[Erdrick]

Regardless of what you call it, it is an area of the car that definitely doesn't get used in my case. Even so, I have the option of opening it. With my car being a hatchback, I have access to the rear of my car w/o the need for a way to open it from outside. If the car were designed so that the rear of the car did not open, this would at least save some weight from hinges and pneumatics. Go a step further by just using metal and you would probably save weight from the glass. I would imagine the quarter panels could wrap around to form a single piece. While this may not be attractive, it would in the end probably save money in production costs, and save weight.

A downside? For one you lose rear-view mirror capability, unless you install a rear-view camera. Another potential problem would be if you were to get rear-ended. What would have been one trunk door now becomes a reallllly long and wrapping piece of metal.

Does anyone see the utility (or lack thereof for most people) of doing something like this? For those of us that never open our trunks, it may be something to hope automakers eventually adopt.