More or less to me it is for the blind spot that the quarter c panel makes I have many of times used the little port hole to peep through at the traffic coming as my mirror would not see the coming traffic at certain angles if you were diagonal to traffic coming up from behind. Non the less Great post!

The only thing is I wish the inside was as pretty as the outside view of our Opera windows.

 

My 2010 Ford Focus, 2004 and 2012 Mazda 3's all had opera windows.

 

Even if those are functionally similar (a window in a large C pillar), the small C pillar windows on modern cars have a completely different design aesthetic from true opera windows. The 2010 Focus is a prime example of what modern designers are trying to achieve. If you do a Google Image search for a 2010 Focus, you will find plenty of example of Focus coupes, which is basically just the Focus sedan with 2 doors. You can see that the purpose of these extra windows on the sedan isn't to break up the C pillar, it's to allow the rear doors to have roll-down windows and still have the "big window" look of the coupe. The same is true of the Mazda 3 sedans, where the so-called "opera windows" are actually part of the door, and not attached to the C pillar at all. In the hatchbacks, there are 2 smaller windows on each side, one small triangular one in the door, and a larger one that covers and hides the C pillar while giving the side windows a more appealing shape. Similarly, in the Dart, which really does have massive C pillars for a sedan, the window doesn't sit inside the C pillar to form a portal, it sits on top of it to mask its existence. You need to look closely (or from the inside) to see the truth. In practical terms, these windows serve the same purpose as opera windows did, to allow the driver better visibility, and allow more light into the vehicle, but the resulting style is entirely different.

 

The opera and other rear windows are useless to me while driving. I have to rely on my mirrors and situational awareness to know what's going on around my Dart. Unfortunately there aren't many new cars out there that give the driver a good view of what's going on in the rear corners.

 

I have noticed that myself, and it is one of my gripes about recent cars. They seem to have terrible, big blind spots around the rear corners.