From washing test tubes and grading papers to helping a professor move his hot tub (seriously…it happened), the life of a graduate student is really about two or three notches up from being in a Turkish prison. The Bishop should know…I never thought that getting my Masters in Automotive Exterior Lighting would be so difficult, but here we are. The level of pain a student experiences is usually proportional to how big of a douchbag the instructor you play obedient acolyte to is, and if your advisor is the great Dr. Torchinsky, you’re gonna have a bad time. This guy is, by his own admission, ‘the greatest taillight scholar of modern times’, and his ability to use his pool of MAE candidates for slave labor is unparalleled. In addition, he has so much tenure he could practically smoke weed naked in a classroom and not get fired. My latest task for The Great Doctor involves a bug he has up his ass about the sequel to the famous ‘Late Cold War-Era Default Car Face’, a discovery that won him an Amber Filament Medal. If you don’t remember what the ‘LCWEDCF’ (pronounced luke-WED-cuff) is, here is how he describes this seemingly unnoticed styling trend: Here’s a layout of the ‘face’ and a few examples: I call it the Late Cold War-Era Default Car Face, and it was everywhere.
All of these schematics and verbiage to say that a bunch of cars from the era of leg warmers had the same damn front end. Now, however, Torchinsky was CONVINCED that there had been another epidemic during this time: the Late Cold War-Era Default Car Taillamp. Thankfully, he was going to ‘let me go ahead and spend the weekend’ researching examples of this so-called trend. Wonderful. But what, exactly, is this ‘Default Taillamp’ I needed to be looking for? The way the Great One described it to me, the (primarily) rectangular shape of this taillamp design is divided into three sections of amber, red, and white for turn signal, brake/taillamp, and reversing light. Proportionally, the red section should be equal to at least the combined width of the amber and white sections…kind of like a box of Neapolitan ice cream with too much vanilla in the middle, but the vanilla is replaced by cherry:
[Editor’s Note: I’ve actually discussed this color order once before, but in a sort of different context, comparing this well-known order to the red-amber-clear order. Is this order and general shape alone enough to qualify as an independent taillight design? Perhaps! – JT] I fire up the laptop and get cracking on this unenviable task. About three minutes into my research I came to a startling realization: the poor fucker was right. This taillight design was seemingly on every other car built from the mid-1970s up through the 1990s. Here’s a bunch of examples…left to right, top to bottom….how many can you identify? (answers here)
The bigger question is…which ones am I missing? I know that there are more cars out there with this ubiquitous tri-colored lamp, and the great hive mind can tell me…can’t you?
I’m tired, y’all….seriously, ANY assistance you can offer on my path to get a goddamned Masters degree from this dickhead will be appreciated!
Credits: The Bishop, Virtual Parking, Bard Finds, various manufacturers
If the latter, I’m hoping these may be of assistance: – Polski Fiat 125p (okay, this is just a vertical rectangle) – FSO Polonez – Dacia 1310 – Trabi – Skoda 120 (various years, various letter-designating models) – Lada 1200 + many other models
Basically, at the height of the cold war (the ’80s), every Soviet-bloc manufacturer had adopted a layout composed of horizontal elements (only or hybrid – one large H with several V elements).
If I’m cynical as to why that was the case – it was probably a combination of a) less sophistication required in manufacturing, b) a desire to refresh/modernize/better fill rear areas of very old silhouettes (all of the above were 60s designs) and c) to compensate for the dim lighting – of the roads, of the headlights of following cars, and of the taillights themselves, given that said lack of sophistication allowed dirt and water to enter the assembly.
Why/how did JT not know? I’ll leave it to you to phrase that question.
Same goes for any manufacturer who regresses from amber to red within the same design generation for no goddamn reason. Yes I’m talking to you, Ford Econoline!
For the Econoline, I’ve noticed removal of amber lights on successive generations of numerous Fords (and other makes). I would venture to guess that in the all-red versions the bulbs are no longer in there either….if you can save ten bucks on a wiring harness and sockets and nobody really cares then that’s more money in the coffers.
Shame that we lost the opportunity to insert the rider in the massive budget package recently that would have forced DOT NHTSA to mandate the amber turn signal indicators in the rear. That package had a rider, mandating the “smart” headlamps, which DOT NHTSA belatedly updated its FMVSS 108.
United States was supposed to harmonise its FMVSS with UN-ECE in the 1990s as Australia and Japan have done, but US continued to drag its feet for eternity. Canada almost went full ECE in the early 2000s, but Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors threatened to pull the entire production out of Canada if it became law.
The height of the number plate could vary a bit, and American and European plates have different widths, of course. Also, some cars had the plate under an indentation, in order to allow for plate lights (this often underdeveloped portion of Exterior Lighting Sciences).
Some variations also have narrower lights, but them all followed the orange borders, red centres and white inner portions.
When I was a kid in the back of car magazines you could by red filler ‘heckflosse’ panels for cars with the Default Car Butt with the car name like SCIROCCO in all caps. You had to put your license plate on the bumper which looked pretty bad.
Also, knowing Dr. Torchinsky’s fondness of subcategorization, do you get any points for slight variations on the default taillight? I’m thinking of the Merkur XR4Ti, which has an additional inner strip of red to follow the standard layout.
If you do half-height reverse lights then you might be going too far, but that was also everywhere.
In some cases, it seems like an ‘upgrade’. That’s another Late Cold War trend….higher level models of a car got wider taillights. Like a six cylinder Volvo got the inside red pieces that the four cylinder did not.
https://code3garage.com/virginia-state-police-1978-plymouth-fury-a38/
Every cop show and Stephen J. Cannell production used and wrecked these cars.
For some reason, the previous owner had swapped the bulbs around and my dad and I were so confused why the ignition would come on when you hit the brakes.
What an awful car! ???? Wish I still had it tho.
I speak from a position of bias, but I would point out the taillights of my own Cadillac CT6. The lines are simple but very dynamic and provide plenty of light. Each line is tied to the other resulting in a overall pleasing “arrow/triangular” design element. Others that come to mind are the Camaro and the Porsche 911.
How can such a important design element be so downright ugly in so many cases? I’m looking at you, Japanese producers!
VC – Ten little boxes: https://autopian-images.neocities.org/vc.jpg
VH – Merc-like ridging: https://autopian-images.neocities.org/vh.jpg
VK – Smoky: https://autopian-images.neocities.org/vk.jpg
And the wagon variant basically rotates the thing into the vertical axis … does this mean there’s a Late Cold-War Era Default Wagon Tail-light too? https://autopian-images.neocities.org/wagon.jpg
The ’68 Charger tail lights embodied all of the iconic themes of the Cold War, with stunning simplicity. Two of my favorites: the ’68 tail lights looked like intercontinental ballistic missiles in their silos, just after the hardened hatches rolled back, and just at the millisecond of engine ignition. And they looked like warp coil plasma ignitors from the engines of the starship Enterprise from the original Star Trek.
So there you go: a world in ruins or a glorious future – the essential tension. What could embody the Cold War ethos better than the tail lights of the ’68 (and only the ’68) Dodge Charger?
http://www.dodgecharger.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=6a0hc4sf390roi54u3ljda7va3&action=dlattach;topic=71526.0;attach=132093;image
1977–1979 Oldsmobile 98 Regency https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/99gAAOSwItdd1Fa4/s-l640.jpg
I put together the photo montage for Curbside Classic of several GM export vehicles. Just scroll down to see the ones that fit your criteria: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/comment-image/338220.jpg
