>he gullwing doors were a blatant disregard for the 100+ years of engineering expertise that has converged on the current design of a car door, and throwing that out the window for something flashy and attention grabbing. //

Gull-wing doors surely are designed to do one thing, sell the car on look alone. Surely people know they're impractical; but they have the essence of supercar in that impracticality. I had a Lambo' Countache poster as a kid, the flip up doors were probably terrible in practice but they had an evocative unusualness that showed this was no ordinary car. I imagine it gives the vehicle a lot of free marketing and a strong differentiator.