Cars with no rear screens | Axon's Automotive Anorak

Whilst presenting its new 4 model, Polestar made some play of the fact that the car has no customary rear view windscreen. Rather than a conventional back window, the Polestar 4 relies on a series of rear-view cameras and sensors to aide rear visibility.

It was my feeling that the lack of a back window may well hinder sales for the more traditionally minded consumers, although this doesn’t seem to have been the case so far in China where the 4 has been on sale since last December.

It is therefore somewhat ironic that earlier this week, Polestar introduced another new ‘product’ for which its glass screen is crucial. It’s Polestar’s first AI smartphone, made of aerospace aluminium and crystal-polished glass (with four cameras), which was unveiled in China along with its Synergy concept car at the Beijing International Motor Show.

The Polestar 4 will have a standard high-definition veil showing a real-time feed from a roof-mounted rear camera replacing the familiar rearview transparent window. By binning the rear window entirely, Polestar claims to be able to offer extra headroom for the driver and passengers alike in a coupe format, this also allowing the vehicle to have a state-of-the-art camera system.

This radical solution is also said to provide drivers with an improved display of the road behind them with an elevated definition and wider arc and in comparison to a traditional rear window. This all conjures up memories of Joe 90’s weird Jet Air car from the cult late 1960s Gerry Anderson children’s sci-hi TV show, in which he sat backwards when driving, watching his route on a small television monitor.

Amusingly, as the Polestar team were highlighting the ‘benefits’ of producing the ‘first’ car with the absence of a rear window, an Aston Martin Valkyrie drove slowly past its exhibition stand, as part of Salon Prive’s record gathering of 14 Valkyries. Just like the new Polestar, the Valkyrie also lacks a rear window.

Being the automotive anorak that I am, with a passion for motoring trivia, my mind was instantly set to thinking of other's production cars that also did away with a customary transparent rear window. Sure enough, over a quick coffee, a handful of other sans-rear-window cars sprang to mind. I really should get out more.

This list included a raft of prototype concept cars that never actually made production, such as the prototype KdF (VW) V30 of 1936, as developed by Ferdinand Porsche and built (for testing) by Mercedes-Benz. This car ultimately became the Volkswagen Type 1 Beetle.

In more recent years, VW’s premium Audi brand has also presented a few concept cars that made do with no back windscreens, such as the Skysphere and Rosemeyer concepts. Bertone’s much heralded Lancia Stratos Zero prototype, the subject to much media coverage of late following the recent passing of its designer Marcello Gandini, is another car that did without a back window, as did Yanko Design’s modern take on that car.

Actual production cars without a rear window include the current range-topping Alpine A110 R performance model, which replaces the traditional see-through back window with an aerodynamic black carbon fibre cover, which many road testers have complained severely hampers rear visibility.

Like the Alpine A110 R and Aston Martin Valkyrie, another new car without a rear window was also out in force at the recent Goodwood 81st Members’ Meeting presented by Audrain Motorsport; the GMA T.50. The exacting, precise aerodynamics of both T.50 and track-focused T.50s, dispense with traditional rear see-through screen in the interests of optimised air flow.

Another production car to sacrifice a conventional back window was the radical, slippery and ultra-efficient diesel-hybrid Volkswagen XL1, as built in very limited numbers (250 examples) between 2013-2016. The most expensive production VW ever offered (costing £119,000 at launch in 2013), the aerodynamic XL1 was capable of up to a claimed 310mpg (0.9 L/100km). The feather-weight carbon-tubbed VW relied on tiny, pioneering door-mounted cameras for rear visibility.

Unlike the F8 Tributo on which it was built, the one-off Ferrari SP48 Unica does not have a rear window. As with every other design decision on this car, this was deliberate, despite it impeding rearward visibility and the ability to see the Ferrari’s glorious V8 from the outside. The SP48 has a roof decal that mimics the grille pattern and creates an arrow with the windscreen and windows when viewing the car from above, the edges of which tuck into some more intercoolers and intakes.

This final, and arguably most significant, true production car to dispense with a rear window was the radical pre-war Tatra T77 of 1934, plus its smaller sibling T87 and T97 of 1936. This revolutionary trio of Hans Ledwinka-created aerodynamic rear-engined Tatra four-door saloons made contemporary rivals seem instantly redundant.

Adolf Hitler in particular was a huge admirer of the V8-engined T77, and the car became the vehicle of choice for many of his senior Nazi staff due to its superior performance and comfort. That said, a decree was soon issued banning the use of T77s due to their tricky on-the-limit pendulum-like rear-bias handling causing frequent road accidents (possibly caused by poor rear vision.).

A110, Valkyrie and GMA images by Nick Wilkinson, Jordan Butters and Peter Summers