WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:00.070 --> 00:00:04.546 Have you ever noticed that old cars all have the same headlights? 00:00:04.546 --> 00:00:10.191 Although automotive styling was all over the place and wild as ever throughout the 20th century, 00:00:10.191 --> 00:00:16.657 from 1940 onwards headlights were always the same bug-eyed circles of glass. 00:00:16.657 --> 00:00:20.942 Sometimes they might be a little smaller and there’d be two on each side of the car, 00:00:20.942 --> 00:00:23.820 and by the seventies we were afforded the luxury 00:00:23.820 --> 00:00:25.533 of rectangles. 00:00:25.533 --> 00:00:35.115 But until the 1980’s, every car, truck, dump truck, and bus sold in the United States had more-or-less identical headlights. 00:00:35.115 --> 00:00:36.786 What was up with that? 00:00:36.786 --> 00:00:40.279 The answer is a good idea that got turned into a regulation 00:00:40.279 --> 00:00:44.566 that would then go on to go on a little too long. 00:00:44.566 --> 00:00:47.969 Those headlights of the past are known as sealed beam headlamps, 00:00:47.969 --> 00:00:54.472 and they’re more or less the same concept as a PAR lamp, or parabolic aluminized reflector. 00:00:54.472 --> 00:00:59.662 I mean, I guess they are PAR lamps just a more specific subset. 00:00:59.662 --> 00:01:03.704 And the part that might seem slightly bonkers from today's perspective 00:01:03.704 --> 00:01:09.421 is that when you had a headlight go out, you would go to the auto parts store and obtain… 00:01:09.421 --> 00:01:11.874 an entire headlight. 00:01:11.874 --> 00:01:16.995 That’s right, for all intents and purposes, this is the bulb. 00:01:16.995 --> 00:01:24.949 In fact it’s not exactly, look through the front glass at the right angle and you’ll see a halogen bulb just chilling at the base of the reflector, 00:01:24.949 --> 00:01:28.142 but there’s no way to replace just that. 00:01:28.142 --> 00:01:32.153 When it burns out, this entire thing gets tossed. 00:01:32.153 --> 00:01:36.838 This lamp is sold today in 12V versions as H6024. 00:01:36.838 --> 00:01:41.862 The headlight has three pins on its electrical connector because there are two filaments: 00:01:41.862 --> 00:01:48.237 one for the low or dipped beam and other for the high beam (you might know it as the driving or main beam). 00:01:48.237 --> 00:01:50.171 Although they’re very close to each other, 00:01:50.171 --> 00:01:58.469 their position near the focal point of the parabolic reflector results in a very different beam pattern depending on which filament is lit. 00:01:58.469 --> 00:02:00.119 Now, you might be thinking, 00:02:00.119 --> 00:02:07.584 “OK... so headlights used to be these big glass things and they had a combined high and low beam function. 00:02:07.584 --> 00:02:09.092 Whoop-de-doo.” 00:02:09.092 --> 00:02:12.932 But you see, this wasn’t just “a” headlight, 00:02:12.932 --> 00:02:16.619 this was THE headlight. 00:02:16.619 --> 00:02:23.417 For seventeen years, every car sold was required to have two of these things. 00:02:23.417 --> 00:02:30.087 And in the US, we wouldn’t give up the idea of sealed beam headlights until the 1984 model year. 00:02:30.087 --> 00:02:32.546 Today, this might sound absurd. 00:02:32.546 --> 00:02:36.244 And 1984 was ridiculously late - 00:02:36.244 --> 00:02:42.295 our Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards have a long tradition of being decades behind the rest of the world, 00:02:42.295 --> 00:02:45.124 at least when it comes to lighting requirements. 00:02:45.124 --> 00:02:49.158 I mean, we still allow red turn signals in the rear! 00:02:49.158 --> 00:02:52.005 Somebody oughta make a video about how silly that is. 00:02:52.005 --> 00:02:55.329 But this wasn’t entirely a bad idea, 00:02:55.329 --> 00:03:01.509 and in fact as the years have gone on this has proven to have some unexpected advantages. 00:03:01.509 --> 00:03:05.271 You might ask, why’d we do this in the first place? 00:03:05.271 --> 00:03:08.252 Well, let’s rewind to the 1930’s. 00:03:08.252 --> 00:03:11.651 These automobile things are starting to get pretty popular, 00:03:11.651 --> 00:03:16.405 and with every manufacturer following their own inner light when it came to marketing gimmicks 00:03:16.405 --> 00:03:18.813 (and also just finding suppliers for things), 00:03:18.813 --> 00:03:22.549 an ungodly mishmash of lighting equipment was out there. 