I’ve always said that one of my favorite things about cars is how wonderfully and gleefully irrational they are. They’re not like the other major appliances and tools we use in our lives; we buy them for reasons that aren’t grounded in anything even resembling logic, and as a result, cars can get pretty freaking weird. There’s an example of this that I was reminded of the other day that I just haven’t been able to get out of my head, so I’ll do what I always do and set it free here in a Cold Start, where it can haunt or delight you, depending on your mood.
That example are the Auxiliary Front Lamps that were an option for the 1980 to 1983 Lincoln Continental Mark VI. I’ve actually written about thee before a few years back, but that was for the Old Site, so I think I’m allowed to mention them again here, at our true home.
Here’s what they looked like:
See the big, round headlights there? Well, they have a secret. The secret is this:
They’re not really the headlights. No, they’re basically just glorified parking lights, and the real headlights are dual sealed-beam units underneath them. That’s because the Lincoln Continental Mark VI was very deliberately designed to have covered headlamps, as you can see here:
The covered lights were all part of their classy, tailored look; lots of crisp lines and creases, unbroken planes of glossy, smooth metal, it was all part of a very deliberate look.
But, somehow, people being the irrational beings that we are, someone decided that, no, what this car really needs are big, round, exposed headlamps, so instead of designing a version with exposed lights, they designed a fake set of headlights to put on the covers over the real headlights. The real headlights that they very carefully decided to hide.
This is, of course, absolute madness. It’s so hilariously irrational and absurd! And also, I never could get past just how unfinished the real lights looked under those covers:
That feels pretty half-assed for a luxury car, right? It’s like the inside of a tomato, somehow. No wonder they hid those things in shame.
But the idea of a fake light over deliberately covered real lights is just a concept I can’t get out of my mind. It reminds me of how, in some Orthodox Jewish or Hasidic communities, tradition dictates that married women cover their hair in public, but many women choose to wear wigs as a way to cover, so you have fake hair over real hair, which meets the letter of the rule, but is still somehow an odd workaround.
These lights make me think of that, and I suppose any headlight that makes you think of interesting niche religious practices must be doing something right?
The lights were never a popular option, though, so maybe this was just a step to far down the path of automotive irrationalism. I think these fall into the same silly category as those fake engines used on electric motorcycles to make noise and vibrations.
Silly, yes, but so very human.
You had to be there, Jason. Disco, cocaine, bad ideas and poor taste ruled the day back then. You youngsters just wouldn’t understand.
Never saw on in the wild with this option. Kind of makes it look like and 80’s model Stutz Bearcat to me. Not all that attractive, but perhaps pimptastic to some?
Uggh, the could have put a bezel over that and it would have cleaned up and looked classy. Thank goodness the Malaise era is over.
I actually kind of like it.
It’s delightfully absurd and unnecessary and the angles all clash and it just makes me giggle with unfiltered glee, like watching someone rollerblade into a trash can.
I always thought those were aftermarket headlamps for poeple who wanted a Rolls, but only had the credit for a Lincoln. Never knew those were a factory option and that there were real headlamps behind the doors.
I’m pretty sure this look did start with the aftermarket in the ’70s, and this was Ford responding to that by making it available from the factory
I would so rock the black one without the abominable fog lights.
Yes, it’s a Panther. Yes, it’s just a 302. You can do a lot to a 302 easily and an AOD is a pretty solid transmission. The 8.8 axle is solid with better ratios available.
I could definitely get behind a ridiculous twin turbo 5.0 in a Mark VI.
Ages ago I had a 78 T-Bird that I put a 460 into, sometimes I miss that thing
Had a ’78 LTDII coupe in high school, 2bbl 351W.
I’m thinking EFI 347 stroker, this needs torque. Probably 3.27 rear gears and an AOD for cruising.
Just go 351 at that point, Panthers came with them from the factory and they have a bigger engine bay than Fox bodies.
351W are hard to find performance parts for. They use a different intake manifold due to the higher deck. Most nowdays go for a stroked 302 (347) for this reason.
Valid point.
I am currently debating this in my head because it looks like I am buying another ill advised Fox-body project car with no engine and am brainstorming what to do. A good old 302 would be easiest, but I want more cubes. A 347 would accomplish that but nowadays you need to start with an aftermarket block which means $$$. That’s why I was thinking 351W.
Or go a completely different modern direction with a Coyote but there are so many peripheral parts that would be needed.
