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Pop-up headlights disappeared because they were a PITA to maintain in working order.
Sooo many ‘winking’ cars because half the popups don’t work, which is a massive saftey issue.
Around here new cars have to have the lights on (but on a dimmer setting) whenever they’re running. It’s easier to see an oncoming car with lights on during the day when it’s foggy or rainy. In conditions where lights don’t improve the visibility of the road most people don’t think to turn them on simply because it’ll increase the visibility of their car to others.
So in places where lights are required to be always on, lights like these would only give a sleek look when the car is parked. Also aerodynamics are a consideration, and like you say they tend to break.
Just one of those fun little ideas that didn’t work out for a number of reasons.
I remember it well lol. Back in the day, I had a Triumph TR7. I had to disconnect the headlight motors and run with them up, because of ‘winking’.
Yep. The technology of the time was pretty limiting. We have better tech and could do it better and more reliably but we don’t.
Car designers also mostly used them since they were forced by regulation to use circular or rectangular lights of a standard size (think of all those 80s cars that look similar in the front). Pop up headlights allowed them to hide them and create cars that looked much different from the rest. I think there is a video from technology connections on the matter.
Edit: I think it is briefly mentioned on this video, although it’s been a while since I watched it: https://youtu.be/c2J91UG6Fn8
I’d ENTHUSIASTICALLY return to the days of uniform, regulated headlights at a reasonable luminosity.
I’d enthusiastically return to the days of headlights that were made out of actual glass instead of plastic and didn’t cost hundreds of dollars each.
They did have manual controls on pretty much all of them, i think it was more a failure rate thing than a safety thing.
Uh, while I also agree modern trucks are unnecessary large, I think you might be a tad lost. Your post history in this community is primarily disparaging vehicles. It’s good conversation and all, don’t get me wrong, but perhaps this kind of ragging feels more suited elsewhere.
As a car enthusiast, personally I 1000% agree with the post. To me this is absolutely the right place for this post.
I want my pop up and down headlights back, and instead we have dumb SUVs with bumpers 6ft tall and zero appeal so that a soccer mom can plow over pedestrians with peak lethality
But the popups are “unsafe”. Because then you might hit a pedestrian. At night. When everything being open at night in the US died during covid. Makes sense 🙃
I want them back 🥹
Guess I had a different takeaway from the graphic. I kinda see that now.
Updoot.
But the popups are “unsafe”. Because then you might hit a pedestrian. At night.
Was that the reason? I figured they faded away because they were an additional manufacturing and maintenance expense because of the moving parts.
Heck, they allowed for shallower hoods that seem to be safer for pedestrians when they are down!
Was that the reason? I figured they faded away because they were an additional manufacturing and maintenance expense because of the moving parts.
The UNECE made it very difficult for pop-up headlights to comply with pedestrian safety regulations. But truth be told, pop-ups were also known to be unnecessarily complicated and prone to failure. The reason why they are no longer around is (as usual) a combination of multiple factors.
Honestly, as one of the moderators of !fuckcars (and a NA Miata owner, BTW), this is the first version of the “big trucks bad” kind of post that doesn’t bother me.
I’m usually very much not a fan of those because those threads easily devolve into missing the point that all cars are bad for urbanism, not just big ones, and end up with people virtue-signaling because they drive small cars instead of recognizing that they’re still part of the problem. “Safety” (the subset that applies after already having been hit by a car, no less!) is only a tiny fraction of what !fuckcars is about.
This post, on the other hand, is pointing out the hypocrisy of that sort of thing so I’m all for it.
I think the disparity in regulation is among the (surprisingly large number of) things both communities can agree on!
Speaking of which: my Miata is for autocross and curvy mountain roads. My daily-driver is a bicycle. In fact, having options other than driving is why I can afford to own fun cars instead of practical ones!
I think you got me confused with someone else because this couldn’t be further from the truth lol. I’ve worked as a mechanic and I own two classic cars.
Alrighty. I’ll concede. 🙂
I also own a few classics, including a Porsche 944 turbo with popup headlights. But it stopped running almost a decade ago. Poor car.
I really like the pop-ups on older Porsches, the 944 and 928 are probably my favorites.
