Motor vehicle side door
AssigneeFord Global Technologies, LLC
InventorsTorsten Gerhardt, Jose Paris, Martin Lichter, Martin Knuettel
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A motor vehicle having a side door is disclosed having lower and upper parts. The upper part comprises a window surround for fixed and drop-down windows. The fixed window has a much larger barrel radius of curvature than the drop-down window and the inclusion of the fixed window reduces the chord length of the drop-down window between a beltline of the motor vehicle and a lower edge of the fixed window. This combination allows the use of more tumblehome on the motor vehicle without needing to increase the thickness of the lower part of the side door in order to accommodate the drop-down window when it is lowered.
Claims20
A motor vehicle side door having a lower part below a beltline of the motor vehicle and an upper part above the beltline of the motor vehicle, the upper part comprising a fixed window, a drop-down window located below the fixed window and a window surround for the fixed and drop-down windows wherein both of the windows when bisected by a common transverse vertical plane of the motor vehicle have a curved cross-section with a respective external convex surface and a vertical barrel radius of curvature of the external convex surface of the fixed window is larger than the vertical barrel radius of curvature of the external convex surface of the drop-down window.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.