Home » Jeep Redesigned An Iconic Taillight Upside-Down And I’m Totally Confused

Jeep Redesigned An Iconic Taillight Upside-Down And I’m Totally Confused

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We haven’t done a good taillight post in a while here, so I think its high time we solve that. What I’m afraid may not get solved is this mystery I want to tell you about, a mystery about Jeep taillights. It’s not that the taillights themselves are that mysterious, but a decision made in the design of Jeep Wrangler taillights since the JK-era, starting in 2007. It’s a decision I don’t understand, but I wish I did.

This is going to require a bit of backstory about Jeep CJ/Wrangler taillights, which is fascinating because of one fundamental truth about how Jeep designers seemed to think about taillights:

Vidframe Min Top
Vidframe Min Bottom

They did not give a shit.

At least, that’s how it always seemed; for most of the Jeep CJ’s existence, the taillights used seemed to be the cheapest, most easily-available out-of-a-catalog units Willys, then AMC, then Chrysler, could buy. For example, here’s what the taillights looked like for a 1973 Jeep:

73 Cj Rear

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They’ve just stuck on the most basic – and let’s be honest, probably cheapest – taillights they could. A pair of round red ones for brake/tail/turn, and a pair of little round reverse lamps above. Good enough!

Then, in 1976, AMC realized they could probably save even more money and time by just using those all-in-one “box” taillights that were showing up on some Ford stepside trucks and 18-wheelers and box trucks and other vehicles. These eliminated the need for four separate light units, cutting it down to just two:

76cj7 Rear

As an aside, that picture above is interesting because I think it’s based on a pre-production design, where the off-the shelf box taillights might have been encased in some body-colored shell? At least that’s what it looks like, and is not what eventually made it to production, perhaps because that shell would have covered the legally-required retroreflector on the taillight unit.

These box taillights are some of my favorite bits of taillight design, due to their incredible cleverness and simplicity.

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76cj5 Siderear

I once made a whole video about them, and in this video I actually mention what this article is about:

The box taillight — which use the left lamp to illuminate the license plate below — stayed with the Jeep CJ into its re-branding as the Wrangler with the introduction of the YJ in 1986, as you can see on our own David’s YJ in this festive picture here:

Screen Shot 2024 12 24 At 9.59.15 Am
Photo credit: Amy and Stuart

When Jeep did a major update of the Wrangler, going from the TJ series that ended in 2006 to the new JK series, one of the things that Jeep’s designers did was to update the lighting, including the taillights.

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Jk Rearish

Jeep assumed that in the advanced Year of Our Lard 2007 no consumer looking to drop about $20 grand on a new car would be satisfied with the same kind of taillight they could pick up for $15 at their local Pep Boys. When you think about it in terms of repairability, though, the Pep Boys light is really a plus. But still, you know how people are.

So Jeep re-designed the taillights to be custom units, but designers used the old, parts-catalog box taillight as an inspiration for the design. There was just one significant change:

Jeeptail Comparo

They re-designed it upside-down.

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Now, I get that this is a minor thing. Hell, it’s all minor! It’s focusing on minutia to such a degree that I question my own sanity, my own role in the world, my very existence. But I can’t get it out of my head. Because, fundamentally, it makes no sense, and if I had my way, the world – at least the world of taillights – would make some kind of sense.

It’s very clear that the JK taillights are not some clean-sheet complete re-thinking of what this taillight could be. It’s absolutely derived from the old box lights, right down to the way it’s not really integrated into the body of the Wrangler. They’re still sort of stuck on, because that look has become a signature of what it means to be a Jeep.

In all of the time Jeep has used these taillights on CJs and then Wranglers, they have had the reverse lamp oriented at the top. This is because they had to, because the window for the license plate lamp is at the bottom, under the red taillight section, since that’s what stays on when the lights are on. You can’t have the license plate only be illuminated when the car goes into reverse, after all; it’s already weird enough that the license plate illumination increases when the brakes are applied.

So, it’s not like there’s any precedent here for a lower reverse lamp, because there isn’t. Hell, when Jeep designers could be bothered enough to actually design a taillight from scratch, they were more than willing to stick the reverse lamp up top, like a weird clear gelatinous cherry, as you can see on this ’60s-era Jeep Jeepster Commando:

Jeepster

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I just want to know why. Why did they feel they needed to flip the look of this pretty iconic taillight 180°? What did they feel was being gained? Was there some conceptual reason? Did designers at Jeep secretly wish they could flip those lights around for decades?

I don’t get it. I have reached out to a Jeep designer, but so far I’ve yet to get a response. I’ll keep trying, and if I get any answers, I’ll do a follow-up. As it is, I just want to make you aware of the fundamental situation and perhaps we can all ponder this mystery together.

