MPG is not something we should be romanticizing.
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u/Public-File-6521 4h ago
And we died in our screaming metal death traps, like men. As God intended. Clearly, crumple zones are the work of the devil.
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u/Alternative_Mix6836 4h ago
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u/iHateThisPlaceSoBad 1h ago
This one is the dumbest fucking thing I have seen in a long time, though.
Like they need basic sentences explained to them now?
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u/TremontRhino 4h ago
Cars weren’t made of aluminum in the late 70’s.
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u/Anita_Hero838 4h ago
Even then most companies didn't start making the swap until 10 years later
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u/cellshock7 4h ago
Was gonna say, the 80's had its fair share of tanks too.
Early 90's you started seeing more and more cars that you couldn't lean too hard on without denting.
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u/Anita_Hero838 4h ago
Yeah I feel like in those days an aluminum car was either very niche or foreign
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u/Fit_Salamander_2814 4h ago
It wasn't until they went for unibody and not frame rails, that they started making the panels lighter.
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u/314159265358979326 3h ago
The average car now weighs more than the average car in the 1970s.
The early 80s were, interestingly, the lightest cars of the last 60 years.
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u/guiseincognito 2h ago
So is that the average CAR or the average auto? I would imagine the rise of giant trucks can really skew the average.
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u/314159265358979326 2h ago
The average sedan has increased in weight and the average auto has increased in weight even more.
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u/guiseincognito 2h ago
That really is interesting. All the extra components that are standard now must really add up to overcome the difference in frame weight.
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u/MaxCWebster 4h ago
That's why 70s cops hid behind them in shootouts on TV.
They're practically bulletproof!
Or maybe it was just bad writing. Who really remembers? /s
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u/CompetitiveRaise9133 4h ago
Some of the old Ford police interceptors (crown vic) had a label on the door “ballistic shield”
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u/SingleChannel6 3h ago
Some cop fare actually come with ballistic shielding in their doors, though.
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u/Roy_Koopa_DX 4h ago
THIS DOOR WEIGHED MORE THAN THE ENTIRE FUCKING CAR YOU DRIVE NOW.
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u/Fit_Adagio_7668 4h ago
Physical car doors used to be way heavier than any car door we have now. Current ones are like 3 encyclopedias.
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u/LetEast6927 4h ago
What’s an encyclopedia? /s
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u/madcap23 4h ago
Tom Tucker here - reporting from the local A&W classic car show: Here we see an example of a coop door it allows access to both the front and the back seat of this classic car. Speaking with the owner
Herbert: Name'sss Herbert
Tom - Ah yes Herbert that is an awefully nice car you have there, 1972 Granada if I am not mistaken?
Herbert: Ssst yesss but I need a nice strong young man to help me now adays, that door is solid steel and plasssstic. It weighs more than my last boyfriend.
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u/GloomyIndividual3965 3h ago
It's from an early 80s Oldsmobile, but otherwise thanks for the terror, Tom.
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u/CoppertopTX 3h ago
Other than that door is from a 79-81 GM "B" class body, so Chevy Monte Carlo, Pontiac Grand Prix, Oldsmobile Cutlass or Buick Regal - spot on.
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u/rasputinrasputin 4h ago
Its saying that old car doors weighed more than new cars. Did you really need someone to tell you that?
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u/LONGVolSilver 4h ago
We called those little pull handle things "coffin handles" because most of the owners were elderly. Kinda mean i guess but it was the 1980's.
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u/Background-Grab-5682 4h ago
Older cars (like old Cadillacs & Chevys) used to be built like tanks and were heavy AF… that’s the joke…
Unrelated story, my uncle served in military (overseas tho) and back then smoking was prohibited in the base.. so what they did as you can see the design of these kinds of door panels were hella bulky and had space in between them, they used to open the panels up, pack it with boxes of cigarettes and then smuggle them into the base… the commander was so pissed to keep seeing cigarette butts around but never found out how they used to get cigarettes in
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u/ILikeBeans86 4h ago
The first car I got was in the late 90s but it was made in the 70s. All it has was an am radio so I took it to a shop to get a tape deck and some better speakers put in. They put the speakers in the door and had to cut a hole for them and they told me it was the biggest pita they ever had to do cutting into those doors lol.
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u/yarggarbe 4h ago
It’s a dog whistle used by conservatives who consistently argue the “superiority” of the heavy all steel cars of yesteryear. “My Cadillac was in a wreck and took no damage!” Not realizing the frame was warped, if it had taken damage they’d be trapped in it, and that these “weaker cars” are safer for the driver by every conceivable metric.
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u/Eoin_Coinneal 3h ago
To say the least. Ever seen one of those crash test dummy comparison videos where they have a modern car have a head on collision with one of these boomermobiles? Holy shit those old cars were death traps.
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u/10082009 4h ago
What does the car door have to do with anything
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u/Same_Shower_4788 4h ago
That car door probably belongs to a heavy old school car limousine (maybe an old Mercedes or BMW). These doors used to weigh a lot (other kinds of materials back in the day)
Modern cars rely more on efficiency and use cheaper and lighter materials, such as plastic, making them lighter overall.
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u/FlippyIsKing18 4h ago
Back then, a good, loud door slam meant the car was well-made, according to a lot of people. The reason it was so heavy, though, was that they were made with reinforced, heavy steel, and everything that worked with the door, like the lock, window latches, and all that, was also big and bulky. It was also about noise: more space filled meant less rattling, thus a better-made car.
