I know sometimes I complain about having to do these Cold Starts every morning, and today happens to be one of those days where I didn’t get around to doing it until far, far too late, so I’m up much later than I should be getting this done. But, despite all that, I’m thankful to have this as a forum to voice some of my wildly trivial and unimportant yet disturbingly persistent automotive thoughts. Like this inane one that’s been rolling around in my head since I was a kid: why didn’t more Volkswagen Beetle owners customize their cars with Saab taillights?
As you can imagine, until I had this very forum, finding a non-comatose human being willing to listen to me wondering about this has proven nearly impossible. And yet I’ve had these thoughts since I was a kid, when my head was just about VW and Saab taillight-high.
The taillights in question are the ones found on 1960s and 1970s Saab 96s:
Those little taillights! They were made by Hella, just like the VW’s lights, and were oddly similar to VW Beetle taillights from the ’60s and ’70s, but just a somewhat different shape. Like Beetle taillights, they weren’t really integrated into the body, but just sort of stuck on. All this is precisely why I think they could have been so fun and easy to replace stock Beetle taillights with!
Oh, somewhat related, I did just learn of a unique Saab 96 taillight feature. Look at this:
Oh, wait, I mean, specifically, this – Computer! Zoom sector 4,10 and enhance!:
Look at that! When you turned the hazard lights on a Saab 96, it wasn’t just the amber indicators that flashed, but the whole damn taillight! Red and amber, flashing their warning to all other motorists! Man, Saab really was crazy about safety!
Okay, back to Saab 96 taillights and how they could have looked on a Beetle. Here’s the rear of a Beetle with the 1962 to 1967 stock taillights:
Now, look how subtly different a Saab-lighted VW could have looked:
Is it subtle? Sure, sure it is, but for car customizers, details count, and a little detail change like this one I think could have proven compelling. Except I’ve never seen anyone bother. Ever.
Later Saab 96s incorporated a reverse lamp into the units and had mirror-image lights for either side, with a more dramatic shape:
These could have been really exciting on a Beetle:
These are at least noticeably different than the stock taillights, and their striking look I think could have been just the thing to make a lightly-customized Beetle stand out. And yet, somehow, I do not think I have ever seen anyone try this.
Am I wrong? Has someone out there done this? I hope so. If not, why? Why does no one seem to have the derring-do to cross-breed German and Swedish taillights and cars?
Life is for the living, people!
Sweden remains unwilling to commit material taillight support to either Eastern or Western interests.
“REAR MOUNTED GAS TANK
where it’s safest, well
protected and away
from passengers”
Someone at Ford was paying attention.
I think I’ve finally solved the tail light obsession mystery. At some point in your toddler years you must have been sitting on the ground or in a driveway somewhere and somebody in Beetle nearly backed over you. You wound up face to face with an amber, red and white tail light, probably right as the brake light turned on, turning on your proverbial light bulb at the same time and leaving you fascinated (and obsessed) with tail lights ever since.
That’s got to be it. Childhood trauma always explains a lot of things.
Wait- don’t you have a beetle there Torch? What’s stopping you?!? 🙂
I grew up in the back seat, and learned to drive in the front seat of a 1970 SAAB 96, and I do remember noticing the big ol’ elephant’s foot taillight. But I never thought about suffering to tolerate a SAAB part on a mere VW.
Sorry, didn’t mean to sneer.
No, wait, yes I did.
I had a German neighbor who moved to America and brought over a 1957 Citroen Traction Avant he had restored in the late 1970s. It was painted super beetle blue and had the really large super beetle rear taillights and fender mounted front indicators – I always gagged each time I saw it.
Regrettably no. Not only is this not the case for my current ’67, my former ’67, and my former ’68, but it’s also not shown in the factory wiring diagrams for any year or market. I believe this was a miscommunication at some point in preparing the ad and that “flashes tail lights and directional signals at once” is meant to indicate (so to speak) that the rear and the front turn-signal lamps flash.
By the way, I don’t recognize that particular figure but the combination of a two-stroke engine and front disc brakes would make that car a ’67 or ’68. It looks like it was drawn with the taller windshield of the ’68 and newer V4 body shell, though, which was not used in combination with the two-stroke engine.
Could also be mistranslation: Hurdy gurdy front blinker baklykta! Blinker? Blinker! Bork bork bork!
Speaking of SAAB taillights. On my commute in this morning, still in the dark… I’m looking ahead at all the tail lights in front of me. One set blatently sticks out as not being as bright as the others, as well as “old school” in shape. My brain was thinking SAAB or Volvo. Was a late 80’s 900 Turbo, convertible. Really stood out from the crowd. A testament to modern tail light design, IMHO.
Excalibur used Volkswagen (Hella, I mean) tail lights. As a result, a lot of people thought they were kit cars.* If they had used the less common Saab lights, people (except Jason) wouldn’t have known where they came from.
* Excalibur was the rare Neo classic car that was scratch built, and not a converted tarted up production car
Nearly everyone in that neoclassic space was using VW’s fender-top front turn signals.
Here’s the conversion we all really want to do a beetle.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AwesomeCarMods/comments/j6z8k5/its_a_work_in_progress_but_i_feel_this/?rdt=36258
ok, that’s creepy. and wonderful.
That may well be the only “fastback SUV” I’ve every felt an affinity for. I look forward to the finished product.
Normal people: The Volkswagen French Bulldog does not exist!
The Volkswagen French Bulldog:
This reminds me of the games played with Morris Minor/VW Beetle taillight swaps. They don’t jump out at you, but the eyes know there is something weird happening.
Mixing rear-engine air-cooled flat4 and front-engine water-cooled V4 body parts was an audacious social statement in 1960s western culture. I think it could only be done is a few remote Scandinavian villages and Northern California.
I think the change-over is just too subtle. Otoh, ’59 Caddy taillights have been fitted to a Beetle on numerous occasions.
TBH the SAAB tombstones look much like the later VW taillights I recall seeing growing up. A bit smaller maybe.
It’s not the taillights that got my attention.
It’s not even the massive mud flaps with the plane on the IKEA family car.
It’s the black spoiler and AGA gas-burner steelies on the 96GL.
I had a ’73 96, and I don’t even remember the entire lights blinking when the flashers were on. I never checked though.
In honor of Sweden having once ruled German Pomerania, this particular taillights mod should be called the Pomeranian.
Maybe it wasn’t done more often because there is just no good reason for it?
Since when do we need a good reason?
Well, we don’t, but most people do. 😀
If I found myself behind a Beetle that had been so customized, it would mess with me so much. It would be like Ray Bradbury’s A Sound of Thunder, except that I slept through my whole time-travel journey and didn’t know it had happened. But now Jason has warned me, so if some Autopian reader decides to act on this, I’m prepared.
And by prepared, you mean you have a complete set of proper Beetle taillights to put things back, right??
Is it true the reason there’s never been a movie of that book is because the production can’t find enough left-hand-drive HQ-HZ Holdens?
Jason, where’s my taillight coffee table book?
One that folds into a taillight, if you don’t have one?
Can’t wait to see Jason on Regis and Kathie Lee…
That Jason is Bonkos!
Pretty sure it’s for sale behind the bar at La Lumiere Rouge.
Basically Lumie Porn.
Just apply a pea-sized amount between your butt cheeks like this – Here let me show you…
Not sure if you are male or female. But I love your take on things!
To each his own? LOL