00:03:22.549 --> 00:03:25.768 Sure, we had settled on electric lights at this point, 00:03:25.768 --> 00:03:30.188 and most manufacturers had even figured out the whole dipped beam and driving beam thing, 00:03:30.188 --> 00:03:33.526 but with no established standard... 00:03:33.526 --> 00:03:38.808 well good luck going on a road trip and finding a spare bulb outside of Schenectady. 00:03:38.808 --> 00:03:44.417 Setting aside the challenge of finding spares, there’s also the issue of headlight performance. 00:03:44.417 --> 00:03:52.194 Headlights are not only critical for the driver of a car to see at night, but they can also present a hazard to other drivers. 00:03:52.194 --> 00:04:00.241 If they’re too bright or aren’t aimed correctly, in the eyes of another driver they can become the wrong kind of dazzling. 00:04:00.241 --> 00:04:05.575 There’s a fine line here, and although not everybody would agree on where exactly that line was 00:04:05.575 --> 00:04:08.537 (and that’s definitely still true today!) 00:04:08.537 --> 00:04:15.247 with enough experimentation and a dash of compromise a standard performance benchmark was established. 00:04:15.247 --> 00:04:21.088 Ideally every car would have headlights that performed to that standard. 00:04:21.088 --> 00:04:28.315 Now, if only there were a way we could force all cars to have lighting equipment which performed to that s— 00:04:28.315 --> 00:04:30.242 oh wait that’s exactly what we did. 00:04:30.242 --> 00:04:33.928 Every vehicle sold from 1940 until 1957, 00:04:33.928 --> 00:04:37.514 no matter if it was a Buick, a Volkswagen, a Plymouth, or a Studebaker, 00:04:37.514 --> 00:04:42.087 needed to accommodate and be equipped with two of these things. 00:04:42.087 --> 00:04:46.227 No ifs, ands, or buts, this was the headlight. 00:04:46.227 --> 00:04:52.116 You might find some fancy extra lights from time to time, maybe fog lamps or even a wacky steerable lamp, 00:04:52.116 --> 00:04:57.062 but the basic lighting equipment was always the same two headlamps. 00:04:57.062 --> 00:05:02.369 Of course there were many manufacturers producing this headlamp, and some were probably a little bit better than others, 00:05:02.369 --> 00:05:07.561 but the design and specifications were codified to the point that no matter what you drove, 00:05:07.561 --> 00:05:10.404 your headlights would perform similarly to everyone else’s, 00:05:10.404 --> 00:05:16.085 and no matter where you were every service garage and parts store had spares for your car. 00:05:16.085 --> 00:05:18.363 Because there was only one thing it could be. 00:05:18.363 --> 00:05:20.076 And it was this! 00:05:20.076 --> 00:05:24.006 Sealed beam headlamps weren’t just for standardization, though. 00:05:24.006 --> 00:05:29.950 In fact, the name is important and explains why we would just toss the whole thing when it burnt out. 00:05:29.950 --> 00:05:34.297 A lamp like this has a metal reflector to focus the filament's light, 00:05:34.297 --> 00:05:37.992 and one of the problems with metal is oxidation. 00:05:37.992 --> 00:05:44.771 Before the sealed-beam, reflectors in headlights with replaceable bulbs would tarnish or even rust with time, 00:05:44.771 --> 00:05:47.385 greatly diminishing their effectiveness. 00:05:47.385 --> 00:05:52.602 Sealing the reflector inside of an evacuated glass envelope meant it wouldn’t tarnish, 00:05:52.602 --> 00:05:56.745 and even if somehow it did - just replace it! 00:05:56.745 --> 00:06:05.654 And a huge advantage of codifying this as the one and only allowed headlight was that all a new car needed to accommodate it 00:06:05.654 --> 00:06:11.310 was the right-size hole in its bodywork and the matching electrical connector. 00:06:11.310 --> 00:06:17.832 To secure the headlight in place a locking ring would surround the edges and clamp it to a receiving basket, 00:06:17.832 --> 00:06:23.867 and the basket could be adjusted with a pair of screws to aim the headlight both vertically and horizontally. 