Geneva  - Getting in and out of the car could be become much easier soon if some of the ideas seen on concept cars at the recent Geneva Motor Show find their way into production vehicles.

The back seat passengers of some sports cars will find it a welcome relief as they will no longer have to clamber in through the front door and squeeze around the front seats to sit down in the rear of the vehicle.

If some of the designers have their way, we will see sets of wide doors opening both to the left and right without any obstructive bodywork in between, such as the structural B-pillar between the doors.

The feature was shown on the Nissan Qazana SUV and on the Dacia Duster. The doors on the latter are so wide that a bicycle can be loaded with ease.

On the air pressure car, Airpod, which low-cost manufacturer MDI plans to put into production soon, the driver enters via a front door similar to that seen on the Isetta bubble car of the 1950s, while passengers enter from the rear. Both doors open up wide like those of a station wagon.

Ford has found a different solution for its IosisMax, the model which is expected to succeed the C-Max. Engineers have placed a sliding door for the rear passengers directly behind the front door in an arrangement which also dispenses with the B-Pillar.

"At the moment it is still a design study but the technology functions quite well," says Ford press spokesman DetlevJenter. He did not confirm whether the idea will be used for production cars but prototypes have been sighted at the Ford development centre.

Rolls-Royce meanwhile has left no doubt that the new "baby Rolls," still known by the secretive label 200EX, will have butterfly doors which hark back to the horse-drawn coach era.

Opel spokesman Wolfgang Scholz has also confirmed that a similar solution may well be in the pipeline for the next generation of the Meriva van.

Meanwhile the classic gull-wing door is set to make a comeback. Mercedes subsidiary AMG has confirmed plans for a new super sports car which will take cues from the legendary Mercedes 300 SL gull-wing sportster of the 1950s. AMG CEO Volker Mornhinweg is not keen to talk about a "retro" model but says the upward swinging doors are a "brilliant idea".

Bodywork director Guenther Ast believes the solution is practical as well. "Even tall people can get in easily and you only need a width of 30 centimetres alongside the car in order to be able to open the doors".

But carmakers are not only looking at transforming the conventional doors. The bonnet of the Ford IosisMax concept opens up and swings to one side like a parallelogram although it is highly unlikely that it will find its way into production cars.

The Skoda Superb already offers a practical rear set-up with its twin-door hatch. The tailgate splits below the window, allowing normal boot access or complete hatchback accessibility. BMW offers a similar solution on the new 5-Series GT.

Such exotic constructions have in the past been limited to super cars such as the Rolls-Royce Phantom with a butterfly door arrangement and the Lamborghini with its signature scissor-like doors. Now such unusual solutions can be found in bread-and-butter models too.

The different approach has its risks though. The Peugeot 1007 flopped mainly because the electric sliding doors were so expensive and heavy. Likewise the Renault Avantime would probably have been in production for much longer than just three years if engineers had managed to solve the bugbears with its twin door hinges. (dpa)