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Ok I’ll bite 66 Chrysler Imperial?66 Mercury, 58 Caddy. For sure a 66 Chev, 60 T bird a Reliant 82 maybe? An an old 64? Mini.
I have always admired the designers and engineers from previous generations that were able to create such distinctively designed ‘faces’ for automobiles out of the two basic headlight shapes of round and rectangular.
I demand a revival of the Pop-up headlights. It frees up the design of the nose to give a sleek and elegant appearance. A classic example is a late 80’s Toyota Supra:
http://www.classicandperformancecar.com/front_website/octane_interact/modelpicture.php?id=3560
Understated beauty by day, obnoxious boy racer by night. Who’s with me?
Mikey: that’s the Imperial and a 65 Lincoln, I think.
My first love was a 66 Mercury. It used to take me two days to wax it when I was a kid so I got pretty familiar with it. First car I learned to drive on.
59 Cadillac and that’s a Mercedes there, not a Reliant. I thought just about everyone knew that Mercedes stole all it’s best designs from Chrysler…. ;-}
Appears to be the lights from an early US-Spec Mercedes W124.
The red one is an 1963 Thunderbird.
Car number 2 is a 1965 Lincoln.
The first picture is a ’68 Imperial.
It is interesting to see that many of the “eyes” were the sealed beam variety. For years, the US regulations only permitted sealed beams and finally in the mid 70’s the shapes could change to rectangular. And later to more free form shapes that were not sealed beams.
Remember the AC-Delco “T-3” sealed beams for aiding aiming?
The Aqua Chevy is a 66
The W124 light shows the tragic ignonrant stupidity of US vehicle legislation in the 70s and 80s. It’s so ugly compared to the original. And don’t get me started on railroad track bumpers…
#2 is LBJ’s Lincoln, not to be confused with–forgive me!–Abe Lincoln’s Johnson. The car is now owned by John Bugsy Lawler. The Mercedes is an ’84. The Caddy’s a ’59. The T’bird is the same ’63 T’bird in the Happy Independence Day photograph, belonging to Stephen Anthony.
I believe the Merc is a W201, not a W124.
D.H.:
At least you didn’t use obscure foreign clown cars that only a hundred or so came to the U.S.
This one I got 100%.
Let’s take it to the level of the REALLY obscure. Can anyone ID the factory color? The TBird is Rangoon Red. That’s all I got.
1968 Imperial, 1965 Lincoln, 1959 Cadillac, 1966 Chevrolet (B body), 1963 Ford Thunderbird Sports Roadster, mid ’80s MB W 201 (190 Class), mid ’60’s BMC Mini.
I think the Mercedes is a w201 (190e). The early w124 (300e) and w126 (S-class) had amber fog light lenses next to the radiator, not clear ones. Plus, the relative size of the fog light to the headlight is right for the w201. The “sealed beam” fiasco was over by the time the w124 hit our shores, so it never suffered the ugly lights.
You guys are right, it’s a W201.
@commando1: all shot on the street except for LBJ’s Lincoln. The Imperial, the Caddy, and the Mini Cooper all within about half a mile of each other in Cambridge MA and the former two cars live in the locations shot. The others shot in Wellfleet MA. I’ve probably taken 50 shots of the t’bird over the years.
stu Sidoti: I too love the car faces of yore. car nuts actually recognize car faces in the same part of the brain they recognize human faces (Nature Neuroscience March 10 2003).
David, if you took that W201 shot in Wellfleet, I’m wondering if it might be my daughter’s car. Was it a teal color? Most of the time, it’s either at the pier, or at LeCount’s Hollow.
“…all within about half a mile of each other in Cambridge MA “
Amazing in as much as that The People’s Republic of Cambridge has 50% of the Volvos in Mass. ; )
“I demand a revival of the Pop-up headlights.”
