Audi A5

The debate about two-door versus four-door cars almost always ends up in the same place. Two doors look better. Four doors are more practical. Case closed, move on. But that framing skips over something more interesting, which is why the two-door almost always looks better, what specifically it does to a car's proportions, and the cases where the four-door actually wins...

Walk through any parking lot in America and run a quick count. Crossovers, trucks, more crossovers, a few SUVs, one sedan that belongs to someone's dad. The cars that consistently rate highest on design, the ones that win awards and get photographed at auto shows, are largely absent. Meanwhile, the vehicles moving off dealer lots..

Some cars stop traffic. They get photographed in parking lots by strangers, get threads started about them on forums, and land on every best-looking list written in the last five years. Then you check the sales numbers and wonder why nobody is actually buying them...

You know the feeling. You pull up next to something at a red light, do a double take, and think that thing costs a fortune. Then you look it up and your jaw drops for a completely different reason. Some cars just have the gift...