Is it legal to drive a car without doors? Watch the video

I can’t think of any other brand that actively encourages owners to remove doors, roofs and windscreens and then go driving. I suppose it’s the ultimate wind in the hair experience. Not to mention bugs in the teeth!

In case you didn’t know, the Jeep Gladiator ute – and the mechanically similar Jeep Wrangler off-roader – are both designed to have their doors, roof panels and windscreens removed easily. It’s all about making off-road driving easier by giving the driver greater visibility on where they’re placing the car’s wheels. 

It is not about allowing larrikins and lunaticas to drive at 100km/h on public roads without the protection provided by those important body parts.

I have driven a Jeep Wrangler in the nude before, way back in the early 2000s when I took one on the famed Rubicon Trail in Nevada, USA. 

The Rubicon Trail is part of Jeep folklore and a part of Jeep’s DNA. That is why Jeep calls its off-road options package the ‘Rubicon pack’. 

This 22-mile (35.4km) off-road trail is one of the world’s most iconic, and most difficult. It will literally have you bouncing your car over boulders the size of other cars and down slippery rockslides with nicknames like Big Sluice and Little Sluice. 

It takes two days to complete the trail, which gives you an idea of how challenging it is. Put a wheel in the wrong place and you will damage your car. Get it really wrong and you could kill your car. But get it right and you’ll feel a sense of accomplishment that’s hard to match. 

You’ll also look back at the trail behind you and wonder which idiot thought driving through the Sierra Nevada was a good idea in the first place. 

But driving without a windscreen or doors at speed on public roads is not fun. I learned this the day we left the trail and returned to Lake Tahoe. Firstly, a lack of wing mirrors compromises a driver’s spatial awareness, making the car feel far wider than it is, so wide that you’ll have trouble ‘placing’ it next to other traffic and obstacles on the road.  

Secondly, it makes you feel naked and more exposed to danger, especially looking down at your feet and seeing the road rushing by because there’s no door to hem you in. It feels like you could fall out at any moment, which is irrational because the seatbelt and the seat are still holding you in. 

That said, driving without all those panes and panels is exhilarating… Well, for the first 60 seconds or so at least. Then it becomes a slow torture as your face is blasted by the unrelenting wind of your passage. 

A relatively mild winter’s day becomes an Antarctic gale, chapping lips and cracking cheeks as you smile bravely across at your companions, pretending that the whole experience is liberating and not lacerating. 

As a motorcyclist I know the feel of a winter wind whipping through an open visor and freezing your face off. But an open visor no bigger than a letterbox flap is nothing compared to the full frontal assault of that same winter wind howling past a folded windscreen.

I’m not sure about windscreens, but I am pretty sure it’s illegal to drive a car without doors in Victoria. I’ll get to that in a sec. First, I want to tell you how easy it is to remove the Jeep's doors and roof and windscreen the next time you go beyond the bitumen and onto private trails. 

Everything needed for roof, windscreen and door removal comes with the Jeep Gladiator.

The two front roof panels come off easily once four internal latches on each are undone. Then you can either put them in the back seat or tray to rattle around and get scratched or leave them in your garage. 

The rear seat roof panel comes off as one bigger piece, again once a few easy-release latches are popped. Lifting the roof off can be done solo, but requires considerable strength to cantilever it off without scratching the car. It’s easier if you’ve got a helper. 

Now to the doors, and for this you’ll require the small toolkit we found in the front centre armrest bin. Inside is a little wrench (a torx-head driver) with two allen-key style attachments for the two different size bolts.

A couple of tips before you begin. First, roll down the windows so the glass is protected while you’re removing the doors. Second, unplug the electric cables on each door before undoing the bolts. Third, raise the rear seatbase to reveal the handy bolt-storage bin underneath which has individual spots for every bolt. 

One more tip, grab the Gladiator’s portable Bluetooth speaker from behind the rear seatback so you’ve got some tunes to accompany your strip-down. Anything by Fat Freddy’s Drop makes for a feelgood soundtrack in case you bark your knuckles. 

