I’m an American. I’m proud to be an American, usually, and while this wonderful, messy, ridiculous, often stupid and fascinating country has many things I’m proud of (JPL, Dock Ellis’ no-hitter on LSD), there are things that cause me to cringe in shame and regret. Like our absurd and over-long obsession with sealed-beam headlights. I’m not against sealed-beams – I think they absolutely have their place and their ubiquity and affordability makes them attractive options even today – but Federal Motor Vehicle Standards made them the only option for far too long. And those rules ended up doing some terrible things to some very good cars.
Starting in 1940, all cars that would be sold in America were required to have a pair of round, 7″ sealed-beam headlamps, a dual-filament design providing for both low- and high-beams. In 1957, quad headlamps became legal, allowing for four 5.75″ lamps, with all four illuminated for high beams.
These remained the only headlight options – two big round or four slightly smaller round – until 1975, when rectangular headlights became federalized. As with the roundies, you could have two larger or four smaller ones.
But that was it! In Europe, custom-to-the-car headlamps of almost any shape, with replaceable bulbs, were quite common, and allowed designers a great deal more flexibility in design. America finally approved these sorts of composite lamps (even with plastic lenses) in 1986, but by then many lovely European car headlamps had been debased by the cruel federal regulations.
There are many examples of lovely Euro lights being clumsily replaced with clunky sealed beams, but I think there are three examples that are the most tragic – not because the carmakers didn’t try to do their best to work within the American rules, but because they did try, and try hard. And yet, despite their best efforts, the result was a far cry from the original Euro lights they were designed with.
It’s tragic yes, but if we don’t confront these painful moments, we could be doomed to repeat them. So off we go.
BMW 2000CS
The 1965-1969 BMW 2000CS was the sporty coupé variant of the Neue Klasse, and differed from its other Neue Klasse siblings in the design of the front end, which reduced the grille to just the two trademark kidneys (and some slots hiding behind the bumper), along with some wide, shaped headlamps that hugged the lower edge of the hood.
The look was pretty controversial at the time, but it was interesting, and a big part of what made it interesting were those novel, shaped lights, flush with the body and having a compelling depth to them.
When these came to America, there really wasn’t much that could be done; the volume of the headlamps were filled in with a ribbed aluminum, and quad round sealed beams were jammed in. The car doesn’t look terrible with the sealed beams, but it makes the already polarizing front end look, as the kids say, a bit derpy, especially when compared with the purposeful look of the original.
Mercedes-Benz 280SL (W113) Pagoda
The 1963-1971 W113 Pagoda was a genuinely elegant and lovely car, and a lot of what made it so striking was the lighting design. The Bosch-sourced headlamp units were designed to follow and finish the line and shape of the fenders, and incorporated a headlamp, indicator, and foglamp under one large, domed chunk of fluted glass.
These are really striking-looking units and help give the front end a lot of its elegance with their jewelry-like presence. The US market version doesn’t actually look bas at all, and the round sealed beams and large indicator lens do fill the area well, requiring only a minimum of ribbed clear plastic filler, but its just not the same as the original custom Bosch units.
They’re a hell of a lot cheaper to replace, though.
Citroën SM
Out of all of these luminary federalized debasements, this one is by far the worst. It’s the worst not just because the USDM face looks so much worse, but because changing the lights loses one of the most exciting and functional details of the original car: the headlamps that self-leveled and turned with the steering wheel.
Here, look at them in action on this partially-disassembled SM:
The original SM’s headlight treatment broke more than one federal lighting standard: not only were the lamps themselves not approved sealed-beam sizes or shapes, but they were set behind a panel of shaped glass, which was also against Uncle Sam’s strangely strict lighting rules, for some reason.
The original SM’s lights are an absolute triumph of headlight design and execution: they fit the overall swanky-spaceship look of the SM, they added genuine safety benefits, and they just made the car cooler.
The US market version, on the other hand, looks faintly ridiculous. The four round headlamps are set strangely far apart from one another, inset into plastic alcoves trimmed in chrome. The result is strange and awkward, and ruins the otherwise dramatic look of the car’s front end.
These were, ironically, dark times for headlights, and I pity the designers that had to try and debase these fantastic bits of lighting design to meet our strange, probably Puritan-inspired standards. I respect their attempts, despite their sometimes lackluster results.
Are there other examples that should be mentioned? Let’s discuss, at length, loudly, until they kick us out!
Torch, you’re on fire with this headline. I chortled and guffawed.
On the other hand, Ford made the Capri a much better looking car for the US market with the headlight change, so much so that the European Capri adopted the look.
Not gonna lie, I always thought the sealed beams (either round or rectangular) were a better look. Regarding the SL, the US lights actually look better IMO. Meanwhile, we’ve transitioned to composite lights, and once they start getting cloudy cataracts it not only looks low rent but their ability to do their job is greatly diminished. Was always surprised that there hasn’t been a manufacturer required “clear headlight” law. My Trooper had glass composite headlights and were clear all 23 years I had it. My Subaru and Saab? Not so much.
Yes, the transition to crappy plastic versions of the superior European headlamps was a much worse event than rapidly swapping out sealed beams for the European version
Single version OEM headlamps that cost hundreds of dollars if you could get them imported resulted in few being upgraded.
