You Can Already Buy These Cars Without Rear Windows

I was recently in Munich for the reveal of the new Polestar 5, a fabulous electric sport sedan that has a futuristic design with no rear window. While that might seem radical, it’s not a new concept. The Polestar 4 crossover is already on sale without a rear window, and though a huge splash was made about that feature (or lack of a feature) when it was revealed a couple years ago, the Polestar is far from the first roadgoing production car that ditched its rear glass.

There are a lot of cars on sale that offer digital rear-view mirrors, so the tech is both proven and always improving, but that’s usually in addition to having a window you can also look through. In places like Europe, where side-view cameras are allowed instead of mirrors, it’s a bit more commonplace. Hypercars like the Aston Martin Valkyrie, McLaren Speedtail and Volkswagen XL1 have done without both side mirrors and a rear window, using cameras for everything. China has also been more openly embracing of such setups, with a bunch of cars on sale there that don’t have rear windows such as the Avatr 06 and Yangwang U9.

The Polestar 4 isn’t even the first modern car to do without the rear window in the U.S. specifically. There’s no law mandating a rear window like there are for side mirrors, after all. For your reading pleasure I thought I’d round up the cars currently on sale that don’t have a rear window, plus a few recent models that are no longer in production but were offered in the U.S. before the Polestar (and one other that is currently sold in Europe). I’m not counting cars like the Lamborghini Huracán STO or Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 that technically have a teeny window you can barely see through, I’m definitely not counting work vans, and of course if we go back decades and decades we’ll find things like the Tatra T77 that didn’t have a rear window, so just understand those caveats before you set your commenting fingers to work.

I’ll start off with the most normal car, and one that you can actually buy new right now. Well, you can order one right now, but deliveries won’t actually start until November. A stylish crossover coupe that’s a few inches longer than a Mercedes-Benz GLC, the Polestar 4 shares its underpinnings with other Geely products like the Zeekr 001 and Volvo EM90. It offers up to 300 miles of range in the single-motor variant, or you can pick the dual-motor model for 544 horsepower and a 0-to-60-mph time of just 3.7 seconds, still with about 270 miles of range.

Polestar says removing the rear window allowed it to move the crash structure further back, increasing crash safety and allowing for a gigantic panoramic roof that stretches behind the rear passengers’ heads and a ton of interior space. An extremely high-resolution camera is mounted in the shark fin on the roof, giving a wider field of view than a mirror through what would’ve been a small rear window anyway, and the camera feed greatly improves visibility in the dark and in the rain. The shark fin is designed to direct airflow and keep water and grime away from the lens, too. The display for the camera is in the rear-view mirror, which can still function as a mirror so you can look at the people in the back seat. In a roundtable in Munich, Polestar’s CEO said that 90% of their customers love the 4’s setup, admitting that some people are turned off by the lack of a window, and that’s OK.

The 992-generation Porsche 911 GT3 RS already has an absurd aerodynamics package that produces almost as much downforce as the 911 RSR that races at Le Mans, with the biggest standout features being the gigantic DRS-equipped rear wing, complex front fenders and huge ducts in the hood. But if the standard GT3 RS just isn’t extreme or fast enough for you, write up a check for another $116,160 and you can get the track-focused Manthey Kit equipped, which deletes the rear window.

This package includes all sorts of modifications like new coilovers, aerodiscs for the rear wheels, more roof fins, a more aggressive diffuser, and additional lips and splitters and aero flics and other tweaks. The RS’ standard wing clearly wasn’t enough, so Manthey made the end plates even larger, redesigned the center blade, and then swapped the rear window for a carbon-fiber panel that has a large shark fin coming off the center, attached to the wing. With the Manthey Kit the GT3 RS boasts over 2,200 pounds of downforce at 177 mph, and the carbon panel has a 25% weight savings compared to the standard glass. Best of all? This package can be ordered and installed by your Porsche dealer.

Though the Ferrari 812 has since been replaced by the 12Cilindri, a name that still makes me laugh every time I read it or say it in a “proper” Italian accent, we haven’t yet seen a more hardcore version of the 12Cilindri to supplant the 812 Competizione, which debuted in 2021 without a rear window. The standard 812 had glass back there — in fact, said glass was part of a hatch that opened up to reveal a fairly large cargo area — but the Competizione replaced it with an aluminum panel that featured a shark fin camera and a sextet of carbon-fiber vortex generators. These elements “distort the flow and thus redistribute the rear axle’s pressure field,” according to Ferrari. Going into more detail, the company said,

These vortex generators further enhance the work of the rear spoiler-diffuser system, creating areas of strong pressure gradients in the flow immediately above the rear screen and generating vortexes on the transverse plane. Thanks to this solution, part of the flow is deflected towards the sides of the spoiler which boosts downforce generation, benefiting the efficiency of the diffuser. The patented vortex generators alone guarantee 10 percent of the total increase in rear downforce compared to the 812 Superfast.

Don’t worry, you still get the same spacious cargo area as a normal 812, too. Ferrari only made 999 of the 812 Competizione coupes, with an additional 599 Competizione A droptops that do have a tiny mail-slot rear window, and these days they regularly trade for nearly $2 million, more than double the original MSRP.

Ferrari said the 812 Competizione was the first production car with a closed rear screen, but Aston Martin actually beat the Prancing Horse to it a couple years before. In 2019 the British automaker announced the DBZ Centenary Collection, which paired a recreated DB4 GT Zagato with a totally new model, the DBS GT Zagato. Based on the standard DBS Superleggera, the DBS GT Zagato got a completely redesigned body with incredible design features like a grille made from 108 individual carbon-fiber pieces that open and close as needed for cooling.

One of Zagato’s most well-known design signatures is the double-bubble roof, and the DBS GT took that motif to the extreme by extending the carbon-fiber roof all the way back to the tail of the car, covering the space where a rear window would be. The curvy design looks spectacular, with the CHMSL and rear-view camera hidden in a seam at the base of it, and there still is a trunk. Each of these Zagato pairs cost over $8 million, only 19 of the pairs were made, and they’ve probably all stayed together, so good luck trying to find just a DBS GT Zagato if you want one.

OK, this car isn’t sold in the U.S., but it is still on sale in Europe and it is extremely cool, so I’m including it. The A110 R is the ultimate version of Alpine’s mid-engine sports car, kind of like the GT3 equivalent if you look at the normal A110 as a base 911. In the pursuit of weight savings Alpine replaced the A110 R’s rear window with a carbon-fiber engine cover panel that has a pair of integrated cooling vents. Paired with other R-specific upgrades like the bodykit, rear wing and carbon-fiber wheels, the A110 R looks awesome. But unlike other cars in this post, instead of having a dedicated camera for a view out the back, the A110 R just has the normal backup camera and that’s it.

Last year Alpine revealed the A110 R Ultime, which had even more power, a more dramatic aero package, an ombre color scheme and an eye-watering pricetag of nearly $400,000. For the A110’s final year on sale, Alpine now has an A110 R 70 special edition that comes in red, white or blue, showing off that rear panel more blatantly than other A110 Rs that keep the standard carbon finish.