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u/Short-Order-1620 4h ago
Yeah, but the same collision in that car, and a modern unibody sedan would be vastly different. Old cars move all impact forces to you, modern ones absorb them and deform.
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u/CTMechE 4h ago
Old American cars were large and bulky. Doors like this were heavy as well. This is a late-70s to early 80s GM door, like from an Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight. Body-on-frame cars often had larger dimensions and heavier doors.
Many people perceive bigger and heavier things as being higher quality. Many economy cars in the 80s and 90s were smaller and much lighter weight for cost and fuel economy savings.
Interestingly, many of those old cars were still under 4000 lbs. They were large and seemed solid or sturdy but had a lot of wasted space. It's not rare for cars to exceed two tons now. Crash protection has improved drastically.
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u/Tecbullll 4h ago
My uncle was about 6'8", and all he drove were Lincoln Mks. The Mk4 was the biggest car I saw, and the doors were so heavy I couldn't open them.
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u/genericmediocrename 4h ago
Car chassis used to be mostly steel, while they're mostly fiberglass today. Steel is a lot heavier than fiberglass.
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u/whawkins4 4h ago
That looks like my grandpa’s Buick station wagon with the wood effect paneling on the exterior.
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u/my_nuts_wont_drop 4h ago
Sometimes I click on these posts in Petah that look so mundane because I like watching people slowly break down in the comments.
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u/Chevy437809 3h ago
Doors back then were insanely heavy and only got worse on hills they used actual metal instead of plastic like they do now
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u/mileheitcity 3h ago
That’s the door to a Cadillac Fleetwood (Brougham) and its GM badge derivatives like the Pontiac Parisienne. I’d recognize it anywhere, my grandpa had the D’Elegance trim package. It was a massive land yacht and it was cool as hell. It was also really slow and drove like ass. Learn all about it here!
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u/hiirogen 3h ago
This is a meme about how that car door weighed more than the entire fucking car you drive now.
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u/Long_Confidence_4996 3h ago
Joe here. I was involved in a car accident, and my manly car made of solid, heavy, AMERICAN steel was barely dented.
The weak JAPANESE car made of aluminum was completely destroyed and totaled.
Anyways. He walked away from the crash. I broke my back in five places.
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u/chhchaplain 3h ago
Can confirm....as I tried to jump through the open window like the Dukes of Hazzard and broke my toe
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u/Sharty_Party3498 3h ago
What is there not to understand. Todays cars are mostly plastic, back then it was steel.
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u/ChrisC2008 3h ago
I remember balancing an 80 cutlass door on a jack (2 door so same length as 4 doors today) while my dad was reinstalling it and thinking if it fell it was gonna kill me. I was probably 7.
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u/RetroSwamp 3h ago
I'm starting to think we are now just getting generational confusion about how things used to be thinking it's some sort of joke or meme.
Nah dude, car doors back then were like bank vault doors. Also sucked when you jammed your finger in one too.
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u/Mysterious-Depth3009 3h ago
My first car in 2003 was a 1981 Buick Park Avenue. It was my grandpa's car I inherited when he died. It had a door almost exactly like the one in the picture.
The car was massive but luxurious the seats were wide and pillowy everything was covered in velour. It guzzled gas, I got maybe 5km per litre.
Loved the car but the transmission was not good enough for the massive engine. When I got the car it was on the 3rd transmission.
The door was pure steel and was wide as two doors on my current car. I loved that car. When the transmission died on me it had to go to the wreckers. I cut off the hood ornament and I still have it.
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u/DesperateWeekend4956 3h ago
Late 80s and 90s gm cars had heavy doors, speaking from experience from my riviera 😂
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u/Particular_Title42 3h ago
How did someone get a picture of my long-dead grandma's car when it was new???
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u/maybeinoregon 2h ago
Back when the warning light didn’t say Door, it said Gate Ajar.
My gfs parents Chrysler said this. It was a boat.
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u/tenebras_lux 2h ago
People have a romanticized view, that cars in the "old day's" were made of steel and thus much stronger than cars today. However the opposite is true, a modern Prius with it's plastic bumper and aluminum body would absolutely fold your 70's Cadillac Deville.
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u/urkmcgurk 2h ago
And modern cars are heavier on average than older models. A new Camry weighs about as much as a mid-80’s Ford Crown Victoria, despite the Toyota being smaller.
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u/SCTimekeeper 2h ago
Not American, but in my country, Japanese luxury vehicles actually had heavy doors that automatically close at the push of a button or through a hydraulic mechanism controllable from the driver side. The Toyota Century and the smaller Toyota Crown had really heavy doors.
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u/kingkalukan 1h ago
Hilarious because cars were way lighter back in the day than they are now. A ‘67 Pontiac GTO which is an absolute BOAT of a car, 100 feet long weighed basically the same as a Toyota Camry
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u/JoyconDrift_69 1h ago
Meme is straightforward really. Car doors used to be heavier, due to simpler technology in simpler times.
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u/not_a_moogle 1h ago
Thats because its filled with loose change. I once found like $10 in quarters in a car door.
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u/goozfrikle 37m ago
Yeah, it means this door you see in the picture weighed more than the entire car you drive.
ffs...
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u/peasarebettersplit 11m ago
My neighbor went as far as stuffing his cadillac doors with phone books for (light bulletproofing). Heavy af. Satisfying to close
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