Yeah I’m a sucker for the late '80s designs. 944, 928, 959
Oooh, pretty! Shame it doesn’t run
Ha yeah. It was repainted “Black Cherry” ages ago. Really nice color in the sun.
I think the turbo is leaking oil, fouling stuff pretty quick, and I dislodged the firewall pumping the clutch so that needs a few welds to keep from flexing. Lots of stuff to do on that car, and other projects had priority.
SUV’s have ruined the roads for everyone. Sporty fun cars need to make a comeback.
I agree. The world needs more drivable cars. Until this SUV/crossover trend ends, I’m hanging onto my 6-speed 350Z Roadster in Daytona Blue for the foreseeable future.
Even little things like the Toyota Mister Two and the Honda S2000. At one point, Toyota made a Celica that looked like a 7/8ths scale 70’s Mustang.
I want a small, lightweight thing with a little more than necessary horsepower and a 5 speed manual, something that’s actually fun to drive in normal road conditions.
Toyota Mister Two
lmfao I have not heard that one before
You’ve never heard someone call an MR2 that? How else do you pronounce MR2?
Kinda like “Ehm Arr Two”? Though English is not my native language, so it might be that.
I thought that everyone pronounced it your way…
(That’s how it’s officially pronounced but “mister two” is more fun)
At one point, Toyota made a Celica that looked like a 7/8ths scale 70’s Mustang.
Easily my favorite Celica model. One dude swapped a 1UZ into his. It was beautiful 🥲
You’re gonna love this, then: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmhNtwDcrRxFuv87ARWbjqQrWpC5n7LRI
Oh fuck yes. Sarah is awesome.
At one point, Toyota made a Celica that looked like a 7/8ths scale 70’s Mustang.
Don’t worry, the Celica is supposed to be returning soon as a new entry in the GR line.
We need mass-transportation and small, electric cars for when you absolutely have to drive yourself somewhere.
Our neighborhoods and roads are packed with massive trucks and vans and weird crossovers that look more and more like giant basketball shoes, and the people who drive them have statistically NEVER taken them off a paved road.
I mean, yeah I’m lefty #49764 ranting about transportation, but it’s all because of the social manipulation by people who want to sell trucks that cost as much as houses and have unlimited access to our politicians. The only solution I’m offering here at this point involves creative home-engineering projects.
i wonder how many hit and run have there been because the driver didn’t even realize he run over a child.
those gender affirming cars need to go
Gender affirming cars is such a great term because the people who drive them are exactly the people who will be most offended by it. Definitely stealing that.
ye cannae steal that from me, i stole it from some other bloke
no thieves among honor or something like that
no honour among thieves, because I stole it
100% bullshit. When rectangular headlights were first proposed, UL was initially reluctant to add yet another headlight standard, but the manufacturer responded that it would improve safety by lowering the front end profile. The headlights got approved, and the very next year they stacked them.
Man, I miss those pop-up lights in cars. I heard they broke down often and were pretty trouble prone though…
The pop-up headlights were a stopgap solution to a problem that no longer exists. They’re a result of the DOT at the time flat out requiring that all cars sold in the US must use the same handful of dorky looking sealed beam headlamps, bar none, without exception. None of them were very attractive and certainly not aerodynamic, especially considering that they must be positioned with their massive flat faces perpendicular to the road in order to actually work.
Have you ever wondered why every car in the '70s and ‘80s seemed to have this same doofy Clark-Griswold’s-station-wagon lookin’ square (and sometimes, circular) headlight design?
It’s because they had to, by law. Up until 1983 they didn’t have a choice.
Sorry, ill disagree because I prefer all earlier car designs to anything existing today. Cars now are pretty much all hideous as a whole. And a nightmare to fix as well. Thats a beauty of a Ford you posted. Im sure 0 people will agree.
Plus back then, if you had a dead headlight for any reason, any service station will have a stock of all the four kinds of headlights at hand to replace.
Every shop still carries headlight bulbs. There are like 10 or so types of bulbs, outside of LED and HID modules
Let’s say you got a rock in your headlight and now it’s full of water.
Minor details.