00:06:23.867 --> 00:06:27.529 These nubs on the face of the headlight were used for aiming. 00:06:28.071 --> 00:06:35.010 In conjunction with special tools which would rest on them, you could determine whether they were level and pointing dead-ahead. 00:06:35.010 --> 00:06:40.450 If they were, then you knew they were aimed correctly - no need to wait until dark to be sure. 00:06:40.450 --> 00:06:43.593 Frankly, this was a pretty well thought-out idea. 00:06:43.593 --> 00:06:49.156 Compliance with a standard is pretty easy to assure when the standard is basically just… 00:06:50.060 --> 00:06:52.700 a weirdly particular light bulb. 00:06:52.700 --> 00:06:58.402 And automakers didn’t have to do any sort of testing or certification of their headlights on new cars because, 00:06:59.073 --> 00:07:02.835 I say again, this was the headlight! 00:07:02.835 --> 00:07:05.072 They just needed a hole for it. 00:07:05.072 --> 00:07:06.549 Ok, well, two. 00:07:06.549 --> 00:07:10.700 Slap one of those aiming contraptions on the front of the car, set the screws accordingly, 00:07:10.700 --> 00:07:14.453 and that there automobile is certifiably road-legal! 00:07:15.305 --> 00:07:19.830 Well, after the taillights and other signal lights were certified. Probably some other stuff to do, too. 00:07:19.830 --> 00:07:21.365 But the headlights? 00:07:21.365 --> 00:07:23.135 That work is already done. 00:07:23.290 --> 00:07:30.000 Eventually, people (by which I mean automotive executives) grew bored of this single headlight option. 00:07:30.000 --> 00:07:34.630 Clamoring for a new selling point, automakers would eventually convince regulators of the 00:07:34.630 --> 00:07:36.573 Magic of Having Two of Them… 00:07:36.573 --> 00:07:38.818 per side, that is. 00:07:38.818 --> 00:07:42.053 A new arrangement of two slightly smaller lamps: 00:07:42.053 --> 00:07:48.898 one a dual-filament lamp more or less like this one and another with a single high-intensity filament for extra bright high-beams 00:07:48.898 --> 00:07:52.059 was approved for use in 1957. 00:07:52.059 --> 00:07:57.612 And suddenly, service shops and parts stores needed to stock three different headlights. 00:07:57.612 --> 00:08:01.084 Wait, no, older cars had 6 volt electrical systems. 00:08:01.084 --> 00:08:03.060 Gotta keep spares for those, too. 00:08:03.060 --> 00:08:06.698 Imagine the contemporary curmudgeons’ cacophonous complaints! 00:08:06.698 --> 00:08:08.710 But we wouldn’t stop there! 00:08:08.710 --> 00:08:14.001 In the seventies, nothing said "the future!" quite like rectangles, 00:08:14.001 --> 00:08:18.092 so rectangular versions of those two schemes were approved. 00:08:18.092 --> 00:08:21.780 A single, large rectangular lamp could be used per side, 00:08:21.780 --> 00:08:26.827 or the same quad-lamp scheme was also allowed - but rectangles. 00:08:26.827 --> 00:08:29.229 And in fact we wouldn’t even stop there. 00:08:29.229 --> 00:08:36.683 If my cursory glance of this here website didn’t fail me, we would eventually have eleven of these big glass honkers to keep track of. 00:08:36.683 --> 00:08:39.238 How positively gruesome! 00:08:39.238 --> 00:08:45.073 For the most part, though, a car sold in 1975 would have one of four headlight setups. 00:08:45.073 --> 00:08:48.506 It was either these big singles, round or square, 00:08:48.506 --> 00:08:51.938 or one of the two quad setups - again, your choice. 00:08:51.938 --> 00:08:53.668 Round or square. 00:08:53.668 --> 00:08:58.981 However, virtually all models switched to rectangular headlights as soon as that was permitted, 00:08:58.981 --> 00:09:06.863 not only because it met the fashions of the day but their smaller size and flat front made them more dimensionally flexible. 00:09:06.863 --> 00:09:12.141 But, now you know why old cars all have the same headlights. 00:09:12.141 --> 00:09:14.688 They had but four choices. 00:09:14.688 --> 00:09:20.333 And that’s also why things like headlight covers and pop-up designs started spreading. 00:09:20.333 --> 00:09:24.618 If you had to have the same glass on the front of your car as everyone else, 00:09:24.618 --> 00:09:28.733 well to make its styling distinctive you needed some sort of gimmick! 