Old car headlights were all the same - which was a fairly bright idea

According to my dad, who is old, in the 1970s if you drove around with the high beams on or your lights misadjusted, the police would hunt you down like a rabid dog. Today, it seems that you can strap the sun itself to the front of your car and never get bothered. Funny how things change.

I grew up in the days of sealed beams and I do miss the consistency of those lights. Now I don't like driving at night because it's incredibly difficult to see the road whilst being blinded by the lights of some dude who wants the brightest lights on the block!

after living in Germany for 2 years and returning to the US for the first time, the difference between headlight glare was *drastic*. driving in the US felt much more dangerous as it's very difficult to see at night with all the glare from other vehicles.

In German car manuals there is/was a section about how to modify the headlights for when you drive in a left-hand-side-driving country (e.g. England). As I remember it, you had to add some triangles of duct tape at the right places of the headlights to avoid glare for oncoming traffic. (I never drove my car to England, so for me this was a curiosity.)

Your Figaro has H4 bulb in the headlights, and if you nip off the 3 locating lugs in the base you can slightly rotate the bulb to suit righthand traffic, the low beam filament is partly blocked by a trough and rotating it will block out the part of the beam which blinds oncoming traffic. Of course some of the optics are also molded into the glass, but this trick should suit you just fine...

I worked at the plant that made these headlights. The metal that you referred to as the reflector inside the headlight, was not a piece of metal, it was a coating of aluminum applied directly onto the glass.

It was funny, because at first I hated the mandated inflexibility of these things, and I wrote a big rant about it. Then I had lunch and thought about it, and realized it's *a* *lot* *better* than the $750 light assemblies with cheap-ass plastic lenses.

I used to work in a European lighting company (big one) and we had a recessed luminaire. At some point we decided to venture into US market. We needed to get this luminaire UL approved. In a nutshell I went from building luminaires to building tanks. Our "mostly plastic" designed was now mostly sheet metal. And the little plastic that did remain was 20..30% glass fiber. We payed a a lot of money for consultations and getting it approved. It felt like market obstructionisms at the time. In retrospect I think there might be more to UL then just milking money from Europeans 🤔

Basically like today, no established standards, and higher cost to consumers. I think we need to standardize more parts in the cars!

I remember pretty clearly as a kid in the 80s when all of a sudden the "new futuristic looking headlights" started appearing everywhere. It was a sign of how cool and great and definitely better in all ways the future would be!

This was a far better design than a $1500 headlight housing that takes 3 hours to replace.

I remember when the smaller round headlights first came out , the auto makers claimed that with the small lights they could lower the hoods on cars , of course the first thing the auto makers did was stack the two smaller lights on top of themselves , I think that started with the 1957 Rambler

Imagine halogen being "too bright" and nowadays we have blinding HID and LED lights. I'm seriously been behind some cars and the flashing orange turn signal is like a strobe light. They are ridiculously bright. Light turns green, the cars pull away, and I'm still seeing spots from that turn signal. You know it's bad when you have to put your hand up to block people's brake lights and turn signals because they're so ridiculously bright.

It's pretty funny seeing this just now. A few weeks ago, a friend of mine had a headlight out on his car and went to the auto parts store to pick up a replacement. He came out, put the new bulb in, and it didn't work because it was not compatible. Just goes to show how good this idea actually was

I never saw anything wrong with sealed beam headlights myself. They worked perfectly fine and are far cheaper to replace than other headlight designs. Since they were made of glass they didn't get cloudy over time like the plastic headlights did. Automakers should have never phased them out entirely.

Most of the vehicles I've owned have had sealed beam headlights. More recent ones have molded plastic ones. I do most of the routine maintenance on my vehicles. Frankly, the only advantage I can see to the newer style is aerodynamics.

The auto parts stores in UK now have to stock a huge range of vehicle bulbs, resulting in the individual cost of a bulb being much higher than if there were fewer designs.
Despite the numbers available, I was unable to get replacement bulbs for my US imports (Chevrolet Astro and HHR) as they were yet another design. If only the World had stuck with Sealed Beam lights, I would have been very pleased.
I used to stock up with replacement bulbs during our visits to the USA. My wife never objected to a trip to Florida to get some auto bulbs at Walmarts !
Possibly one further drawback with the plastic headlights. To change a bulb on the HHR, the front wheel had to come off and the arch liner dropped- try doing that at night.