European pedestrian impact regulations have basically outlawed them, so pop-ups aren’t coming back.
commando1,
in that same part of cambridge, half a block from the Caddy, there was a Hillman Minx last winter, probably the first one I’ve seen in several decades. Some friends in Cambridge have a ’55 Chevy Wagon, but they keep it on Martha’s Vinyard. The guy with the Imperial has a couple of similar vintage chryslers. And the guy with the Caddy has a ’59 (I think) Imperial. I’ve also seen a ’58 or ’59 tbird at his house, and several other interesting cars. Marc Feinstein, who owns German Performance Service, also in that section of Cambridge, has a mid’80s (I think, but could be later) Merc wagon. there is a beautiful bathtub Porsche (probably ’60s) that I’ve seen a few times at his shop.
Uggh, sealed beam headlights – good riddance to bad rubbish.
Halogen and HID headlights are a huge upgrade over the yellow/brown light of a sealed beam.
-ted
I’m with zerofoo on not missing the lighting performance of the old sealed beams in their four standard sizes, even though the halogen ones produced after about 1980 were not all that bad.
However, you’ve got to give credit to the stylists of the era for the times when they designed attractive front ends, in spite of this fairly significant design limitation.
Adamyyz:
100% with you. And the generation before it. But the ’86 generation was the last real Supra.
Sealed beams get a bum rap not entirely deserved.
Everyone who bought a Chrysler product between ’93 and ’02 or so, and who tries to drive it at night, wishes their headlights were as good as the old round sealed beams. I pick on the Mopars here, and they deserve it, but there have been plenty of other low-performance headlamps in recent memory. The high end of headlamp performance has advanced greatly over the last fifteen years, but the average performance is roughly the same as it has been for many years; the spread from best to poorest is much greater now than it’s ever been.
The concept of a sealed beam is technically quite correct for headlamp service: they’re impervious to the elements and to idiots bearing “HID kits” and 100-watt bulbs. Because they’re standardised in shape, size, and electrical connection, whoever needed a replacement headlamp for his 1946 car in 1975 got 1975-spec headlamp performance. When he needed a headlamp for that same ’46 car in 1988, he got 1988-spec headlamp performance — and he got it for about $15. Compare that with model-specific headlamps which cost a fortune, have condensation and dirt-entry problems, are subject to tampering that makes them dangerous, and are in most cases the only available design for any given car (that is, whatever level of technology and performance the manufacturer provided is the only level of technology and performance that will ever be available in headlamps for that car, until it’s no longer made, at which point no headlamp is available for that car).
So sealed beams are great? Well…not exactly. They suck? Well…not exactly. It’s a concept vs. implementation thing: the implementation of sealed beams in the USA left a fair amount to be desired. Their beam patterns definitely could’ve been better focused with higher-quality materials and construction techniques, but most of them were cheaply made on account of their disposable nature. The way they were halogenised in the late ’70s was emblematic of cynical Detroit stinge: rather than take advantage of the increase in efficacy brought by halogen to deliver more light without changing the wattage (as the Europeans and most of the rest of the world did in 1962 when they adopted halogen headlamps), in most cases U.S. industry opted to reduce the wattage so as to be able to spec cheaper switches and thinner wire. Low beam performance took a serious hit, and the automakers, with straight faces, justified their specifications on grounds of “fuel savings”. Do the math and you tell me how much fuel would be saved in 10 years driving a 2-ton-plus 1977 Lincoln with a 460 engine because its halogen sealed beams have a 35-watt low beam filament rather than the 60-watt filament of the previous non-halogen beams. Now do a little more math, if you know enough geometry and physics: How much more likely are you to get in a crash at night with your 35w halogen low beams producing 17,000 candela apiece, compared to the 25,000 candela produced by the 60w non-halogen sealed beams?
American lighting regulations have a long track record of permitting and encouraging bad lighting, but this comment is growing long enough for an editorial, so…stay tuned.
I vote a big no for pop-up headlights, not only do they add unsightly panel gaps when closed, they ruin the lines when open, plus, the motors involved are just another exposed electrical system potential point of failure.
Well designed integrated headlights can add a lot to the look of a car. Mazda is doing a great job right now blending sheetmetal and plastic to create both beautiful cars and cool looking headlights.
My favorite, however, has to be the (up until very recently) Jaguar XJ. Those smooth raised tunnels running into the quad headlamps just scream class and luxury, and Jaguar always did it 10x better than the knockoff derivative design that Mercedes sported for a while.