More recently the hella Bi-xenon has been discontinued, in spite of no competition.
Their revolutionary multiple light setting round lamp using a rotary scrim doesn’t seem to have hit the market yet.
You forgot the Rover SD1 and Citroen CX. Maybe because you’ve never seen a US spec version of either because they were imported in very low numbers, but ugh.
https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/49641832736_76aa28a72d_o-1.jpg?ssl=1
Ironically the SD1 works rally cars were sometimes canpaigned like this…
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fuxr02jjj0wyc1.jpeg&rdt=33515
Bring back sealed beams! I don’t care that they don’t look as good, I want to be able to go into An Store and just buy a set of headlights. Not everything has to be unique!
Are you aware some commercial truck fleet versions still use sealed beams?
Check out rental trucks.
I get the disdain, but I am going to express the unpopular opinion that sealed beams were better for car owners. Easy and cheap to replace, totally interchangeable. Now every car, down to the most basic economy car has a completely unique, expensive custom housing made from plastic that is fragile and gets cloudy over time. You can replace the bulbs but even those are often much more expensive than the sealed beam units and not standardized. Usually separate bulbs for high and low beams. You have to be careful when handling them because even a tiny fingerprint can cause the bulb to burn out prematurely. Because every light is custom designed to fit just one or two models, it needs to be tested and approved for every application, increasing the development cost for every car. Because the housings are so expensive to replace and, if your car is older, they can be very difficult to source – owners are more likely to drive around with a light out or damaged, making it more dangerous despite the improvements in technology.
I think it’s telling that the “great vs. awful” examples are all icons of automotive design. I get that – cars that were beautiful and innovative in every detail would be ruined by forcing an off-the-shelf part as an afterthought. Ordinary cars on the other hand – everyday economy cars that should be workhorses – have been made more expensive and fussy to manufacture and own by applying the type of totally-unique design process that was once the domain of luxury halo cars.
I think all they needed to do was allow glass in front of the sealed beams. I think you can have the best of both worlds.
ECE WP.29 allows the lenses to be detached from the housing: something that US regulations forbid.
Case in point: Audi 80/90 (B4) was the first Audi model to have the “same” headlamps for both ECE and US markets, using the H4/HB2 bulb, output with sharp horizontal cut-off and rise to the right, glass lens, etc. Why I use the quotation marks for “same” is that the US version is sealed unit with lens and housing glued together. The ECE version has removable glass lens, keeping the replacement cost down. The US version cost $400 for the entire unit while the glass lens on ECE version was the equivalent of $50–$60.
Same with Mercedes-Benz W140, W124, W202, R129 in the 1990s with glass lenses.
More reasons why the US regulations are STUPIDEST!
Peugeot 504 and 505. Ghastly modifications.
Worst offender of all time. Bonus points for 5mph bumper desecration as well.
https://www.mercedes-market.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Mercedes-R107-Euro-500SL-and-560SL-Mercedes-Market-headlights.jpg
Going to disagree. The US version looks more balanced to me.
The US version looks like Duane Syndrome.
Never understood why Mercedes-Benz didn’t bother switching to the rectangular sealed-beam headlamp capsules for R107/C107 when they became legal in 1975…
No one said anything about the Series II Jaguar E-Type? They went from lovely recessed lights under contoured glass to Marty Feldman.
I suppose that the comparisons continue – both Marty Feldman and the E-type were still cool as hell, regardless of their afflictions…
I was looking for mention of the E Type and the Datsun Zs…
When I was part of the VW community, I was amused that North Americans wanted Euro-spec lights in their Rabbits, while apparently a fair few Europeans did the US-spec conversion. We want the forbidden fruit, I guess.
eta: I did want the big&little lights for my 82 Rabbit, but finding out about the modifications needed to the radiator support stopped me as I lacked both money & skill to do it.
A mk1 Golf will always be sexier with single rounds, as the gods in Wolfsburg intended. For the boxier Jetta, I can get behind square headlights though
VW themselves ditched the round lights by the time the Mk3 rolled around.
The first two were improved by the US headlamps. The Citroen, not so much.
agreed. the BMW actually benefitted from the sealed beams.
The Merc looks FAR better with the US headlamps
And speaking of this, it’s not about the headlights – but the canadian austin mini bumper treatment is wild!
Mini classic in Canada – the Canadian Mini received a raft of changes
I prefer the Jaguar XJ6 method. 2 large and 2 small sealed beams on the Euro-spec cars. Much more attractive than the U.S.-spec of 4 small sealed beams.
Many U.S. owners made the conversion. Mounting hardware was easy to obtain; it was the same as other British-Leyland cars of the era. The difficult part was finding the correct trim for the 7″ outer headlights.
I’m a huge fan of US-Specs! Probably my favourite is the federalized Rover SD1 and the Porsche 924 with the strange round side markers.
Also any Volvo 200 and 700 series look better in us-spec.
Unpopular opinion: being from germany I see lots of R107 being converted from US-Spec to Euro-Spec. And in 95% of all the cases you can still see, it’s US-Spec. I’d always prefer a good US-Spec for a bad conversion.