00:09:28.733 --> 00:09:31.298 There’s only so much you can do otherwise. 00:09:31.298 --> 00:09:36.317 The last major change that would occur would be the approval of halogen lamps. 00:09:36.317 --> 00:09:41.042 That’s right, this is actually an upgrade from the original specification. 00:09:41.042 --> 00:09:47.289 Before 1979, these things really were just a standardized, oddly-shaped light bulb 00:09:47.289 --> 00:09:53.636 with a couple of tungsten filaments just hangin' out in just the right places in front of the reflector. 00:09:53.636 --> 00:09:59.819 If 1979 sounds weirdly late for the innovation of halogen lights, 00:09:59.819 --> 00:10:01.649 that’s because it was. 00:10:01.649 --> 00:10:06.803 Things happening weirdly late is kind of a running theme to the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. 00:10:06.803 --> 00:10:11.420 Videocassette recorders would hit the market before halogen headlights were approved here. 00:10:11.420 --> 00:10:15.270 By the way, we don’t really need to get into it but the point of a halogen lamp 00:10:15.270 --> 00:10:22.714 is that by enclosing a tungsten filament in a small envelope filled with an inert gas and a bit of iodine or maybe bromine 00:10:22.714 --> 00:10:25.992 (those elements being among the… halogens) 00:10:25.992 --> 00:10:28.632 the filament can be run much hotter 00:10:28.632 --> 00:10:35.692 as the halogen molecules floating around in the hot gas will essentially capture little bits of the filament that might have sputtered off 00:10:35.692 --> 00:10:41.473 (which usually causes the filament to weaken and the glass of a light bulb to darken) 00:10:41.473 --> 00:10:46.587 and it'll just slap it back onto the filament which is pretty wild. 00:10:46.587 --> 00:10:55.181 The upshot is they can create a brighter and whiter light than ordinary incandescent lights and they also don’t lose brightness as they age. 00:10:55.181 --> 00:10:58.552 They’ll just, at some point, fail. 00:10:58.552 --> 00:11:02.508 Europe got to have halogen headlights in 1962, but not us. 00:11:02.508 --> 00:11:04.405 Oh, they were much too bright. 00:11:04.405 --> 00:11:11.302 Now, sealed beam headlights were not unique to the US but we clung onto them for… 00:11:11.302 --> 00:11:12.733 too long. 00:11:12.733 --> 00:11:18.004 Requiring them until 19 freaking 84 was frankly embarrassing. 00:11:18.004 --> 00:11:23.713 And to make matters worse, the limits on their use were quite strict. 00:11:23.713 --> 00:11:31.836 A key disadvantage of sealed beam headlights is that they kind of wreck the aerodynamic potential of a vehicle design. 00:11:31.836 --> 00:11:40.334 Now, a simple solution to this problem is to place them in a recess behind a sculpted clear cover which matches the contours of bodywork. 00:11:40.334 --> 00:11:42.834 But we didn’t allow that! 00:11:42.834 --> 00:11:46.805 As a matter of fact, we used to, but in 1968 it was decided - 00:11:46.805 --> 00:11:50.912 Nope! These have to have to be completely unobstructed when in use. 00:11:50.912 --> 00:11:54.567 That, combined with the fact that the rest of the world was moving away from these 00:11:54.567 --> 00:11:59.785 meant that there was a rather awkward period where imported cars had… 00:11:59.785 --> 00:12:03.381 let’s just call it, suboptimal faces. 00:12:03.381 --> 00:12:07.162 Styling consequences aside, though, it wasn’t all bad. 00:12:07.162 --> 00:12:14.413 The same fundamental benefit was still there - sure, maybe Toyota’s got a different headlight on their Corollas sold in Japan, 00:12:14.413 --> 00:12:21.338 but to make it road-legal in the US they didn’t need to design a new headlight — they just needed to put the right socket in place, 00:12:21.338 --> 00:12:25.870 And, uh, try their best with bezels to make it look less goofy. 00:12:26.309 --> 00:12:29.791 Eventually, though, regulators would finally see the light 00:12:29.791 --> 00:12:36.130 and allow automakers to have their fun and design sculpted headlights with replaceable lamps. 00:12:36.130 --> 00:12:39.496 Granting Ford’s petition in the summer of ‘83, 00:12:39.496 --> 00:12:47.529 the 1984 Lincoln Continental Mark VII would become the first US-market car with custom composite headlights. 