NulloMudo, I’m with you on a dislike for pop-up headlights, but not because of electric motor failures – my disdain of them is because of the vacuum powered mechanisms that were in favor for some time. I had one vehicle that was perpetually “winking” with one door open, and one closed.
You’re spot-on with the XJ’s quad lamps. I also think that the XKE’s (“E-Type” to non-Yanks) faired-in dual headlights were pretty sexy, as well.
@Daniel J. Stern:
Look forward to reading your editorial about headlights, even i can only speak for myself!
Seriously I always love the off-beat editorials on TTAC!
Daniel J Stern: I think I agree with everything you said. I miss the convenience, practicality and durability of the old sealed beams. With sealed beams, I never had to polish the lenses to get rid of the yellow oxidation that I have to do every couple of months on my old Crown Vic. And you could keep a spare low beam on the shelf in the garage in case you needed one on short notice.
In the late 80s my everyday driver was a 66 Fury III. I was driving on the highway when a semi kicked up a hunk of concrete that hit the front of my car. I pulled over, imagining that I was going to see a bunch of mangled grillwork, and happily discovered that the total damage was one busted headlight. Cost to repair: One standard sealed beam. I hate to think what a similar mishap would cost today on an older car, not to mention the aggrivation of trying to find the parts to replace a lens or an entire headlight assembly.
in most cases U.S. industry opted to reduce the wattage so as to be able to spec cheaper switches and thinner wire. Low beam performance took a serious hit, and the automakers, with straight faces, justified their specifications on grounds of “fuel savings”.…
Do you have any references for that claim? I wouldn’t be surprised but would like to know for sure. I do remember as a kid that GM used to list halogen headlamps as a notable feature. Of course, for the first two years, it was only the high beams. Now that was cheap!!
In europe, back in the ’60s, the headlights were yellow. was that halogen? We had to replace the yellow headlights on the Peugeot with regular US spec ones when we got back from France, so I’d be surprised if they were legal here.
The one upside to owning an older car (or a car that kept sealed beams like the 1997-06 Jeep Wrangler) is that you now have some relatively affordable drop-in options to improve your lighting performance. I put some H4 lamps/housings in my Wrangler and it was like a revelation. I only wish I could do the same for my other car….
Sealed beams can affect aerodynamics. The height of the bumper is mandated. The size of the sealed beam is fixed – for some time we had a single unit high/low beam then later smaller units that were high or low beam. And then finally we had rectangular shapes. But the combination of fixed bumper height with fixed sealed beam size meant the height of the front of the car was pretty much determined and hence aerodynamics was affected.
Custom shaped headlights (not sealed beam) gives the designer of the body a bit more flexibility in designing the frontal area.
Hidden headlamps are one of those double-edged sword situations. When they work right, they’re great, but as pointed out, they do have additional mechanical assemblies (vacuum operated versions seem to be a thing of the past) which can fail.
My favorite are old Firebirds, most of which seem to have one of the headlights in either a full or, worse, partially opened state.
In addition to mechanical problems, hidden headlamps have other disadvantages over fixed headlamps. The aerodynamic advantage of them in the closed position is often more than offset by the drag they create when open. The mechanisms add weight, some say unnecessarily. Unless some sort of fixed driving lights are installed, flashing the high beams becomes a clumsy affair during daytime.
I also wonder if the disappearance of them was also driven by the number of countries requiring daytime running lights. While other lights can be used for this purpose, it just seems easier for the manufacturer to use the headlamps.
D.Holzman: “In europe, back in the ’60s, the headlights were yellow. was that halogen? We had to replace the yellow headlights on the Peugeot with regular US spec ones when we got back from France, so I’d be surprised if they were legal here.”
David, As I understood it, the yellow lamps were peculiar to French vehicles … or at least at the end … some say this yellow-lamp specification was used as a barrier to entry into the French market for non-French OEMs … others say this was just because the French are so determined to be, well, French! C est la vie!
@golden2husky:
Do you have any references for that claim?
Yep, lots. The quickest, easiest, and meatiest for general access is here (PDF). NB he states 20,000 cd and I state 17,000 for the halogen 35w H5006 small round low beam vs. 25,000 cd for its non-halogen predecessor 60w beam. Neither of us is wrong; some of the H5006s were/are substantially poorer than others and the performance spread is larger than with the non-halogen units. Read the PDF for details.