“Or go a completely different modern direction with a Coyote but there are so many peripheral parts that would be needed.”
Or do something really different… Drop in the 3.7L V6/manual combo that was sold in the Mustang in the early 2010s.
OR… go nuts with an engine out of the superduty trucks… either the 3V 6.8L V10 or the 6.2L Boss engine.
OR… lose your mind and make everyone think you’re Completely Nuts and turn it into a plug-in hybrid using the powertrain from a Ford C-Max or Fusion Energi… which would also convert it to FWD in the process.
Nah, I need another project like a hole in the head so if I do this I’d take some tried and true engine swap path so I don’t have to fabricate stuff.
But think about what you could do with another project along with that additional hole in your head.
Think of the possibilities!!!
Now a 351C is a whole different can of worms and worth preserving.
What I would consider is whether to take the existing 302 and build it up or get a newer fuel injected 302 with the better heads that made 205-225hp from an auto recycler.
My dad had a Panther with a carb’d 302 (1982 Mercury Grand Marquis). That engine was best described as ‘asthmatic’ with an unreliable choke that would get stuck in the ‘on’ position.
And I would describe the AOD transmission as ‘uncooperative’.
Hell… I’d even be inclined to ditch the automatic for a 5 or 6 speed manual… and they make kits for that for Panthers.
https://adtr.net/product/mercury-marauder/drivetrain-mercury-marauder/adtr-5-speed-manual-transmission-swap-kit/
I’m all about Malaise era baroque luxury personal coupe styling flairs, but even I thought these lights were pretty ridiculous.
As an aside, the grille for The Homer is from one of these. I first pulled a grille from a Mark IV at the junk yard and the damn thing weighed like 40 lbs. The Mark VI grille is just aluminum and plastic – perfect for a race car.
I await Adrian’s take on this…
“Could you fucking not.”
–Adrian
Weren’t rectangular headlights allowed by then? Rectangular ones would’ve filled the space better.
But yeah, half-assing is Job 1 in Detroit LOL
What they should’ve done is like use H4 Euro headlights possibly Hella E-Codes. Technically they’re not the official lights and just auxiliary shit wink wink 😉
The Town Car used quad rectangular lamps. The Mark VI was more upscale.
Now I want to see it with huge Volvo or Mercedes W123 euro headlights.
Yes, but the point was to create a visual distinction between the more expensive, top of the line, Continental Mark VI, and the cheaper Continental Town Car/Town Coupe. The Town Car got exposed rectangular headlights, the Mark VI got the fancier concealed lamps (and since the headlights were going to be covered anyway, might as well use the slightly cheaper round ones)
I am impressed/appalled by ther DGAF’ery under the roll up covers.
The domestic industry was all about the good being the enemy of the just barely passable
COTD
and still is 🙁
Great. It’s taken me 40 years to erase these from my memory. I don’t know if I have another 40 years in me so I have contend with the thought that this will be my last image before I expire.
This would for once be a realistic Bond car. Every time the guns emerge from behind the headlights / blinkers of the Aston Martin on duty I wonder how small the gun is, given that the frontwheel is right behind the light. With this car at least there is ample room between headlight and front wheel.
You really want the Mark V, you could probably hide a rocket launcher or mini-gun in one of them.
I’m almost surprised that Ford didn’t do a folding hardtop variant a la Skyliner, and then leave the fake vinyl top on.
And now I wanna do that. Maybe on a miata rf…
That woulda been waaay out of budget for Malaise Era FoMoCo.
All the money was being funneled into Taurus at this point. A wise move.
I remember these as a kid. Even before I knew anything about automotive design, I knew this was hot garbage.
Late Gen-X, not sure I’ve ever seen one out in the wild. It is hideous.
If you’re closer to 75 on your DOB, you might not remember them. There were very few, and of course once the doors failed they would be invisible anyway.
’76, Bicentential Baby
In honor of yesterdays post, I nominate this as the perfect face to graft onto the front of a Cybertruck.
Put some light covers on top of the parking lights on top of the covers on top of the headlights.
https://www.kchilites.com/6-vinyl-cover-kc-yellow-with-black-kc-logo-5101.html
I think the car itself is an abomination and therefore the fake headlights somehow compliment the absurdity of the car. Of Ford. Of marketing. And of humanity itself. And don’t get me started on our many orthodox neighbors in 19th century garb out of Poland. Heaven forbid they should ever see a naked ankle.
