This next one might seem strange to you, until I mention that it’s part of a homework assignment for Professor Torch; then it will seem perfectly fine. It’s sort of like when people look at a Citroen 2CV Van or a Renault Avantime and scratch their heads until someone says “it’s from France.” After that, they just relax and nod in understanding. It’s about headlights, specifically old-school sealed beam headlights that only came round or rectangular, and what the automotive landscape would look like if that’s still all anyone could use. Would it be grim or wonderful? Let’s find out.
Jason has written about this next thing before, often from a cost perspective, but now he’d like me to look at an alternate, improbably visual reality. Because of course he does.
source: Gocars
Let’s go back to what we are now calling part of the “Malaise Era,” the early 1980s. There were many issues that were bothering Americans from the Iran hostage crisis and poison Tylenol to absurd inflation and fifteen percent interest rates. However, as a junior high student I really didn’t give a shit about any of that. I was concerned with far more important things…like the fact that composite headlights were still banned in the United States…even though I couldn’t drive yet or own a car.
It might seem hard to believe to anyone under the age of forty, but before the 1984 model year any vehicle sold in the United States was required to use off-the-shelf, standard sized headlamps called sealed beams, either round or rectangular units of set dimensions (either two or four units each..larger ones were allowed when using just a pair).
source: rvheadlights.com
Headlights that formed to the shape of the car itself, even if they used standardized bulbs like they do today, were strictly forbidden. The results of this law really came into play when manufacturers of European and Japanese cars designed with these custom-shaped lights – commonly known as composite light fixtures – wanted to import them into America.
These lovely, aerodynamic, design-conscious headlamps would need to be ditched and replaced by some form of unit that incorporated the approved rectangular or round sealed beams (or simply have hidden or pop-up headlamps, as was often the case in low-nosed sports cars). There are many, many examples of this switch, but this Audi 100/5000 illustrates it perfectly:
sources: German Cars For Sale and Wikipedia
Even the American manufacturers seemed to be stifled by these regulations, as seen of this Mustang SVO that is DYING to get full composite lights, which it eventually did after the law was FINALLY changed for the 1984 model year.
sources: silodrome and mustangspecs
Ah, but this is The Bishop, so you just KNOW that my boss Torch is going make me take this off the rails into an alternate reality, right? What if, in 1983, lobbyists for Sylvania or some other proponent of standard sealed beam…let’s call it the PUMASS (Pop Up Motor and Sealed Systems) group… had successfully bribed congress and the NHTSA to keep the ban on composite headlights…and did so for four more decades? What would cars look like today?
Exposing The Beams
Here are some crudely modified possible examples of popular modern cars:
sources: The Bishop, Chevrolet, Ford, Nissan
That’s with off-the-shelf rectangular lights, and here’s the same cars modified with round sealed beams:
Whoa! Much of me hates these sealed beam mash ups. Just like back in the 1980s, the boxy shapes of the lights are at odds with the sculptural form of the car, and they violate the aerodynamics of the nose (remember, American regulations even banned clear covers over sealed beams). Still, at the same time, I can’t help but think that these mandated sealed beam lights seem to be adding more personality to these rather generic-looking cars. What is going on here?
Jason thinks it might be a nostalgia thing for old-ass people like ourselves. He could be right, but if I had to guess I would say that the common size of sealed beam lights is, in some way, akin to the fact that the eyes on all human beings are similar in size and in location…so sealed beam cars always had a ‘face’.
What we are seeing is essentially anthropomorophism…applying human characteristics to inanimate objects (in these cases at least the eyes are at least in the CORRECT position as opposed to the Cars movies which our man Jason has complained about before). Conversely, by forming to the shape of the body, today’s composite lights blend in and become just another piece of trim on the front of a car, and not the ‘windows to the soul’– so most modern cars do not have a traditional “face.” Either that, or the face is hard to decipher. Look at the vehicle below…which ones are the “eyes?”
source: Auto Trends
Damn…listen to that shit…I’ve been hanging around Torch too long, haven’t I?
Say ‘Yes” To Pop Ups
Back in the old days, sports cars were most affected by the mandatory sealed beam laws. Retractable lights were essentially on these vehicles and would continue to be required if the composite light ban was never lifted.