I do remember as a kid that GM used to list halogen headlamps as a notable feature. Of course, for the first two years, it was only the high beams.
Right. The only reason why U.S. industry pursued halogen at all (having dismissed it since 1962 as unnecessary in headlamps) was because NHTSA doubled the straight-ahead intensity limit on high beam from 37,500 cd to 75,000 cd per side of the car. To obtain 75 kcd without halogen would’ve required wattage that couldn’t be supported without a couple of pennies worth of thicker wire and relays. For context: the high beam intensity limit in Europe at the time was 150 kcd per side of the car, double the “improved” U.S. limit. The U.S. DOT contended that there’s no seeing benefit above 75 kcd per side, and they still stick to this claim; the tests upon which they base this conclusion were run with small rectangular halogen sealed beams, which are optically pathetic.
@David Holzman:
In europe, back in the ’60s, the headlights were yellow. was that halogen?
In France from 1936-1993, all forward-facing car lamps had to produce “selective yellow” light. Some other European countries (Netherlands, Belgium…) permitted the yellow lights, while others (Germany…) prohibited them. Because of the timespan of France’s requirement for yellow lights, over the years there were plain tungsten, tungsten-halogen, and even HID yellow lights.
@Wheeljack:
I put some H4 lamps/housings in my Wrangler and it was like a revelation.
The H4, the world’s first two-filament halogen headlight bulb, was state of the art when it was introduced (and quickly widely adopted) in Europe and elsewhere outside America in 1972. U.S. regulators first allowed the H4 bulb to be used in U.S.-spec headlamps two decades later. There have been some good H4 headlamps, but there have also been some really pathetic ones. An H4 (or other European-spec) headlamp is not necessarily better than a U.S.-spec headlamp, though neither is the reverse true; good headlamps are better than bad headlamps. Also keep in mind that subjective impressions of headlamp performance are often way off the mark with respect to the lamps’ actual safety performance.
Somebody get that ’59 Caddy out of the snow! There oughta be a law. Wait, it’s in Cambridge, just call the cops, there doesn’t need to be an actual law broken.
Not all newfangled headlights beat good old fashioned sealed beams. Worst headlights I ever experienced on any car were on a Ford Focus I rented about a year ago.
Robert Walter and Daniel J. Stern: Thanks!
RW: your explanation of why the French had the yellow sounds logical to me. Both of them, actually.
I’ll give you a 10-second head start then flip on the quad sealed-beam CIBIE headlights on my ’72 Rx2 or ’74 Manta.
Plan on the hair on the back of your neck being burned off at the roots.
@ Daniel J. Stern:
The H4, the world’s first two-filament halogen headlight bulb, was state of the art when it was introduced (and quickly widely adopted) in Europe and elsewhere outside America in 1972. U.S. regulators first allowed the H4 bulb to be used in U.S.-spec headlamps two decades later. There have been some good H4 headlamps, but there have also been some really pathetic ones. An H4 (or other European-spec) headlamp is not necessarily better than a U.S.-spec headlamp, though neither is the reverse true; good headlamps are better than bad headlamps. Also keep in mind that subjective impressions of headlamp performance are often way off the mark with respect to the lamps’ actual safety performance.
Believe me, I’m well aware of the multitude of lousy H4 housings out there to replace the standard 7″ round headlamp – many of my fellow “Jeepers” have been sucked in by some of the crappier ones sporting such silly “features” such as “bars” behind the lens, or the vile faceted reflectors and clear lenses that never seem to perform well.
The irony is that one of the Jeep specific magazines tested a number of H4 housings and proclaimed a well known German brand [starts with an “H” ;)] the best of the bunch, and they were cheaper than most of the others in the test! I really wish that same magazine had tested the housings I chose [a French brand that starts with a “C” ;)] since I believe they are one of the better choices out there based on the information I have seen.
The brand-C units are indeed substantially better than the brand-H ones, from the beam performance standpoint. Both are about the same from a build-and-materials perspective. It’s a crying shame the ones once made by the other French brand starting with “M” were discontinued years ago; they were head, shoulders, knees and toes above any of the others.