Butterfly doors

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1996 McLaren F1 with butterfly doors
1996 McLaren F1 with butterfly doors

Butterfly doors, also called vertical doors or dihedral doors, are a type of door often seen on high-performance automobiles. They are similar to scissor doors, but while scissor doors move up, butterfly doors also move outwards, which makes for easier entry/exit at the expense saving space.

The McLaren F1, Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale, Saleen S7, Enzo Ferrari, Toyota Sera - EXY-10 and the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren, among others, use butterfly doors. It was also a common feature for Group C and IMSA GTP/Camel Lights prototype racers as they incorporate teardrop top which allows the driver to get in and out of the car more quickly than conventional and gullwing doors, especially in a cramped pitlane environment such as the pre-1991 Le Mans circuit. Since then, butterfly doors have been an adopted design of closed top sportscar racers, such as the Toyota GT-One, Bentley Speed 8 and more recently, the Peugeot 908. The Toyota Sera, released in 1991, was a limited-release car designed exclusively for the Japanese market which used this design.

Koenigsegg uses a "dihedral synchro-helix" system for their vehicles (known in the custom-car world as "raptor" doors) which seems to combine the advantages of all the designs though with considerably more mechanical complexity.

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