00:12:47.529 --> 00:12:50.737 In the coming years, most other cars would quickly follow suit 00:12:50.737 --> 00:12:58.195 and the sealed beam headlamp was relegated to base-model trucks and vans, plus commercial vehicles here and there. 00:12:58.195 --> 00:13:02.948 Of course today, headlights have gone from a thing you just have to have 00:13:02.948 --> 00:13:05.884 to a full-on statement piece in car design, 00:13:05.884 --> 00:13:09.856 with brands having particular fun with daytime running light signatures. 00:13:09.856 --> 00:13:13.909 And some brands, like Hyundai, are even bringing things full-circle 00:13:13.909 --> 00:13:19.231 (or should I say square?) with very retro-inspired quad DRLs. 00:13:19.231 --> 00:13:22.048 You’re right, this was a huge draw for me. 00:13:22.048 --> 00:13:25.548 And I mean they’re also the front turn signals! How could I resist‽ 00:13:25.548 --> 00:13:28.592 And it’s not just styling that’s better these days. 00:13:28.592 --> 00:13:34.070 High-intensity discharge and LED technologies allow for much better nighttime visibility 00:13:34.070 --> 00:13:36.630 through drastically improved performance. 00:13:37.121 --> 00:13:41.265 We’ve had some issues with glare as those technologies roll out - 00:13:41.265 --> 00:13:45.269 the regulations here are frightfully lenient on that front. 00:13:45.269 --> 00:13:51.306 I’m glad organizations like the IIHS are starting to comprehensively review car headlight performance. 00:13:51.306 --> 00:13:57.027 It seems like a thing we probably should have started the moment we let automakers start fiddling with their own designs. 00:13:57.027 --> 00:14:01.930 But, with their trademark timeliness, there’s actually good news on the glare front. 00:14:01.930 --> 00:14:06.623 The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has approved for the first time 00:14:06.623 --> 00:14:12.305 adaptive beam technology which can selectively dim portions of the driving beam, 00:14:12.305 --> 00:14:19.608 blocking out small regions to reduce glare for other drivers while maintaining high illumination for you everywhere else. 00:14:19.608 --> 00:14:24.000 It’s basically like if your headlights were high resolution projectors and a camera says 00:14:24.000 --> 00:14:28.110 “ooh! there’s a car there, block out that part” but everything else stays bright! 00:14:28.110 --> 00:14:33.225 So it’s like you have your high beams on all the time but other drivers don’t even know it! 00:14:33.225 --> 00:14:38.788 That amazing tech has been on the European market since 2009. 00:14:39.976 --> 00:14:43.114 But it took thirteen years to get approved here. 00:14:43.114 --> 00:14:46.407 I mean, at least they beat their previous seventeen year record for approving 00:14:46.407 --> 00:14:48.493 halogen lamps! [through gritted teeth] 00:14:48.493 --> 00:14:53.797 However, while I’m definitely not about to suggest that we go back to the… 00:14:53.797 --> 00:15:00.538 dark ages, adding more technology to headlights as we do it now is not without consequences. 00:15:00.538 --> 00:15:06.566 As a matter of fact, simply moving away from the sealed beam wasn’t without consequences. 00:15:06.566 --> 00:15:11.147 I bought these headlight modules for a 1996 Honda Civic 00:15:11.147 --> 00:15:15.104 back when I made my video on turn signal synchronization. 00:15:15.104 --> 00:15:22.980 They were surprisingly inexpensive at $80 for a pair, but they’re also not a genuine Honda part. 00:15:23.419 --> 00:15:28.280 I have no idea how well these might actually perform as headlights. 00:15:28.280 --> 00:15:30.582 They are DOT compliant... 00:15:30.582 --> 00:15:36.228 supposedly, but having prior experience with aftermarket replacements like these, 00:15:37.364 --> 00:15:39.019 that doesn’t mean much. 00:15:39.019 --> 00:15:44.293 And you wanna know why I have prior experience with aftermarket replacement like these? 00:15:44.293 --> 00:15:47.352 Because this is plastic. 00:15:47.352 --> 00:15:52.330 And y’know what happens with plastic when it’s exposed to ultraviolet light over the years? 