Why, Jeep? Why? What am I missing? I feel like there’s something here eluding me, and it’s driving me clamshit.

 

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Lava5.0
Lava5.0
4 days ago

The most logical answer that I could come up with is that they were not getting enough ground illumination from the top of the light so this was an easier way to lower the light without changing the positioning. That being said, I don’t believe my own bullshit as in the realm of lighting illumination, 2″ positional changes are not going to affect much.

Goblin
Goblin
5 days ago

It’s never minor.

In 2016 we replaced our 2013 Santa Fe (long wheelbase, three row seating) with a MY 2017 one. Very, very similar, pretty much a restyling on the front, and identical back.

But something was amiss. And I couldn’t put my finger on it.
Then it hit me.

The 2013 one had the reverse lights on the top. They were aligned with a long silver strip that linked them visually.
The 2017 one has the revers lights on the bottom. They are misaligned with the silver strip, and it looks out of whack.

Everything else remains the same, the taillights are interchangeable.
I’m not mentioning here the full LED taililights of the tech packaged MY 2016 ones, which are the best looking, and quite rare.

Links to pics (not my cars):

2013-2016:

https://www.automotiveaddicts.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/2013-hyundai-santa-fe-limited-rear.jpg

2017-2019:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/wheelsca/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/27042618/Hyundai-Santa-Fe-XL-2017-rear.jpg

67 Oldsmobile
67 Oldsmobile
5 days ago

They probably just held the old one upside down when they traced it to the new design. Shit happens you know.

James Mason
James Mason
5 days ago

As a mechanical engineer and CAD designer, I am really hoping this is all the result of a bad mate constraint in the top level assembly that NOBODY caught.

Doughnaut
Doughnaut
3 days ago
Reply to  James Mason

You ever get thrown some assembly filled with assemblies, and it seems like no one that worked on it before you followed any sense of logical work flow? Then you go poking around, and you try to adjust one mate, and the whole thing blows up? It’s either filled with loads of errors, or it now is suddenly over constrained, or it suddenly half of the sub assemblies are upsidedown and inside out? You undo it, try to learn more about what is going on, and try to make a different change, and it happens again! You dig more, and someone is mating off of floating unconstrained virtual planes, while another person is mating off of driven bolt holes, and someone else is mating off of the base planes. What is going on!? Wait, did Don some how use an equation to auto adjust several mates, based off of properties no one can find!?!?! Who cares at this point, just make it work!

And that’s how I had ended up with a bag making machine where a large portion of the left side, was actually on the right side, and no one caught it until we had already started making parts. Well, until we were almost done making parts.

Marques Dean
Marques Dean
6 days ago

Keep Calm and Jeep On!!lol

Cheap Bastard
Cheap Bastard
6 days ago

“Why, Jeep? Why? What am I missing? I feel like there’s something here eluding me, and it’s driving me clamshit.”

Because duh, it’s a Jeep thing. You wouldn’t understand.

AlterId has reverted to their original pseud
AlterId has reverted to their original pseud
6 days ago

I know this can be frustrating, but there’s no need for you to go clamshit or batshit or the excreta of any other organism, be it vertebrate or invertebrate or plant or single-celled or whatever, because in surmounting these challenges you advance ever closer to a Unified Theory of Taillights, which encompasses quantum illumination by explaining why. when the state of one taillight changes, the state of another seemingly unrelated taillight that’s not only not on the same car but sometimes still within its packaging on a warehouse shelf changes also.

Do not let your strength flicker in the night, and one day your exploits will be sung by choirs and schoolchildren will learn your name.

John McMillin
John McMillin
6 days ago

This isn’t just some Jeep oddity. I own one, and for a while two, Ford C-Maxes (“Maxen?”). This model was restyled in 2016. Did they use that occasion to simplify the mutant fish mouth with three grilles up front? No, they modernized the headlights and flipped the colors of the taillights, just like in this Jeep. It didn’t help, but it didn’t hurt, either. Jason should have seen them parked side by side.

VanGuy
VanGuy
6 days ago

I can’t respect them. I have a vendetta against these lights, the same as Econoline/E-series taillights from 1995 onward…no amber turn signals, and basically no redundancy. One red bulb goes out and you’ve lost a ton of functionality and introduced lots of ambiguity.

These lights and lights like them need to die.

Baltimore Paul
Baltimore Paul
6 days ago
Reply to  VanGuy

A little harsh. But true about a burned out bulb. Long live the 1157 bulb!

Alan Christensen
Alan Christensen
6 days ago

Perhaps because Jeep is committed to minimal styling changes, keeping the CJ-through-Wrangler essentially the same for more than a half century (just changing proportions and details over time), flipping the taillights was one of the few things they could do within the limitations. They probably learned their lesson with the rectangular headlights.

Last edited 6 days ago by Alan Christensen
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