Quote:
Originally Posted by merrylander
That's because some idiot got the idea that optics is an art form and not a science.
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These fancy headlights were indeed nose candy for designers but they have a practical aspect to them. Faring and sculpting them into the overall body design has an aerodynamic advantage which shows up in fuel savings. European manufacturers, particularly the Germans, had been doing this for a while but had to refit their cars with US legal lighting to bring them in.
At that time we had specs for lighting that were written by GE. Not surprisingly, the specs mandated the lights that US cars be equipped with were the types of headlights GE was already making. That's why everything had one of the two types of round or the two types of rectangular headlights.
Another thing was a mandatory minimum and maximum height above the roadway. It was high enough that it proved impossible to integrate the lights into the body design and still have a graceful and aerodynamic shape. Some manufacturers went to pop-up headlights like the Miata or Corvette to get around this problem. Others, like MG and Jaguar just jacked the whole car up on its suspension until the headlights were high enough.
John