SPACESUITS have no buttons and space stations have no door knobs. Automobiles, which sometimes aspire to be spaceships, seem to want to lose their old-fashioned door handles.

Decades ago, car customizers like George Barris banished handles, sometimes replacing them with hidden electric releases. Auto designers tended to devise flush, sleek handles that were as discreet as possible. These, along with such impractical features as gullwing doors and tiny (or absent) side mirrors, have long been staples of the concept cars at auto shows.

I once asked Peter Horbury, who is now the design director for Volvo, about this. Designers, he explained, operate on the assumption that in the future doors will just magically open. They, too, have been watching "Star Trek" and "Star Wars."

Until thought-actuated operation becomes feasible, the designers are hiding the means of access. Cadillac has devoted a whole advertisement to this feature: "The door handles are invisible" the company brags in an ad for the CTS-V performance coupe. That detail suggests the purity of the car's design, the ad suggests. It is a form that one dares not mar with the excrescence of a grip.

The CTS-V is the not the first Cadillac with hidden handles. The General Motors division succeeded in transferring the concealed door handle of the 1999 Evoq concept car, which defined the so-called Art and Science look, to the production car that it inspired, the 2004 XLR. The Corvette, a kissing cousin of the XLR, offers a similar hidden handle.

Other companies are hiding the handles on more mundane models. To retain the Hyundai Veloster's svelte coupelike lines, designers hid the handle of its third door by making it black and flush. The Nissan Juke similarly disguises its two rear door handles in the dark frame of the rear glass; the coupelike look that results is in keeping with the Juke's look: it is a caricature of a rugged rally car.

This trick of hiding the handle in the C-pillar has been played before, in the four-door versions of the Nissan Pathfinder of 1990 and the Alfa Romeo 147 of 2001.

A door handle is like a handshake: it is how a car introduces itself. So it is fitting that handles reflect the personalities of the vehicles to which they are attached. The Volkswagen New Beetle's were as round and cute as Mickey Mouse's gloved hands.

The Nissan 350Z of 2003 introduced an upright handle that resembled a door in a home or a lab. It was designed to provide a mechanical accent in contrast to the softer body of the sports car, designed by Diane Allen and Ajay Panchal at Nissan Design America.

The chrome accents on a Mercedes S-Class speak of its luxury, while the rugged black handles of a Jeep Wrangler have the quality of camping tools. The latest Honda Odyssey minivan suggests kinship with luxury vehicles; its chrome close-set handles resemble the paired handles on vintage cars with center-opening suicide doors.

Generally, the more expensive a vehicle, the less visible its handles.

There is no visible means of access on the new McLaren MP4-12C; to unlatch the door, one sweeps a hand under a ridge that extends forward from the rear air scoops.

The handles on the Mercedes SLS AMG remain flush to its sleek sides unless they are popped up with the remote key fob. The trick pays homage to the 1955 Uhlenhaut coupe, which also had flush handles for its gullwing doors.

And the Audi R8 hides its handle in a touch spot under a panel in its side.

Customizers have already devised systems to let the driver pop the door open at the imperious wave of a hand -- as long as the electronic key fob is within range.

First Published: July 3, 2011, 4:00 a.m.