Alec, you have this uncanny ability to make such obscure topics so interesting and I truly thank you for it! I can't wait for your next video!

Before cars had electric lights, the earliest ones had small oil lamps. Those weren't very bright and soon gave way to acetylene which burns with a very bright flame. Acetylene is difficult to compress (tends to explode) but a way was found to dissolve acetylene in acetone (like CO2 is dissolved in a soda). Acetylene is still used in welding and is available in two cylinder sizes. The "MC" cylinder is quite small. The "B" cylinder is much larger. These names come from the fact that the cylinders were originally designed for automotive illumination. The small "MC" cylinder was for motor cars while the larger "B" type was for buses.

Have a look in the handbook for your small car. Some are designed to concert the shutter by turning the shutter. Failing that you could mask the offset with tape. We used to do that in the Uk trawling to mainland Europe. Great video really enjoyed it.

Another excellent video.
As a side note I’m pretty entertained by the presence of old Soviet cars in this video.
I saw the Volga, Chaika, and the GAZ-53 truck.

Let me just thank you for subtitling the bloopers so expertly. This is the sort of bonus content I stay on for

Another thing about modern headlights, they put off no heat and when driving in the snow are susceptible to becoming clogged with snow or ice that sticks to them making it much harder to see. This is a minor problem that sealed beams never had.

It really bothers me that youtube never recommends your videos to me, yet your my favorite channel.

There's a guy in a truck with insanely bright headlights that I pass every night on the way home from work. The first time I saw him, I flashed my high beams to let him know his were on. I guess he thought he was going to be a smartass and turn his high beams on and they were EXACTLY the same brightness as his regular lights.

This makes me think, I'd love to see a video on standardized audio-visual jacks: quarter-inch, eight-inch, etc.. They're a tech that's still somewhat established, standardized, and useful, but it took a while to get to that point. I like that I can plug a guitar, for example, into an amplifier from the 50s, and it will still work fine.
One of the things that's discouraged me about new mobile phones is the elimination of the eight-inch jack port. I prefer the passive tone of passive earbuds, even though I have to battle with the long cable from the device to my ears. It appears that I might not be able to use newer phones if I continue to insist on my passive earbuds. This annoys me.
I'm sure someone's suggested it before. But I love your approach to standardization.
Keep it up.

Video idea: freezer ice makers? The bin style with the (usually) metal wire loop for full tray sensing and on/off toggle seem pretty interesting, although I think I have them worked out by now.
I think it'd be a pretty cool video even if it's short and simple.

Just when I got really good at installing those glass eyes and adjusting them well everything changed. It was a skill to doing that job correctly. I REALLY hated popup lights. When they didn't work right there was usually a whole bunch of crap to take apart then put back together.
I miss the old style round glass. I kept thinking I was going to invent some new use for them, but time got in the way and I had kids. I should have stuck with the lights.

Who would have thought a video about headlights would be so interesting? Great job!

Back in pre-history in the UK when my first car had sealed beam headlights, it was common to fit an additional spot light up front, an aftermarket reversing light at the back, and a stick on rear screen heater. As non of these came as standard in most cars. I also remember fitting a sealed beam headlight to a motorcycle headlight shell. Which was a bad idea, as motorcycle headlights dipped straight down, so still illuminated the pot holes you were about to hit. Whereas, sealed beams dipped towards the kerb.

You've got to be one of the only channels that will go in-depth on some small topic like this.
It's strangely mesmerizing and educational. The sort of thing I'd never intentionally seek out, but I'm never mad I watched!

really interesting as usual! as a jdm cars enthusiast i must admit i didnt even know about the headlights aiming to one side or the other. it does explain how subpar my friend's r32 night time driving experience was though!

21:20 British/Irish people over 30 all know this. You used to see cars on the road, often with caravan, going to or from France - with "beam benders" installed. (Also, the cheap option: a triangle of black tape...) I don't know how common France as a holiday, and taking your car to get there, really was, but you only had to see it a few times before you asked Dad what that was.

I was the headlight aiming guy at a car dealership back in the '70's-'80's. It was always fun aiming them after the car had been repaired from a wreck. Great video!

