My C and D Pillar Design Rules: Why So Many Cars Have Ugly Backs

I have a long-running obsession, unusual for an American, with station wagons. Why the wagon got such a bad rap here, I’m honestly not sure. They were never considered cool even before National Lampoon’s Vacation permanently chained them to the suburban-dad image — but Europe figured out decades ago that the wagon (and its cousin, the hatchback) is the most practical body shape ever made for a family.

That’s also why European manufacturers tend to have the nicest C- and D-pillar designs — the third and fourth pillars, the ones that frame the rear glass. They have decades of practice. American carmakers, meanwhile, are still trying to trick buyers into thinking any car that isn’t a sedan or a pickup is somehow still a sedan or a pickup in disguise.

With the US’s obsession with SUVs — which are, structurally, just larger station wagons — and the continued struggle to ship a decent wagon, I think car designers have gotten a little lost. So here, for the record, are my rules for the rear pillars of any car with a hatch or liftgate.

Six Rules for the Back of a Car

1. The C pillar cannot be thicker than the D pillar. Ideally it’s hidden under glass, or at least made to read that way.

2. The C and D pillars must follow the slope of the rear glass. They should flow with the window line, not fight it.

3. The D pillar gets one exception: it can taper slightly thicker at the bottom than the top. Slightly. A gentle taper, not a wedge bolted on after the fact.

4. The roofline cannot drop to meet the beltline without following the rear glass. When it does, you get a thick, chunky transition at the back of the roof — and the back of the car looks heavy and wrong.

5. The body side and the rear door cannot suddenly angle up to meet the D pillar. The Volvo EX30 is the most recent offender. They were so close.

6. Study the people who get it right. BMW, VW, and Audi almost always do. Volvo mostly does. Jeep has some genuine wins (and some genuine misses). Honda used to be one of the worst offenders and is finally pulling itself together.

My Personal Pain Points

The worst offender I’ve personally owned was the 2012 Subaru Impreza. That D pillar made me itch every time I parked behind it. The Outback and Forester used to be reasonable, though even they’ve had their awkward years.

And the current car I drive — a Tesla Model Y — fails rule 4 outright. The roofline drops to the rear glass on its own slope, doesn’t follow the window line, and the back of the roof reads thick and short. It’s the reason I keep saying, in post after post, that this car should have been a wagon.

This is probably just my own quiet weirdness. I spent my career in branding and design — I’m trained to notice proportion errors. But when proportions are right, the car looks like it was finished. When they’re wrong, the car looks like it was sketched on the back of a parking ticket. Once you start seeing it, you can’t unsee it.