Missed opportunity for the Xzbit “Yo Dawg..” meme…
And this was definitely somebody in the marketing department’s “Pimp My Ride” idea long before the show existed.
The unifinished look of door-concealed headlights when they were open was common across the brands that used them. I can only assume the designers assumed that those doors would only be open when it was dark out and the headlights were on, therefore no one would be able to see the bare steel and mechanical bits behind the bulbs.
Of course, when the doors stopped working (as they did VERY often), this assumption was thrown on its head.
Related in an inverse way, I love how old sports cars of a higher end sort would often have clear areo headlamp housings with basically a bulb or two just affixed in them. There was something so wonderfully function only/aesthetics be damned about them. I feel the same way about obvious and visible exhaust piping in back.
I know we miss lots of cool old features on cars, but I am excited about the inevitable return of covered headlights, I’m betting via a tech clear panel that turns body color when the lights are switched off.
Since the final death of popup headlights in 2005, we’ve been hearing about how we can’t have them anymore due to pedestrian safety regulations. This made some sense….until the Cybertruck appeared. Now I’m not buying it.
There are no pedestrian safety regs in the US (currently, allegedly being worked on). The CyberTurd is generally illegal in places where there are.
While the current administration is in power, there will be pedestrian scoops that will activate if the pedestrian is brown-skinned. He or she will be popped into a holding area at the rear of the car, which will then automatically deliver the suspicious pedestrian to the nearest ICE detention center for processing.
I find it more likely that said brown-skinned person would just be smashed flat and left for dead.
The scoop will be called Due Process
Allegedly the real reason is that because headlights can now be basically any shape or size the designers want, they can be fully molded into the car for aerodynamics, so pop-up lights are no longer an engineering necessity. They were just a way of reconciling the standardized sealed beams with the need for better aerodynamics. That does mean popup lights did hold on for a long time beyond when they were no longer functionally necessary, but I guess economics won out eventually, the mechanisms are more expensive to make that a big blob of clear plastic
I just replaced the bushings for the pop-ups on my C4.
I think the trend is making headlights small enough that they blend into panel gaps and styling lines, but it’s functionally similar.
Good point. Hyundai/Kia do a fantastic job at that, which is doubly impressive for the price point. But the ooooh cool factor of extraneous kinetic tech is hard to resist. If Pontiac were still around, I just know it would be focusing on making this a reality.
Lights can be so small now that it would probably be pretty low risk to make a panel that moves an inch to expose the headlights. It wouldn’t mean lifting a wedge to expose a couple of sealed beam units.
And Tesla is making panel gaps wider to accommodate larger lights. It’s convergent evolution.
These pale in comparison to the majority of bro-dozers with aftermarket headlights that blind everyone else on the road.
I know that badly written headlines are supposed to get clicks, but at a certain point (long since passed), they are primarily just an insult to readers.
I’d say these are fairly ridiculous; those are properly obnoxious.
I’m going to defend this, just a bit. These are definitely more ridiculous than bro-dozer bright lights. They’re FAKE HEADLIGHTS ON THE COVERS OF REAL LIGHTS. That’s more ridiculous. The headline wasn’t an insult to anyone, it was a proclamation what would be found within. Ridiculous headlights. I stand by that.
Ridiculous, for sure. “Definitely the most” is where I have the issue. The constantly hyperbolic nature of headlines, not just here by any means, is a contributing factor in why people are having more and more difficulty recognizing things when they are truly extreme. Being constantly bombarded with extreme language allows real extremism to hide in the slop. Bad headlines aren’t just lazy and sloppy; they are destructively so.
I would hope that would be of anyone who considers themselves a writer and/or journalist to any degree. Though in today’s society, that bar would be unlikely to be met often.
It isn’t even that this particular headline is so terrible, but the slow drip, drip, drip of this type of thing needs to be highlighted. Respecting the language is a part of respecting your readers.
I think we can give Torch and a mostly non-serious Automotive Blog a pass and let them use incredibly obvious hyperbole in an article about… headlight covers.
I’d say, save the strength in your hand muscles to clutch pearls related to something with importance.
Unfortunately, everything builds, and the small things lead to things that are hard, if not impossible, to reverse. Hence, our current state. Also, if they talk of themselves as journalists, they should expect to be held to at least a basic standard of that profession. Plus, the hyperbolic headlines are just lazy and tired at this point.