However, pop ups on current cars might not be as bad as we would at first fear. Sure, they’re an aerodynamic nightmare when open, but when retracted doesn’t it allow for a truly clean look? Is it possible that more sheet metal/body color on the nose is letting the basic shape of the car be more visible and uncluttered? Does it help to differentiate between sports cars and run-of-the-mill sedans? Even the thinnest LED fixture today can’t be as small as no light fixture visible in the daytime at all, and there are still headlight height regulations in all states.
Let’s look at an affordable sports vehicle first in our alternate reality:
source: US News and The Bishop
This Lotus starts to look like a competition or concept car with pop ups down:
source: png mart
Even a Ferrari could work with retractable lights; now the intake vents on the tops of front and rear fenders seem similar, and the car seems lower and leaner than before. Not to mention that despite how expensive any other parts on the car will be, the headlights themselves you could still pick up at AutoZone.
source: wheel size.com
So maybe if the sealed beam lobby had held, it could have inadvertently added more personality to today’s cars. However, if every one of them had sealed beam headlights, car facades could still end up generic, just bland in a way different form… a sort of transmogrification of the Late Post War Car Face. Remember when Homer Simpson designed a car? He wanted to put an orange ball on EVERY antenna to help him find his vehicle in the parking lot. Same issues here.
Overall, I’m a bit torn. I don’t regret being all about the composites back in the day…but the blank stares that you get from truly faceless vehicles today has me questioning what I wanted. Is it a case being careful what you wish for?
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Yes, I sometimes think longingly back to the days when headlights were part of the front face of the car. If you look at a reasonably modern car today, you will see that the headlight assembly is more like part of the side of the car: it is longer front-to-back than it is wide edge-to-centre.
BTW you should look for your PUMASS lobby elsewhere, IMHO: it must have been horrible for car lighting manufacturers to be reduced to manufacture only a set of commodity items that are more or less all the same, and hence comparable and always in intense competition. It must be much more lucrative to design and sell one specific sell-your-arse-expensive specially designed unit for every fucking car model.
BTW Alec from Technology Connections made a video on the topic just the other day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2J91UG6Fn8 –worth seeing as all of Alec’s stuff is.
This is a great thought experiment Bishop. Would you mind drawing a modern Dodge Challenger and Jeep Wrangler with sealed beam lights? I’m having trouble picturing what they would look like.
Maybe the sealed beam technology was horrible, but when I have a look at the modified Explorer – it looks much better with defined lights, square or round doesn’t matter.
Or am I too oldschool?
I liked not having to pull the engine to replace a burnt light
ALL YOUR BEAMS ARE BELONG TO US
This is going to sound… unweidly to read, but Im going to try to make it palatable.
I flat out dont get the whole.. squinty front lighting bit. Sure, aero is key in lighting. Sure doing more with less is also eh… But stringing a set of LEDs in where a nice large sealed beam used to go.. and I wonder what kind of light can you get from that? Then ya run into cost with one of the Hummer rear lighting pieces cost BIG MONEY.
It goes from simple sealed beam.. to LEDs, to halogens or some sort of lighting used now.. and ya walk around with this thin strip of shit that ya worry someone is going to stop short and ya gonna smack them.
I understand how important aero is to lighting.. but theres coming from a set of sealed beams, to a cover over sealed beams, to projectors, to a strip of LEDs now. Ya got headlights that ya cant identify anymore. Tail lights I cant recognize… (I used to be able to tell the make, model and yr of the car behind me at night.) Now everything has the same odd pattern. A strip of LEDs on an angle and then a flat section. BMWs lost their angel eyes.. Honda bulbs dont have their dual-repeaters anymore. Its just getting crazy. Ya cant identify stuff anymore.. cause its so damn boring.
Im sorry…
I dont want this shit in my car. I shouldnt pay 2500LOONIES for a damn headlight!
SLID- remember also that those LED strips you are speaking of are generally NOT the headlights. Those are just the daytime running lights since I don’t believe they are powerful enough or directed enough to actually be the headlights. Like on the Mitsu shown above, the actual headlights are the things mounted down below.
I’d be interested to see an alternative deep dive for standardized projector beam headlights.
