Here’s A Brief Tour Of Some Of Monterey Car Week’s Most Notable Taillights

I got back from Los Angeles about midnight last night – or is it this morning, because midnight? It sure feels like night – so I’m a little tired still, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be getting the important taillight reports that you crave. Once, there was an official State Of Classic Taillightdom Report that would be issued after every major Concurs D’Elegance, but the Great Pebble Beach Riot of 1977 put a stop to that, since it was determined to have been started by two feuding factions of taillight enthusiast groups.

I can’t exactly recall the background, but it seems to have been started by a clash between a group of Preservationists – those who felt vintage cars should always retain only their original taillight lighting, and Updaters, who felt every car should have the latest in taillight technology and meet current regulations.

One of the groups, I can’t recall which, overturned a 1922 Packard, and, because of the tightness of the Concurs back then, caused a domino effect, flipping over about a dozen cars. Lots of beer cans and bottles were thrown (the Concurs D’Elegance was a very different sort of event back then) and the riot only stopped when the fires grew so out of control the entire area had to be evacuated.

As you can imagine, they now very carefully watch anyone who is paying what they consider to be “unusual” attention to taillights. As a result, I had to take these pictures very clandestinely, with a camera hidden inside a taxidermied rat on my shoulder. So keep that in mind as you enjoy these!

Look at this elegant Marchal taillight unit, seen on a 1923 Hispano-Suiza. I’ve never seen a Marchal unit quite like this one – usually the whole face is a red lens, with inset areas for the stop lamp and tail lamp. This one fit the look of the car very well, with an all-chrome face and crisp, simple detailing. The stop lamp helpfully has the word STOP that illuminates, and the lower lens is flat and clean. It’s an elegant, striking light.

This center-mounted brake lamp on a 1951 Abarth-Simca 8 Sport was interesting because while I knew it was pretty lusso, I don’t think I initially realized it was extra lusso. The whole car was lovely, and I think it’s interesting how much longer center-mounted stop lamps have been around. And, damn, so much lusso!

The other taillights on that Abarth-Simca were lovely examples of commonly used reflectors and lenses of the era, that sort-of-beehive shaped lamp there being quite common, but here mounted very nicely on their own chrome housing.

Look at this Deco masterpiece! This is a taillight from a 1934 LaSalle Series 50 Convertible Coupe, and it’s a marvel of dimensional deco taillight lens design. Seen head-on from the rear, these seem to be more conventional round lenses. But once you see it from an angle or the side, you get the full effect, with inset catenary arches of ruby-colored plastic, mounted on a stepped round base.

It’s so subtle and yet striking, and even has a safety advantage, as you can see them better from oblique angles and the sides!

These lights from a 1928 Auburn 8-115 Speedster aren’t particularly interesting themselves, but the way they’re mounted is. They’re some of the highest-mounted taillights I’ve ever seen, on stalks well over a foot tall! They feel like snail eyes!

I also got to see one of the latest Singers – Porsche 911 Re-Imagined by Singer or Hallucinated by Singer whatever they call them. They’ve always payed careful attention to taillights – I recall early on they re-engineered the original 911 taillight to not require visible screws – and this seems to be keeping that tradition, with an inset lens that houses a pair of round lamps. Very sculptural and interesting.

Oh this is just a strange little aside. See our own David Tracy there, being photographed between two other men, in front of a Ferrari, by our own photographer Griffin? This happened because the dude on the right was named David, and the fella on the left is a David, too, and we all know our David is David so the rightmost David decided he really needed a photograph of the Chance Gathering of Three Davids.

There were some really minimalistic taillights around as well, like the tiny lamp on this 1937 Morgan Sports Two-Seater Barrelback – a three-wheeler. It’s amazing how much less we used to care about being seen from behind back in the day.

Speaking of minimal, though, you really can’t beat this one for absolute, unrepentant minimalism, on a 1927 Lancia Lambda. The Lambda was a hugely important car, one that I think rarely gets the attention it should. It was the first unibody car! That’s a big deal. David and I should have a reel coming out about it soon.

But look at how much of an afterthought that taillight is! Just a tiny little pill-shaped amber/red window there on the big tube of the license plate mounting/light. How would one even see that?

You see this light on a lot of cars – Ferraris, Opels, many others – but I’ve always liked them. Sometimes the round center reflector houses the reverse light, often they’re in pairs. They remind me of Consumer Reports’ Harvey Balls.

Speaking of off-the-shelf lights, the use of those used to be far more common than it is now. These (I think Lucas) lenses were used on a 1961 Ferrari 400 Superamerica Series I, and I think they look wonderful in their chromed little canoe there. Off-the-shelf doesn’t have to mean boring.

