Patent ID: 7931327

Claim:
A vehicle comprising at least one tailgate defining a door plane, said tailgate being attached to the vehicle chassis in a jointed fashion by means of at least one multiple hinge having at least three pivot axes offset from one another and at least two paired, pivotally interconnected hinge arms, of which a first hinge arm is pivotally directly connected to the vehicle chassis with spur gears having parallel axes, and a second hinge arm is pivotally directly connected to the tailgate, the first and second hinge arms being connected in series, the at least one multiple hinge being associated with a gear train controlling the hinge motion of the hinge arms in the pivot axes, whereby the door plane is moved along a predetermined motion path when the tailgate is moved from a closed position, in which the tailgate spans a closed plane, into an open position, in which the tailgate spans an opening plane, the motion path of the door plane comprising rotary and translational components, and the closed plane enclosing an angle with the opening plane in the range from 70° to 110°,˜ wherein the second hinge arm is connected on a pivot axis to a rigid carrier of the tailgate, and a distance between the pivot axis and the connection of the first hinge arm to the vehicle chassis corresponds to about ⅔ of the width of the tailgate.