Also, you can still find sealed beams on modern severe-duty trucks, like the
International HV (https://www.internationaltrucks.com/trucks/hv-series)
and Freightliner SD series (https://freightliner.com/trucks/108sd-plus/)
I think those International illustrates really well what a 2000s or early 2010s headlight would look like.
I love that Ferrari. It reminds me of a Hammerhead shark with the beams way out on the side. It gave me a chuckle.
Andrew- those are actually not beams but vents from the original car for…I really don’t know what they vent…seem kinda high for brakes. Whatever the case, yes, it does look ready to attack. Or, as my kid says, “sharks are really nice…they just hug with they’re teeth’.
I am pleasantly surprised to discover that I actually prefer the looks of ALL these examples with sealed beams. I knew that I didn’t love a lot of the composite shapes, but honestly I really do prefer the sealed beams or pop-ups to all of the composite examples. I think the big 2-bulb rectangular ones are the only ones I’ve never liked in the sealed beam realm (you generally only saw those on ugly Volvos, in my experience).
Í don’t find these anywhere near as horrible as I would’ve guessed. I never paid much attention to the original differences between what we had here in the US and what was available elsewhere until I went through a bit of a Mercedes phase a number of years ago. What a difference just the headlights make on those cars, especially in cases where they’re stacked. Take something like a 1970 300 SEL. With Euro lights, it’s a stately, gorgeous car – a notch above everything else on the road. With American sealed-beams, it looks… fine, but maybe a little disappointed you didn’t spring for premium on the last fill-up.
Sealed beams were great because when you changed one, you got a brand-new lens too. Way easier than spending two days with a drill and a cavalcade of sandpaper discs.
mber- another somewhat debatable factor that I will still stand by: when composite lights appeared in many cases they did not illuminate as well as the original sealed beams. This is especially true in cars that had massive composite lights. A good example is the late Volvo 240s that got retrofitted with the enormous lights. I swear those illuminated far worse than earlier examples with square or round sealed beams. They looked just like the lamps on Euro Volvos now but THOSE had far higher intensity bulbs (and totally illegal here). We had one of those boxy Mazda 929s as well with the big lights and they too were pretty useless.
Pre-facelift Chevy Sonic would have been so ready.
Beyond just pop up lights, we might have seen more concealed headlamps again to still achieve some smoother/aero styling too, especially for cars with retro themes like Camaros or over at Dodge. Interesting too to think if pedestrian safety rules would have still progressed and put an end to pop up lights, so sports cars would have to accommodate.
I was going to say, the round sealed beam Malibu was giving me serious Sonic vibes around the headlights.
“Which ones are the eyes?”
This image looks like Dirk Dastardly with his squinty eyes over a handlebar moustache.
I think they all look awesome with the round sealed beams. They look like (and could be) modern projector lamps. Works well with all of them.
I like the Malibu with the round sealed beams!
As a kid of the ’80s I actually like some of these with sealed beams. Kinda reminds me of some American cars which had composite headlights at home, but export models in Europe had to be retrofitted with sealed beams to meet local lighting regulations – ironically the same thing that European car manufacturers had to do in the American market. This Beretta is one example:
https://bestcarmagz.net/sites/default/files/chevrolet-beretta-1300689-5934180.jpg
I don’t understand why the Mustang SVO didn’t get composite headlights in ’84. Ford led the charge to get composite headlights approved by the DOT with the ’84 Lincoln Mark VII and succeeded. I wonder how they were able to get away with flush headlights on the Lincoln, but the SVO didn’t get them until midway through the ’85 model year?
I’d have to guess that Ford wanted to give the Mark VII some exclusivity as the only composite headlight car in America.
Perhaps, but the SVO was Ford’s “halo” car at the time that they pushed as being very “European” influenced, and it was clearly designed with composite headlights in mind to distinguish it from the rest of the “four eyed” Mustangs.
Ford was really, really trying to get upwardly mobile Audi and BMW buying Baby Boomers to start noticing the Mark VII as a viable competitor, I could see them wanting a “euro” feature to highlight – besides the optional BMW diesel, of course.
Probably just one part of Ford’s multiyear quest to get a viable competitor to the German luxury brands – they actually tried to mount a hostile takeover of BMW in the mid ’80s, but were blocked by the Quandts, then tried the Merkur thing, then tried to buy Rover Group, but the British government sold it to BAe instead (under pressure to keep it domestic), then finally bought Jaguar – which never worked out the way they expected
If I remember right the SVO launched late and had a complicated development so they might have had to use the originally planned lights in order to justify some tooling or existing parts.