00:15:52.330 --> 00:15:53.870 Bad things, that’s what. 00:15:54.180 --> 00:15:58.480 My folks’ old minivan started getting cloudy headlights after about a decade on the road, 00:15:58.480 --> 00:16:00.470 as many vehicles do these days. 00:16:00.470 --> 00:16:03.959 And back in the day I embarked on a journey to replace them. 00:16:04.579 --> 00:16:08.206 I found a similarly inexpensive aftermarket pair on eBay, 00:16:08.206 --> 00:16:13.362 and after the absolute chore that was removing the car’s front fascia and extracting the modules, 00:16:13.362 --> 00:16:16.061 replacing them, and buttoning it all back up, 00:16:16.061 --> 00:16:23.930 I had a much-prettier-looking Honda Odyssey staring back at me but with only marginally better headlights. 00:16:23.930 --> 00:16:30.570 The new modules had a completely different beam pattern from the old ones, with particularly mediocre high-beams, 00:16:30.570 --> 00:16:35.501 and no matter how I adjusted their aim they just weren’t that great. 00:16:35.501 --> 00:16:37.660 And here’s a fun thing about sealed-beams: 00:16:37.660 --> 00:16:40.279 they’re made of glass. 00:16:40.279 --> 00:16:46.960 And that means they don’t oxidize and yellow with time as is frightfully common with polycarbonate headlights. 00:16:46.960 --> 00:16:51.290 Now to be fair, there were bespoke headlights like this with glass lenses. 00:16:51.290 --> 00:16:55.839 Maybe some cars still have them today but it’s definitely not common these days. 00:16:55.839 --> 00:16:58.580 Oh, but y’know another really cool feature of these? 00:16:58.580 --> 00:17:03.070 If they should break, a replacement costs less than $15. 00:17:03.070 --> 00:17:08.317 No need to hunt down a specific module for a 2nd generation North American market Honda Odyssey - 00:17:08.317 --> 00:17:11.559 just pop into O’Napazone and get yourself a new one. 00:17:12.000 --> 00:17:14.086 Heck I got these at Walmart. 00:17:14.086 --> 00:17:18.271 And in case you’re thinking sealed beams just don’t perform well… 00:17:18.271 --> 00:17:20.769 honestly they’re not half bad! 00:17:20.769 --> 00:17:27.606 I’ve driven cars with three of the four common setups: quad rectangles, dual rectangles, and dual roundies. 00:17:27.606 --> 00:17:31.362 And frankly? To my admittedly subjective eyes, 00:17:31.362 --> 00:17:34.453 they were all better than average. 00:17:34.453 --> 00:17:38.671 As someone who spends a good deal of time on country roads looking out for deer, 00:17:38.671 --> 00:17:44.343 the throw of the high beams from either of these is superior to most modern cars I’ve driven. 00:17:44.343 --> 00:17:52.889 And I’m not kidding you, in fact, these are arguably a bit better at lighting up the open road than even my new car. 00:17:52.889 --> 00:18:00.927 They struggle a LOT, though, on the curvy windies - sealed beams have a very focused spot which is great for straightaways, 00:18:00.927 --> 00:18:07.669 but start curving even slightly (or even just crest a hill) and you’ll wish for more broad coverage. 00:18:07.669 --> 00:18:12.230 So I’d still rather have my new car’s modern LED setup on balance, 00:18:12.230 --> 00:18:15.350 but it’s not as if sealed beams are terrible. 00:18:15.350 --> 00:18:21.415 Because, and here’s the fun thing, replacing the entire headlight when it goes out means… 00:18:21.415 --> 00:18:25.659 well you’re getting an entirely new headlight every time it goes out! 00:18:25.659 --> 00:18:32.320 And these actively got better over time, in fact Sylvania even makes Silverstar versions of these. 00:18:32.320 --> 00:18:38.118 Think about cars made prior to 1979 - they had terrible headlights by today’s standards. 00:18:38.118 --> 00:18:39.449 Not even halogen. 00:18:39.630 --> 00:18:44.853 But, because they all have the same headlight sockets as any other contemporary car, 00:18:44.853 --> 00:18:50.468 I could slap one of these in and suddenly they have headlight tech from decades in the future! 00:18:50.468 --> 00:18:53.223 And it’s not just halogen tech, oh no. 00:18:53.223 --> 00:18:59.797 Because these things are so large, there are now full-on LED drop-in replacements with modern optics, 00:18:59.797 --> 00:19:01.889 DOT approved and everything. 