These lights were used in many movie lights (some are still used today). Mole Richardson's 9 Light is a good example.
Each lamp could be switched on individually and they could be rotated to adjust the beam vertical / horizontal as needed.
If you wanted a different lensing to focus the light appropriately, you would pop out the lamps and replace them with those of a different lensing.
The lamps came in a few different wattages as well (1K, 1.2K, and if memory serves about half a K...maybe 575).

What you have there with the halogen lamp inside it is a modern replacement headlamp, not an original sealed-beam unit (halogen lamps did not exist back then). The original sealed-beam units had bare filaments inside them as the entire unit was the 'bulb', hence the term 'sealed-beam'.

I actually find it very difficult to drive at night now without polarized sunglasses because there are so many cars with lights that are way too bright.

I had these older headlights on my VW beetle, Miata and MR2. Like you said, these weren’t half bad.
If anything, the early composite headlamps that used 45W 9004 bulbs are too dim. The 55W 9003, 9006 or 9007 bulbs that followed worked better with well-designed optics.

Love your Clip-Share channel,
I learned something new about head lights for right hand drive cars,
I like to see a comparison of visual abilities for white LED and halogen headlights, I had both new and old cars , but I found white LED light were not really good when driving in very dark areas, white light get absorber into the black objects but soft white yellow halogen can still reflect some visible light back for you to identify the objects. So I like to see manufacturers can create some new soft white yellow LED headlights.

I really like your well considered and thoroughly researched videos

The standard headlights started with replaceable bulbs. Sealed beams were much better performance wise, but came later. The blue car at 7:02 has replaceable bulbs.

You can just mask the rising part of beam with a piece of electrical tape so you dont blind on comming traffic. Just park car against wall and figure where to stick the tape. I've done that many times when importing car from Japan before I got headlight conversion done.

About your "backwards" headlights issue. As a Brit, when we take our cars onto mainland Europe we have to fit something that my dad always used to call 'sticky dippers', basically bits of plastic you stuck to the headlight glass to mask off the part of the dimmed beam that was on the wrong side of the road. More modern ones seem to have some lensing in them to cast that light back across to the shoulder where they are meant to be. Have a look for "headlight deflectors UK to Europe" they generally only cost about £5 and might mean you can drive your Figaro at night again...

There are not many people I watch that I would compliment their captions. You’re videos are a great exception to that. Love these videos and your captions, especially at the end of the video

I remember going to the store in late 80's/early 90's with my dad to buy a headlight off the shelf of a department store when one broke on his 85 Bronco II. Weird how a video can pull up something random like that.

Love the level of details and respect to the amount of research for every topic you touch!
Thank you for your videos!

I had a motorcycle that had really great high beams but the second you turned it to low beams you were greeted with a small 20 ft half circle illuminated on the ground in front of the bike.... Absolutely terrifying.

Have you ever noticed that all new headlights seem to be aimed straight up into your eyes when driving at night? Plus now they are so much brighter. (Remember being told we would get a ticket if our headlights shined up into oncoming traffic?)

I am so thrilled to learn about something that I have literally wondered about since I bought my first Jeep CJ... probably even longer in the past, if I could remember far enough back. :-D (also the note about right-hand drive and headlight patterns was fascinating!)

Another positive of sealed beams that I don’t remember getting mentioned in this video is that when you replace them there is no need to aim them. They sit in a metal “basket” which is the part that adjusts the aim. Sealed beams are good headlights. I drive big rigs all the time that still use them and my summer time daily drivers have them. They work fine.

I am greatful for your safety and practicality observations. You are very astute, and it is appreciated.

It's really cool that you can simply walk into an auto parts store and grab one of these off the shelf if yours breaks or burns out. I love my 80's cars for this.

My dad's 2003 Peterbilt 379 had sealed beam halogen headlights. Granted, a lot of trucks from the 90's still had them, too. I think the newer Kenworth W900L still has sealed beam halogens.
Edit: The W900L is still built today.

All you've done is convinced me to tear out the current fading light fixtures in my cars and replace them with homemade metal fixtures with receptacles for sealed beam lights lmao

My pet peeve with new cars is that the panel lights cannot be dimmed enough. with new cars having huge screens, I find that the screens and instrument cluster almost never go dim enough to allow good night vision. The headlights don't need to be nearly as bright in old cars because you can dim the instrument cluser so much more, allowing your eyes to adjust much better to the dark

Who would have thought that a review of the humble sealed beam could be so fascinating!