Simple answer: Ford wasn’t even sure whether NHTSA would approve the form-fitting composite headlamps and if NHTSA would approve it in time for the introduction of Lincoln Mark VII in late 1983. Ford reportedly spent at least one million dollars on each version: one with composition headlamps and one with quad headlamp capsules and bumper-mounted front turn signal indicators.
I have seen the photos of Mark VII prototype with headlamp capsules. A pre-production Mark VII with headlamp capsules made a very brief appearance on the TV serial (I couldn’t recall which serial: it could be either Falcon Crest or Dallas).
My burning question: why did Ford seem to “botch” the composite headlamp design for Mustang SVO? The composite headlamps jut about quarter inch out between the turn signal indicators, making it look like ill-fitted instead of smooth fit.
That nose! The “Bunkie Beak” named after “Bunkie” Knudsen who was headhunted from Pontiac to Ford but went back to GM after just a few years.
I think that sticking with sealed beams would have necessarily changed the evolution of car design further than keeping pop-ups on sports cars. We might have seen more ways to mask them, but the shapes of the front ends of vehicles would have been different to accommodate them. Assuming we started mandating DRLs, it would be interesting to explore how that would then change the face of a sealed beam setup.
I think the 90’s bubble looks would have probably been different and we would have seen a lot of round headlights with curves to match. And probably a see more square beams as we started trying to make things look aggressive, since the round ones would be associated with friendly 90’s curves.
The really interesting thing, to me, would be how it would affect the retro vehicles. I think it might be a little more difficult to pull off faux retro with mandatory sealed beams on everything, since your headlights wouldn’t look any more or less retro than anything else. But maybe we would not have even done the faux retro.
Drew- it absolutely would have changed the direction of car designs. However, keep a few things in mind:
-Europe and Asia would still be able to do whatever they wanted to with headlamps like in the seventies, so we would see imported cars with different front ends than they had in their domestic market
-pop ups would really be a non-negotiable for sports cars since there are strict minimum headlamp height laws in all states, and do not forget that not only were sealed beams mandated in the US, you could NOT cover them up with clear covers. So forget putting them on the hood and fairing them in with glass. Note cars like the Dodge Magnum in the seventies that had clear covers which had to raise when the lights were turned on!
Sorry, I was a bit imprecise here. I absolutely agree that sports cars would have kept pop-ups. I meant that we would have seen normal sedans and SUVs trying to do things to differentiate their faces around the beams. Different hood shapes, different grill setups, and probably some attempts to change the headlight placement enough to differentiate.
I just think it would be interesting to see how things would have evolved differently in/for the US market. I also wonder if we would have seen fewer import models, simply because of the cost of localized designs. Alternatively, would we have seen European and Asian models get several updates in their markets while maintaining a slower-evolving American version? Or would they design around the need for American localization?
I don’t know if you’d want to do further explorations of how sealed beam headlights would have changed design, but I know I would read them if you do.
Drew- if you look at ancient pictures from the seventies of clay models of European cars in the design stage in the studio, they were often planning for the US headlights. I do not think any company would refuse to import because of headlight regulations; the emissions and bumper standards far dwarfed that issue in terms of conversion cost.
Looking at current cars, other than primarily the Korean manufacturers that are really pushing the envelope, you can see that most manufacturers really haven’t strayed too far from designs which could let you plop in sealed beams pretty easily.
Drew- also, I am not certain, but I think that Canada and even other nations had daytime running light laws long ago which amounted to having the low beam lights on at all times.
From what I understand, the way American manufacturers FINALLY convinced the government to allow composite lights was the gas mileage gain that they extrapolated over every car produced and sold here and what that would save in fuel.
That’s because the first phase of FMVSS in 1968 outlawed any aerodynamic glass covers over headlights, there were a few imported sports cars that had them before that.
IF the DOT had decided to really dig their heals in and die on the hill of sealed beams, I could see them maybe rolling back that “no covers” rule at some point in the 1980s – maybe 90s – whenever the EPA got loud enough and annoying enough for NHTSA to just groan and say, OK fine, you can glass covers again.