00:19:01.889 --> 00:19:06.310 No need to get all sketchy with a definitely-not-road-legal HID kit, 00:19:06.310 --> 00:19:13.126 just a simple headlight swap and a car from 1950 can have headlight tech from 2022. 00:19:13.126 --> 00:19:15.944 Or at least, like, 2010. 00:19:15.944 --> 00:19:20.255 Yeah OK this would totally ruin the look of that car, but for a fleet vehicle? 00:19:20.255 --> 00:19:21.586 Why not? 00:19:21.586 --> 00:19:26.060 In the end, it makes sense that we’ve mostly moved on from this concept. 00:19:26.060 --> 00:19:33.263 Some new vehicles, typically big things like buses and trucks, are still getting made which use sealed beam headlamps, but 00:19:33.263 --> 00:19:35.284 it’s pretty rare to see these days. 00:19:35.284 --> 00:19:42.009 It seems just as common to find a box truck roaming around with some off-the-shelf car headlight module slapped on, 00:19:42.009 --> 00:19:47.135 like, uh, for instance these UPS trucks with headlights from an Oldsmobile Alero. 00:19:47.135 --> 00:19:52.583 But frankly, it always seems odd to me when designers go through that trouble. 00:19:52.583 --> 00:19:57.351 Just stick a sealed beam in there with an off-the-shelf indicator and side marker! 00:19:57.351 --> 00:20:03.294 Road legal with literally none of that trouble, and it usually makes the vehicle look much better, too. 00:20:03.294 --> 00:20:06.052 I mean, I see what you were going for here, 00:20:06.052 --> 00:20:09.482 but this other truck is much more friend-shaped. 00:20:09.482 --> 00:20:14.286 Will new passenger cars get sold again with sealed beam headlights? 00:20:14.286 --> 00:20:15.141 Probably not. 00:20:15.141 --> 00:20:19.828 But I do kinda hope we bring something like them into the future with us. 00:20:19.828 --> 00:20:27.668 Modern car headlight modules often have nothing serviceable in there at all, and they’re not cheap to replace. 00:20:27.668 --> 00:20:34.147 There’s a lot to like about them, and with LEDs we can hope that they last the life of the car. 00:20:34.147 --> 00:20:40.336 If they were designed right they should but the real world tends to have other priorities. 00:20:40.336 --> 00:20:46.558 Sure, in 2022 mandating that cars all use the same headlights ain’t gonna fly. 00:20:46.558 --> 00:20:51.101 [music fades in] But you have to admit this wasn’t the worst idea. 00:20:51.101 --> 00:20:54.879 [music ends abruptly] Just kidding! I have a piece of trivia for you before the bloopers. 00:20:54.879 --> 00:20:59.235 You may know of my absurd little car I bought on a whim in the before times. 00:20:59.235 --> 00:21:05.269 existing entirely as an exercise in excessive eccentricity, the Nissan Figaro’s vintage design mission 00:21:05.269 --> 00:21:09.430 incorporated headlights that are meant to look like sealed beams 00:21:09.817 --> 00:21:12.000 but in fact they are not. 00:21:12.000 --> 00:21:15.022 And that is actually a massive bummer. 00:21:15.280 --> 00:21:22.447 See one of those things many people don’t realize when they import a vehicle from a wrong-hand-drive country 00:21:22.447 --> 00:21:25.801 is that the headlights are backwards. 00:21:25.801 --> 00:21:29.480 Headlights on the low-beam setting are generally not symmetrical. 00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:36.000 They are designed to throw more light towards the shoulder and less light towards oncoming traffic. 00:21:36.000 --> 00:21:39.253 Often this is accomplished through a slanted beam cutoff, 00:21:39.253 --> 00:21:41.649 and that’s the case with the Figaro’s headlights. 00:21:42.217 --> 00:21:44.369 But, see, that’s backwards! 00:21:44.369 --> 00:21:48.615 It’s supposed to be driven in Japan where they drive on the left side of the road, 00:21:48.615 --> 00:21:54.000 so it’s throwing more light to the left and less light to the right. 00:21:54.000 --> 00:21:58.887 That makes driving it at night here in the US absolutely terrifying. 00:21:58.887 --> 00:22:06.964 Visibility is atrocious and I once got to within just a few meters of a pedestrian on the sidewalk before I even saw them. 00:22:06.964 --> 00:22:09.858 They were on the sidewalk so it wasn’t a close call or anything 00:22:09.858 --> 00:22:12.279 but that scared the crap out of me. 00:22:12.279 --> 00:22:14.989 I don’t drive that car at night anymore. 