Joking aside, that’s absolutely valid. I had an FJ80 Land Cruiser years ago - those had very expensive glass lenses. The driver’s side lens had a small hole in it, about the size of an airsoft pellet. A small square of clear gorilla tape fixed it well enough, but I really wanted to do a sealed beam conversion (only available on “poverty pack” models, only in non-US markets).
Honestly it was the only vehicle where I would have rather had sealed beams for functional reasons 😂
Yep, no 35 foot wide and 1" tall headlights we have now that are all custom and have shitty plastic clips that all break. You cannot convince me cars have gotten better in that regard! Safety is the only thing that’s improved. And don’t bring up efficiency. We had rangers getting 35 mpg on a CARB in the early 90s.
Well, I regularly clock 46-48 mpg on my sedan during my rather non urban commute. Just a regular I4 engine with a CVT.
Yeah but good luck ever fixing that cat when it fails
It’s a Honda. It has served me well for the past 7 years and shows no sign of aging whatsoever.
I agree. Lights are too bright and distracting now also, and there seems to be no way to go back.
There’s no likely way to go back, because sweeping good-for-all regulation that aesthetically inconveniences someone is political suicide in this selfish culture.
I would prefer to go back to that than to need to spend $500 to replace the proprietary LED module that cars have these days.
I am making an assumption but I would guess that it’s going to be really hard to come by spare parts like the LEDs in 10 or 20 years. While some company will still be making those rectangular headlights.
Honestly, I kinda wish it would come back. Forcing all manufacturers to use the same part for headlights had a singluar massive advatage that is gone now:
You could walk into any parts store and they always had the headlight you needed in stock, on the shelf.
Prices could be lowered dramatically as well because they were produced in such massive quantities. Sure, bulbs are more or less “cheap” now, but imagine being able to walk into any parts store and buy a pair of new LED headlights for your car for just $8 USD. You can’t do that now (at least not here in California, the cheapest LED pair for lows only is like $30 at AutoZone), but you could if manufacturers had to use the same light module. And this same process could apply to any variety of other automotive parts.
Despite the limitation of the law requiring certain modules, cars back then had their own unique styling. Just looking at them, you knew exactly what make and model it was, and sometimes even the exact year. Nowadays, with no such limitation, I find cars to be more or less the same boring blobs driving down the road with a similar silhouette and in a paint variety of black, white, or grey/silver. I have to really pay attention to the taillights if I want to identify the make/model/year.
Manufacturers do have to use the same light module. There are still only like 11 types of DOT approved headlight bulb type that can legally be put in a roadgoing vehicle in the US. So yes, we have more than the original 2 options, but if you need a replacement headlight bulb that list is still pretty short. This obviously excludes vehicles with bespoke LED assemblies, which are currently in the minority but who knows for how long.
The difference is the housing they stick it in nowadays, which is vehicle specific (and also the expensive part, if you break one).
square (and later, circular)
Are the circular DOT headlights actually a newer regulation than the rectangular ones? I would’ve guessed that circular ones came first, if anything, considering the sorts of lights on VW Beetles and other cars designed in the 1930s and earlier.
I could have it the other way 'round. I wasn’t paying close attention at the time.
Edit: Actually, you are right. The rectangular ones were permitted in 1974, so I did have that backwards. Corrected!
I"m actually fine with that. I kinda prefer how, say, the 1980’s Camaro looks compared to the swoopy plastic lens over plastic lens filled with LED fuckpuke they build today.
Technology Connections made a great video on this a couple years back.
That was great, thanks.
I have seen so many of those pop up headlights broken, one up and one down. Turn on headlights and they switch which is up and down. lol
I have the car in the top picture and kids love seeing the popups.
Just got my Miata a a few weeks ago and I love that it’s understood that we have to blink/wink every time we encounter each other
I miss my NA Miata dearly, but my back and legs sure don’t 😞.
Using the popups was always the best part, partially because I liked to imagine she was helping me watch the road ahead of us.
From getting in and out or from stiff suspension? I can understand that. It’s a long way up and down.
From being 6’5" / 195cm unfortunately. I unironically felt like the tall guy from the Simpsons. IIRC the suspension was OEM and I didn’t think it was too stiff. I loved the ride height though. Really felt like zipping around in a go kart!
That would do it haha. At 6’1" I had to change the steering wheel and take off the sun visors. Comfortable for me but a snug fit.