And while I appreciate your concern for the muscles in my hand, they are more than capable of dealing with more than one issue at a time.
I can’t say I disagree with any of that.
In the same vein, the Youtube videos of “The greatest plays of all time!!”, and then show a selection of cuts from the last few years.
“All time” means since the sport began, ya bozo, not since you emerged from puberty.
Agreed. These are even more absurd than a wig being used to cover up hair. These are like a scarf over the hair, then a tiny, hideous wig partially covering the scarf.
Hear me out: how about LED lights stitched into the scarf?
What I’d like to know is whether the lights on the light covers over the lights were added for regulatory conformance reasons.
It seems unlikely, since they were optional, but who knows.
Ridiculous : arousing or deserving ridicule : extremely silly or unreasonable : absurd, preposterous
Aftermarket or otherwise poorly aimed headlights aren’t exactly silly or absurd. Unecessary? Sure. Dangerous? You betcha. But if we were playing Family Feud, ridiculous would not appear on the board of adjectives to describe them.
But for THESE headlights? I think ridiculous would be top 5 for sure. The headline is just fine (as is your derision for blinding headlights).
That definition doesn’t require it to be silly or absurd; it can be based on that, but it isn’t required. Bad aftermarket headlines deserve far more ridicule than a questionable styling decision.
Disagree–there’s no limit on aftermarket mod stupidity, and so they don’t really warrant a lot of coverage. These are most definitely the most ridiculous factory lights I’ve ever seen.
There was no caveat to factory or aftermarket, so you can’t add one now. Your statement…
supports my point.
I think it’s clear from the post that Jason was referring to factory features.
My initial complaint was clearly about the headline. Quit dishonestly trying to change the context.
The fake lights very much transform this car’s face from matrix-sinister to bob-the-builder goofy.
I was thinking more “Pimp Daddy”
Goes with the inevitable “hooker’s boudoir” interior these things always have in some lurid shade.
Perhaps Lincoln forgot by the time of the VI’s introduction what the ‘V’ stood for and assumed it meant ‘Vestigial’, so they gave it vestigial headlamps to go with the vestigial landau roof, vestigial exposed radiator grille, and the vestigial tire hump.
Wow. When I squint, the “auxiliary lamps” look like googly eyes. When open, the abomination underneath looks as if the car is being eaten by some unspeakable parasite. They surely killed two very pretty and unpalatable birds with one stone.
C’mon, Torch. You’re just upset there were never any hideaway taillights.
I’m always surprised this wasn’t tried, like in the 80s – “you see, the motor flips the cover instantly when you apply the brakes. Sure it’ll work, after all, think about how well our new cylinder deactivation process works! It’s the future, I’m telling you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go the Sharper Image to pick up my massage chair.”
Honestly, I fully expect someone – possibly even the Torch man himself – to chime in and tell me about some obscure make/model that DOES have hideaway taillights.
Well, I think the folks going around with black, smoked-out tail light covers are just about there.
“Hey, man, where’s your brakelights? All I see is a black plastic bit.”
“Dude – those ARE my brakelights! They look the s**t, don’t they?”
“Well… since I can’t tell if they’re on or off in anything other than pitch-black midnight in an underground cave, yes: ‘s**t’ is a word I’d use.”
There is the ’69 Chevy Manta Ray concept, with pop-up brake lights: https://youtu.be/bOgcXFUKCds
How did I know this would happen, and somehow, I knew it would be you.
Steady on Jason, you’re not allowed to share that link without warning us about the explicit content first.
That sort of behavior would start a riot at the Lumière Rouge.
I could absolutely see it being done for a CHMSL. Pops up when you start the car, hides away when you shut the car off.
Utility? None.
No utility? This would put an end to CHMSL theft! Not only that, but people can start their day by having to chisel out their CHMSL from under snow and ice or (realistically) just not.
Not so sure about that.
https://www.jalopnik.com/this-is-why-some-cars-have-secret-taillights-inside-the-1827032946/
Thanks for explaining that! At the time I thought they were dual-beam headlights for people up north mostly, that didn’t want to deal with frozen covered headlights.
As a kid, I loved hidden headlights because I didn’t have to deal with frozen or broken issues. Now I still love them, have 2 classics with hidden headlights that I think really improve the appearance (my 68 Caprice especially) over the exposed headlight models.
I thought the same too – that they were some half-ass backup for when the door motors failed