Then it’s simply a case of undoing two bolts on the door check (AKA the bar that stops the door swinging wildly open) and two bolts on each of two external hinges. Once all that’s done, lift the door up a couple of inches and off the hinge pins. 

Repeat that three more times and you have a near-naked Gladiator. 

Folding the windscreen starts with removing two bolts on the header rail either side of the central rear-view mirror, and two more closer to the A-pillars. You’ll also need to remove the windscreen wipers by popping off the hex bolt covers and the hex bolts holding them on.

Once you’ve done that, lower the windscreen onto the bumpers on the bonnet and use a cinch strap to secure it. You’ll also need to fit the provided protective cover to the exposed electronics above the rear-view mirror. This way, a stone kicked up by the car ahead won’t take out your adaptive cruise control or forward collision warning sensors.

And that’s it. Your Gladiator is stripped and you’re done.

As for assembling it all back together, that is almost as easy. Just remember to check that you don’t have any bolts left over, or forget to re-clip the door cables. 

Now for the legalities.   

Let’s start with VicRoads’s Vehicle Standards Information Roadworthiness Requirements (VSI26).

This document goes into great detail about requirements for wheels, tyres, brakes, steering, suspension, lights, seats, seatbelts, engine and driveline, exhausts, emissions controls and more. 

It does not specifically require that doors be fitted to a car. 

I had read on a Jeep forum that the biggest ‘legality’ hurdle with removing the Gladiator’s doors – or a Jeep Wrangler’s for that matter – is that the wing mirrors are attached to those doors. 

But again, VicRoads makes no mention of wing mirrors for roadworthiness, apart from: 

“All motor vehicles must be fitted with a rear vision mirror capable of providing a clear view to the rear of the vehicle from the normal driving position. Any vehicle designed primarily for the carriage of goods or any vehicle subject to internal rear vision obstruction must be fitted with external rear vision mirrors on both sides of the vehicle.”

Now, you could argue that the Gladiator is designed for the carriage of goods, but I’d argue that is not its primary purpose. It is primarily designed to carry passengers, but yes it makes a solid secondary case as a goods vehicle. 

So, not definitive, but this is where the Australian Design Rules come into play. Clause 14 revision 2 of these federal regulations require that any self-propelled vehicle with four or more wheels manufactured on or after January 1, 1993, must have an internal rear-vision mirror and two external rearward-facing mirrors. For some other vehicles, the regulation took effect on July 1, 1992, but for passenger cars, off-road vehicles and the like, January 1, 1993, was the day. 

But again, there is no specific regulation requiring actual doors. There are clauses that say where doors are fitted, they must latch a certain way and be of a certain stiffness and strength to reduce side impact intrusion.

That’s the key point here for me. Doors are a fundamental part of a vehicle’s passive safety defences, and driving on public roads without them is asking for serious trouble if a crash occurs. 

Still, it would appear that driving a Jeep Gladiator or a Jeep Wrangler without doors is ill-advised but not illegal. 

Driving without mirrors is illegal, so if you intend on driving around without doors, we strongly encourage you to buy an aftermarket mirror kit that attaches to the Jeep’s body, and secondly, do your own research to ensure you’re not breaking the law in your particular state. 

We’d also recommend not doing it. Doors are not just there to keep the weather out; they’re also there for safety.   

The 2022 Jeep Gladiator manual provides a strongly worded warning about removing the doors, and some guidance on why the Gladiator has doors that can be removed: 

“Do not drive your vehicle on public roads with the doors removed as you will lose the protection they can provide. This procedure is furnished for use during off-road operation only.”

The manual also has a thing or two to say about mirrors: 

“Outside rearview mirrors are mounted on the doors. If you choose to remove the doors, see an authorized dealer for a replacement cowl-mounted outside mirror. Federal law requires outside mirrors on vehicles for on-road use.”

The “Federal law” the Jeep manual refers to is for the United States of America. But as I discovered above, Australia has similar requirements. 

So there you have it. If you’re going to go naked in your Jeep, be careful and use the right protection. In the right circumstances, it can be a whole lot of fun, but it can also turn very ugly very quickly.