Why is it fashion to have smaller and smaller side windows on cars?

Cars, like every other consumer item, varies in the way they look with fashion. One thing I have never understood is why new cars (not to mention concept cars) look like armoured cars with side windows whose height is probably soon closing down to few inches, just enough to observe what is going on outside and stick a barrel out.

Armoured car

Photo by hellochris

The new Audi

Photo by Khamid

The fashion may actually come from somewhere else than the military or riot police, from Hot Rods:

Photo by BWJones

Photo by MyBarina

To make Hot Rods appear a bit mystical the roof is chopped and lowered. (Mystical is my interpretation).

Still this fashion in ordinary cars makes you feel like your traveling inside a tank.

If you get tired of the fashion of making ordinary cars' windows smaller and smaller, have solace in the fact that there is always the Fiat Multipla:

Photo py ebeth

I'd like to see a Multipla parked next to one of the new Bentleys...