Learn about how the generic sealed-beam headlight inspired decades of iconic design.
This article appears in Volume 10 of Road & Track and has been condensed for our mini enthusiasts at R&T Crew. To read the full article, click here.
Think of the greatest designs in American automotive history. The 1949 “Shoebox” Ford. The ’57 Chevy. The ’64-½ Mustang. The suicide-door Lincoln Continental. The muscular Sting Ray and all its forebears. Every one of the Forward Look Chryslers that flowed from Virgil Exner’s pen. The gobsmacking Buick Riviera. The razor-sharp Eldorado. The jolie laide Avanti.
These designs have practically nothing in common. You’d never mistake a Buick for a Lincoln, a Studebaker for a Chrysler. But take another look at those faces. They’re all arranged around a ubiquitous, generic piece of mandatory equipment: the circular sealed-beam headlamp. It was a regulatory necessity—and an unsung motivator that pushed designers to unparalleled creative heights.
Derby Car with Decals
roadandtrack.com
$5.99
SHOP NOW
Starting in 1940, U.S. automakers agreed on the round seven-inch sealed-beam as the universal standard headlight. It made replacing a broken lamp easy, no matter the car’s make or model. After 1957, dual 5¾-inch round lamps were accepted, and in 1975, rectangular headlamps were approved— again, generic sealed-beams.
Think of the massive changes in automotive styling from 1940 to 1975. Pontoon fenders gave way to slab sides, which begot Coke-bottle contours. Taillights went into orbit atop rocket-like fins, then crash-landed in chrome bumpers. Every zany contraption for flip-down, pop-up, or hide-away headlights was an effort to differentiate those ever-present circular lamps. The most evocative car designs we’ll ever see came to life under the iron rule of the round sealed-beam headlight.
That’s no coincidence. Creativity thrives under constraint. The golden age of television was transmitted via rabbit ears to 13-inch black-and-white screens. The greatest music of the past century lived inside mainstream radio’s three-minute format.
I run the concept by legendary designer Frank Stephenson. In addition to just about every current McLaren, Stephenson drew the 21st-century Mini and the modern Fiat 500—designs inspired by the era of generic round headlamps.
Around the World Box
roadandtrack.com
$34.00
SHOP NOW
Is the theory crazy? “Absolutely not,” Stephenson says. The days of the sealed-beam “pretty much forced designers to figure out: How do we make our car look different?” Stylists of the era managed to give each model a different feel, he says, despite working with identical lighting technology. “Designers of old, those regulations pushed us,” he says. “We had to be a lot more creative than designers have to be today. You wanna slap them in the face and say, ‘C’mon, put some more ideas into it!’ Just to stick a pair of LEDs in a line isn’t cutting it anymore. There’s no beauty to that.”
During America’s sealed-beam era, British and mainland European automakers offered a wider variety of headlight shapes and sizes in their home markets, often with superior lighting performance. But when those vehicles were imported to the U.S., they were slapped with the same old sealed-beams, with varying results. The Volkswagen Beetle and Jaguar E-type, born with single round headlamps, looked just fine in U.S. spec (at least until our government outlawed glass headlight covers in 1968). Most Mercedes cars, sold at home with large rectangular dual-element lamps, got a clunky conversion to cram circles into squares. Never mind what French models looked like with their U.S.-mandated spectacles. Sometimes a design constraint just leads to constrained design—especially when it’s tacked on after the fact for a foreign market.
Burnin’ Rubber Trucker Hat
roadandtrack.com
$12.99
SHOP NOW
The sealed-beam is all but dead now. In 1984, the Lincoln Mark VII became the first car sold in the U.S. with “aero” headlights, molded plastic lamps unique to that model. Soon nearly every model sold in the U.S. had its own bespoke headlights.
A boon for creative design? Theoretically, sure. But that freedom seems to have driven designers to option paralysis. Automakers flock around the same styling trend until one daring model breaks free—then everybody jumps to the new trend. Five years ago, it was headlights stretched nearly to the A-pillar; today it’s LED accent strips above lights buried low in the bumper. Whatever the next trend in headlights is, expect it to be ubiquitous in five years and replaced entirely in 10.
Meanwhile, let’s salute the round sealed-beam. For 35 years, it was the only game in town. Cars were more distinctive, daring, and vivacious thanks to its unavoidable presence.
Check out the Road & Track Crew Shop for even more auto-inspired fun for your car-loving kiddo.
Keyword: Road & Track Crew Hot Lap: Guiding Light