00:22:14.989 --> 00:22:17.460 And it’s not an aim issue! 00:22:17.460 --> 00:22:21.085 As a matter of fact, the car's high-beams are great! 00:22:21.085 --> 00:22:26.759 Poor timing once caught me out in the country at night in the Figaro and when I could use the high beams? 00:22:26.759 --> 00:22:28.940 No problem seeing anything! 00:22:28.940 --> 00:22:31.644 But as soon as there was oncoming traffic, 00:22:31.644 --> 00:22:39.729 dipping the headlights limited visibility on the shoulder so much that I slowed down to 40 miles an hour whenever I couldn’t keep the brights on. 00:22:39.729 --> 00:22:41.509 It’s that bad. 00:22:41.509 --> 00:22:45.049 The car just doesn't throw any light to the right. 00:22:45.049 --> 00:22:50.463 And, since the car IS throwing light to the left at oncoming traffic, 00:22:50.463 --> 00:22:54.601 I kept getting brights flashed at me. And frankly I deserved it. 00:22:54.601 --> 00:22:58.707 If the car had sealed beam headlights and they were the right size 00:22:58.707 --> 00:23:06.344 I could just swap them out for US-spec ones and be done with it but unfortunately that’s not really an option with this car. 00:23:06.344 --> 00:23:09.357 There is a kit which is meant to do this, but, see, 00:23:09.357 --> 00:23:16.501 the glass of the headlights curves with the shape of the body - that’s actually the giveaway that these aren’t really sealed beams. 00:23:16.501 --> 00:23:24.422 So while you can fit a US-spec sealed beam like this in those holes, they'll never look right. 00:23:24.422 --> 00:23:29.798 And since this is a silly little toy car which must be among the least practical cars ever built, 00:23:29.798 --> 00:23:37.648 and it’s old, small, light and barely crashworthy, thus kinda risky to be driving in the first place but especially at night, 00:23:37.648 --> 00:23:40.319 methinks I’ll just leave it as is. 00:23:40.319 --> 00:23:47.528 But anyway, I'm just telling this story so that the next time you get an itch to import a set of JDM headlights for your car - 00:23:47.528 --> 00:23:49.014 Don't do that. 00:23:49.014 --> 00:23:51.926 They’re backwards, and you will regret it. 00:23:52.288 --> 00:23:53.846 OK, now the bloopers. 00:23:54.701 --> 00:23:57.333 ♫ belatedly smooth jazz ♫ 00:23:59.115 --> 00:24:01.793 Sometimes they might even be a little smaller and… 00:24:01.793 --> 00:24:03.754 ooh. No. 00:24:03.754 --> 00:24:07.497 The headlight has three pins for uh, ohh… 00:24:08.530 --> 00:24:09.030 [thud] 00:24:09.030 --> 00:24:10.138 [wheeeeeeee] 00:24:10.138 --> 00:24:12.293 ...ridiculously late. 00:24:12.293 --> 00:24:14.940 Our federal boodeuh beuhh bleewuuUURGH 00:24:15.741 --> 00:24:16.993 Our federmal… 00:24:16.993 --> 00:24:18.268 good gravy 00:24:18.268 --> 00:24:19.214 Our federmal… 00:24:20.299 --> 00:24:22.707 why am I having a hard time saying that? 00:24:22.707 --> 00:24:27.487 I bought these headlight modules for a 1996 Honda Civic back when I ma… 00:24:27.487 --> 00:24:28.798 this is upside-down, isn’t it? 00:24:28.798 --> 00:24:29.662 Of course it is. 00:24:32.271 --> 00:24:33.638 Of course it is. 00:24:33.638 --> 00:24:38.867 There’s a fine line here, and although not everybody would agree on where exactly that line was, 00:24:38.867 --> 00:24:41.574 and that’s definitely still true today 00:24:41.574 --> 00:24:42.879 ... 00:24:42.879 --> 00:24:44.228 (yells) 00:24:44.228 --> 00:24:47.192 Of course there were many manufacturers producing this headlump. 00:24:47.192 --> 00:24:49.179 Headlump? [laughs] 00:24:50.470 --> 00:24:51.284 [yelly-grunt] 00:24:51.284 --> 00:24:57.086 Their smaller size meant that the front of them the beh de fwe nehminehm 00:24:57.086 --> 00:25:00.196 But, you see, this wasn’t just A headlight. 00:25:00.196 --> 00:25:02.459 This… 00:25:02.459 --> 00:25:04.312 [taps the glass] 00:25:05.758 --> 00:25:08.205 Yeah, so they were a pretty BRIGHT idea, huh? 00:25:08.205 --> 00:25:10.870 A really ILLUMINATING concept. 00:25:10.870 --> 00:25:14.389 Those 1940's folks were really LIGHTING THE WAY, right? 00:25:14.389 --> 00:25:16.650 It was a real LIGHT BULB moment. 00:25:16.650 --> 00:25:18.788 On PAR with the best. 00:25:20.211 --> 00:25:22.048 HALOGEN.