Re: 2 Door or 4 Door...Help Me Decide!...More (archive)

I am going for a 4 door, estoril blue as well. Why? One, my wife insists on 4 doors, but that aside, after spending time with a 2 and 4 door, and talking to some others, these things became apparent.

The 4 door has shorter doors, making it noticeably easier to get in and out of, especially if space next to you is tight. Perhaps not a problem, if like me, where I would park at the far end of the lot, next to no one.

The seats in both, after maybe 100 miles in the sedan were fine. The short drives in the coupe showed the seats as nothing special one way or the other to me. For hard cornering, the Vaders do feel they would work better, but the sedan was fine I thought.

Other things to think about on 2 door vs. 4.

In estoril blue, the 4 door I think looks rather classy, but purposeful. Just my opinion only, but do not think the 4 door looks as good in other colors, with the possible exception of silver.

The sedan is a bit taller and narrower than the coupe, less than an inch for both dimensions I believe.

I found the sedan had more headroom, but may have been my imagination. As a taller car, my perception may be real.

The sedan has solid window frames, making the window a bit more solid when it is up. Maybe trivial...

The sedan and coupe weigh, the same, so nothing special there.

The sedan tail lights are boxier, if that means anything to you.

8,444 sedans were built, with many as automatics.

Apparently, some racing people feel the 4 door handles better than the 2 doors. A check of some racing series does show a surprising number of 4 doors on the track. I have no idea what the handling difference is. I could not tell any in my shortish drives.

As an aside, I drive a minivan too, but 4 doors are handy at times. I had a 2 door car and while I liked the style, I still needed to get back there at times, and it was a pain. The BMW moves the front seat forward and that really helps, but I am getting old, and perhaps tired of crouching to get to the back.

Anyway, hope some of this stuff helps you decide.

- Phil
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Can't make up my mind between the benefits of a 2 door '96 Estoril/Modena with Vader seats or a four door lux Estoril/gray model. Are you folks with the four doors OK with the seats on these cars? For me it comes down to the advantages of the extra doors VS the most excellent vader seats. (the kids can always ride in the mini-van!)

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