Encyclopedia Hoonatica: Window Corner Fillers

By Peter Tanshanomi Mar 23, 2015

mitsubishi_cordia_6
Thanks to Jim’s Antti’s Mitsubishi-themed weekend, I was reacquainted with the Cordia, a car I though was quite handsome as a young college student soldier. But I never realized back in the day how odd and obvious the black plastic filler was in the corners of the rear quarter windows. It is a styling technique we’ve seen many times over the years. Sometimes it’s done for engineering reasons (stronger roof pillars, or allowing door windows to go down completely) and sometimes it’s done strictly for looks (“Let’s make this window odd and awkward!”). For whatever reason they exist, your job today is to list all the cars that have used this little styling trick.
Just to be clear, this is NOT a Hofmeister kink, which clips off the corner of both the window and the window frame to match it. We need to see cars whose body shell is shaped to make it look like the window opening was originally larger than the glass is, and the extra bit has been filled in with a trim piece (sometimes chrome, usually matte black if the car is less than 25 years old.)
DIFFICULTY: Roughly equivalent to being “it” in a game of hide-and-seek. On the Bonneville salt flats.
Read the comments first and don’t post duplicates. Images are always a nice touch.*
*thanks to the wonder of Disqus, I no longer have to admonish you about HTML and/or image width settings!

By Peter Tanshanomi

Tanshanomi is Japanese [単車のみ] for "motorcycle(s) only." Though primarily tasked with creating two-wheel oriented content for Hooniverse, Pete is a lover of all sorts of motorized vehicles.

67 thoughts on “Encyclopedia Hoonatica: Window Corner Fillers”
    1. Interestingly enough, the car pictured is not a real Impala SS, but a Caprice with window fillers made to make a Caprice look like an Impala SS, because in the early years Caprice didn’t not have the kink and Impala did, then in 96 they both had it.

      1. That is a ’94 SS. They updated body had the kink in ’95 across the line.
        The appliqué really just did cover a hole but it was a separate part as shown.

    2. I was behind one of these on my street when I was coming home from work today. Still a handsome car after 20+ years.

        1. You are right and wrong at the same time!
          Speaking of the 5-door, but picturing the 4-door…
          The Opel Kadett sedan always had that window too…
          But the Daewoo Nexia 5-door actually did get rid of that thing!

  1. http://cnet1.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/r/2010/08/03/74eaf7ac-67c4-11e3-a665-14feb5ca9861/thumbnail/770×433/a3cdf2f0cd850578098baa50e5c9d496/33060613-2-440-SIDE-3.jpg
    http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2008/04/vibe128029_opt.jpg
    You want your windows to go 100% down right? They won’t, but these little black filler pieces will get them closer to it.
    2009-2013 Vibtrix, biggest offender is the Vibe because of the c-d panel windows.

      1. A valid comment including the famous front treatment, too. Hard to understand what they are aiming for with a car that is so successful already. On the other hand, you don’t want to be called boring or lazy either. Luxury problems of a market leader.

    1. Aaagh… and I’d just gotten the obnoxious ~2012 “grounded to the ground” advert from the NASCAR rotation out of my head…

      1. Oy. It even got an echo of the Sebring’s hood strakes. I guess that’s the price that was paid for the baby-Charger styling theme, with that quarter panel upkick that starts in the door and runs into where the Sebring had a little fixed window.
        I even had a ’14 Avenger SE V6 for a few days last summer, as a loaner when my pickup needed to spend 3 days in a shop for what was expected to be a 1-day suspension repair; I must have blanked that part of the car out of my memory in favor of how stupidly fun the big V6 + smallish car combo was…

        1. With all the rebates for these, that trim/engine combo was probably one of the cheapest hp/$ deal out there…

      2. That’s awful. And just from this tiny picture I get that yoghurt cup plastic feeling…holy smokes!

    1. Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Y̶e̶l̶l̶o̶w Black Polka Dot B̶i̶k̶i̶n̶i̶ Window Corner Filler

  2. And as you can see in the second generation Lexus GS, Toyota’s recent job on the 2015 Camry isn’t their first.

  3. When I first saw photos of the Chevy Volt I was pleased to see that the high belt-line trend was finally being reversed … oh wait, that’s just a black strip running along the bottom of the greenhouse and (re this topic) kinked up just ahead of the C-pillar… .
    (Apologies in advance if the photo doesn’t appear — I’m experimenting with the new Disqus format.)

    1. With or without a photo, a bonus point for reminding us all of this particularly inexplicable piece of ‘window filler’ madness…


  4. the SW20 MR2 promised a lot of window in the profile view, but the buttresses and rearward-curving rear window meant glass all the way out back woulda been useful.

  5. Hatchback mustangs from ’79-86 had the “sail panels” that looked dated as the Fox years wore on. The entire quarter window from the ’87-’93’s could be installed in their place as it was just a big piece of flush mounted glass that covered both the old window hole and the body work that was formerly paneled over.
    http://mustangattitude.com/mustang/1986/1986_00009_05.jpg

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