Ranwhenparked- yes, the clear cover rule would also allow for the aerodynamics that auto makers used to repeal the sealed beam law in the first place. Honestly, the government at the time had been mandating 85MPH speedometers, so it is only natural that they would want headlights that you would outdrive at around 50MPH.
Canada for sure had DRL’s mandated since MY1990 (I believe a few northern European nations did it a few years earlier, since it’s unlikely Canada lead the way on just about anything). Definitely a few years of overlap though, where some vehicles equipped with sealed beams were still available (mostly trucks by that point) that would have had to run DRL’s
Since I was 3 when the changeover occurred, I’m at the point where a car without DRL’s looks unnatural.
Interesting fact. I owned a 1990 Mitsubishi GSX with sealed beam pop-up headlights. When the lights were down they were off in the US market, but in Canada, the low beams could shine through the clear lens below the headlight for DRL. This was a popular mod in the US to separate the pop-up and headlight functions.
I work in the trucking industry and a few months back our mechanics were cleaning out an old store room in the shop (company has been in the same office/shop space since early 80s). They found a pair of 80s NOS Sylvania sealed beams still in the packaging. I kept them and everyone mocked me. But You never know when you’ll need a sealed beam headlight (and when you do need it and dont have it, you’ll really wish you had one). Thats my thinking anyway.
The YouTube channel Technology Connections (great guy and owns a Nissan Figaro), just did a deep dive on why sealed beams were a thing, the regulations and history, and the change to allow form fitting lights in 1984. Get out the popcorn Torch! It’s a great one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2J91UG6Fn8&t=529s
Inspired by this week’s Technology Connections? https://youtu.be/c2J91UG6Fn8
There’s no way this wasn’t.
It wasn’t. I can’t photoshop that fast. But when we saw that video we KNEW it was time to publish it.
First thing I thought of, too. Glad I’m not the only one who sat riveted to my seat for that 25 minutes of sealed-beam love. . .
The rare sticks out. But I don’t like pop ups on geese modern takes it look bland.
This ties in very well with my question. What if we still had bumpers we could bump?
As for the headlights, that’s just a plot by Big Poly-carbonate to fog us over.
andy- I agree on the bumpers. Also, it is interesting to note that back in the day (before 1983) when bumpers still had to withstand 5MPH collisions instead of just 2.5MPH today, there were a number of cars that could follow these regulations and still managed to look good (Porsche 928, GM F Bodies, late C3 Vettes). Remember to that the force of 5MPH collision versus a 2.5MPH collision is not double…it’s far more than that.
I sentence anyone who claims pop-up headlights are awesome to an eternity of suffering through GM plastic geared units in icy weather.
Sure, but an ’80s-90s GM product would get you to swear off a lot of things.
I always assume that everyone who lobbies against cars as a concept has extensive experience with a J-body or something.
Citrus- or it could be like another GM car, the Opel GT, with the big lever next to the parking brake that flipped the hidden lights over. Or a SAAB Sonnett III with the big handle you yanked out from the dash to raise the lights.
I used to leave the headlights up in icy weather (like it says in the manual) when I had my three MR2s, two RX7s, 200SX, Sylvia and NA MX5. Pretty much all my driving was in the dark during winter anyway.
I’m not sure whether I really miss pop-ups or just really miss those particular cars.
As a Gen-Xer, you really got me at popups.
But it’s been said here before, but it’s intriguing to me that the round lights look good on certain current vehicle designs, add some needed contrasting visual interest.
But we almost never get them IRL b/c seemingly now that headlights can be any shape, designers refuse to use a previously-mandated one maybe.
I find it really interesting that Bentleys look so distinct with the round headlights while so many others avoid the look.
Oh good call, I hadn’t thought of Bentleys!
Yesterday, I was sitting waiting in a parking lot, and scanning the other cars around me, I saw a well-maintained early S197 Mustang.
The round main lights in the squared off housing combined with the round inboard driving lights really go nicely with the modern softened blockiness of the front end. It definitely stood out next to the various squinty-light vehicles around it.
I love my S197, the general design of it I think will go down as one of the better Mustangs. The newer ones and the disaster that is the S650 lost a lot of that simple clean design to lines, creases and as you said, the squinty lights.