I've been wondering about the deal with the recent fascination over four door coupes.

I'll accept that a lot of them look good--the Hyundai Sonata being one of the best. However, it seems that Audi has been heading that direction with the A5 Sportback and the A7 Sportback, and Mercedes-Benz with the E-class based CLS, along with the Volkswagen Passat CC. However, all four-door Audis have sort of a tall coupe-like roofline--look no further than the A4 or especially the A6, or even the A8.

Mercedes seems to want to cash in on this by making the face-lifted C-class avaliable as a coupe and sedan, the coupe being inspired by the CLS. Even though they don't market their cars as such, BMW have seemingly engineered the 3 series coupe and sedan to share the same roof line.

And, of course, there's the Mazda RX-8, which had small rear suicide doors on it.

Where did this recent fascination come from? Even cars that aren't coupes at all have a coupe like styling flair to them, such as the Ford Falcon and the Holden Commodore/Vauxhall VXR8. And the Vauxhall/Opel Insigina, marketed in North America as the Buick Regal.

Personally, I think that Citroen started this with the DS and later the CX. Even the XM and the C6, both of which have replaced the CX, echo it's coupe-like roof line and hatchback rear end. Audi have done the same theme with the A7.

Why all this fascination over the past 5 or so years over four door coupes, and does the average car buyer care? Does anyone care, and is that type of styling what makes one want to buy a car or does it put one off?