Another lens from a catalog that still looks great, on this beautiful 1962 Alfa Romeo Giulietta SZ Coda Tronca. It’s just sort of stuck on there, like a print from a baby’s shoe, but it somehow works.

I talked about these wonderful special turn signals used for the Chapron Citroën DS convertibles, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to show them again, this time with all the other rear lighting on the car.

So, in this picture, I can’t recall if this light has a red window on the top, or if it’s a reflection of something? Crap.

The new Lexus concept car has a novel rear foglamp design. Here’s David and I talking about it:

 

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Here’s a fun one from the Concurs D’Lemons: an Edsel wagon taillight! This is prime googie design, with a boomerang-shape and everything. This taillight could be a neon diner sign.

Look at this webby masterpiece! This feels like the ultimate Goth Car taillight, maybe the sort of thing you’d be able to get at Hot Topic were they to branch out into car parts. I believe this one was on a Pierce-Arrow.

This type of kerosene lamp shows up on a number of cars from the early 1900s, but I noticed an interesting way they could vary. These lanterns have multiple windows; normally, they’re oriented like above, with the large window having a red lens for the taillight, and the side lens left clear for a license plate lamp.

But look at this:

Look at that! Here, a similar lantern, impeccably chromed, uses the large main lens for illuminating the license plate, and the smaller “side” lens for the taillight! Fascinating!

This taillight, with the brand name Dependence, seems a to be little more specifically automotive in design, with that angled side lens for the license plate light. It still retains a handle, interestingly. The little lamp above is a later add-on. This person must have been on the Updater side of that riot.

This is a lovely housing for some round lenses; the way the unit is faired into the fender matches the headlights at the front, which was a styling trademark of Pierce-Arrow. This is also from an era when the amber lamp was used as a stop light color, and the red was the taillight!

Simple round lamps, each in their own chromed barrel. It works.

This type of three-lensed lamp was used on multiple cars of the era, and it’s one of my favorite for catalog lamp. Prior to turn signals, the amber was often used as a stop lamp, though one could easily adapt that to a more modern car with indicators. I believe the clear was for reverse, though it’s a bit early for common reverse lamps. I need to investigate these more.

These lamps from the Chrysler D’Elegance (the car where the VW Karmann-Ghia design came from! More on that soon) are prime ’50s jet-age enthusiasm. They’re sort of strange on this Ghia design, being un-integrated and a bit tacked-on, but they’re also glorious.

Sort of jet-engine like, sort of more abstracted, they’re impossible to miss.

Now, a similar Virgil Exner/Ghia design for Chrysler, the 1953 Chrysler Special Coupé, has much tidier, integrated taillamps, set carefully into that whole chromed bumperlet assembly. Lovely.

Chrysler’s Town And Country had some nice Art Deco-style taillight units, with nice horizontal ribbing, and a large center brake light/license plate lamp assembly. They’re larger than you’d expect in person.

Virgil Exner’s attempted revival of the Dusenberg marque included some subtle and novel taillights sandwiched between chrome bumpers. Interestingly, these had amber rear indicators, which would have made them the first American car to do so, had it made it to production. We’ll have more on this car soon!

The Chrysler Imperial was always about presence, and, damn, do these taillights have that. They look like they could shoot a ruby-colored particle beam through six feet of concrete.

This was an unusual Bentley I’ll show more of soon; for the moment, just look at these interesting taillight choices. We have a not-uncommon-for-the-era pair of semicircular lamps flanking the number plate:

…but then we also have these lovely and strange little teardrop-shaped units low on the fenders:

Fantastic!

I love the incredibly utilitarian, no-bullshit look of these taillights. A round taillight mounted to a cylindrical license plate lamp (with a side-facing extra window?) and a simple, rectangular STOP lamp. These almost feel like they’re from a construction site or something.

Ruxton was always classy, and their custom taillight assembly here shows it. We have a stop lamp with the inset STOP text, a round tail light, our clear suspected reverse lamp, and an amber RUXTON reflector or maybe lamp? All in a nice chrome housing, with some tasteful curvy detailing.

I’m including these lamps from an old Rolls-Royce because of their colors, primarily. The smaller outermost lamp is clearly red, the lower one seems amber, and the top one is close to yellow? Or at least a lighter amber? I suspect the upper one is an indicator, lower a stop lamp, outer one tail, but the color variations are unexpected.

Okay, I’ll finally wrap on this puzzling lamp, that seems to illuminate red and clear simultaneously? It’s so stately on its tapered chrome neck, I feel like it could be a side table lamp in some Art Deco office building.

That’s enough taillights for now! I’m also happy to say there were no riots this year, at least not about taillights. Just hats, but we’ll get to that soon. Stay tuned.