I made a flashlight using one of these (12v) and the battery from a little Black and Decker chainsaw. Worked great, but it got pretty hot so eventually I switched it with some LEDs made for a truck.
It's ridiculously bright, doesn't get hot, and the battery lasts way longer than I expected. I used it for over 2 hours straight out in the freezing cold and it still had plenty of charge left.

Adding this as a separate comment, you can buff off the oxidation on those plastic headlight assemblies. I use the turtle buffing compound with a cheap second hand orbital buffer. Then wipe it off. They get cleared up very nicely after that.

In the UK/Europe we have adhesive reflective deflectors that stick on the headlight cover to prevent blinding oncoming traffic when driving on the other" side of the road.
Most modern Xenon or LED cars have an option to pivot the headlights for you so you can drive on either side of the road.

I was hoping you were going to spend some time discussing the molded diffusion pattern on the headlamps and why they are no longer present on many newer cars

the problem with the much brighter white lights is that when one comes behind you, your nighttime vision goes away and your mirrors become next to useless as all you see are a pair of white orbs. and worse, sometimes the road lanes in front of me disappear and i have to turn on my high beams to see.
compared to the nice warm yellow of y old truck that lights the road just fine and allows my nighttime vision to remain letting me see a lot more of the area around me without having to blind anyone in front of me

This is probably my favorite channel on Clip-Share. Thanks for the hours of education and entertainment.

Personally I do like industry standard things like these a lot. In fact, I love them....
In a somethat similar story, I was almost gonna replace an old roomlight with R50 spots (which were normal lamps). LED-powered of course. That is, until I noticed they have gone up in price so much since most people use GU10s now. Which is logical: GU10s used to be halogen before LED, but now they are just smaller, but also LED and as such, it's now a GU10 spot. Alas, I'd rather have larger spots with the same brightness for the aestatic, but cost. Oh well.

Minor point: to run Halogen sealed beams in an old model may require an upgrage to 12v alternator to cope with the added current draw.

I was an army mechanic, no matter the actual repair job, adjust headlights was always on the list. Most British military vehicles had the same Lucas Headlamps.

That "headlump" blooper was pretty great!
A while ago I made a video about headlights and made the "mistake" of saying that LEDs aren't the problem, and that turned the video into a forum for people to complain about the "LED" headlights that blinded them that night. This video might become the new forum, so have fun with that!

European countries have triangular stickers that alter the beam pattern of your headlights to drive in countries that drive on the opposite side. Good for example, for people from the UK that drive over to France often. Worth looking into for your Figaro- it won't throw light to the shoulder, but you won't blind oncoming traffic at least.

the one thing he didn't talk about was the "T-3" lamps which I recently found out had a different beam by 3 degrees.... both higher and wider. Old car owners know about them, but few knew what was different. They are available in repro for your 50s-60s driver.

Cloudy headlights from UV light are trivial issues compared to the effects of sandblasting when you live in a sandy desert environment like I do. Here in El Paso, winds in the 50-60 mph range are common in March and April, with gusts going considerably higher. The winds not only damage headlights, but can even etch the glass windshields.

it would be interesting with a video on fire sprinklers. those that sit on ceilings and contain a bulb filled with liquid.

Some of the more modern diesel buses in my city (like no more than a few years old) use sealed beam headlights (the "dual-roundies" setup), though either the city or the manufacturer opted to put in LED drop-in replacement lamps instead of halogen lamps.

Here in Hungary there is a headlight polisher service in the parking lot of almost every larger store. They fix certain kind of dents in the windshield, too. The polished lamp will get dim again in a few years, but it's note a big deal to have it polished like every 4 years.

12:56 Worth noting here that for many years it was the distinguishing factor between consumer vans and light trucks and the fleet models: fleet managers had no interest in a replacement headlight that cost $300 instead of one that cost... about 12 bucks.

This is a good description of the filaments and how bright/dim settings worked on the headlights of my childhood.

I have the factory high beams on my 1971 Oldsmobile and they both work. The low beams have been replaced and I recall them to be about $12 @ at the time. I live in Florida and the sun chews up plastic. I’d prefer glass for my current car but not available.

Even more important is the beam pattern. If you buy EU-spec Hella units made for H4 bulbs, you will be astonished over how good light the round/square produce.

I'll give you thumbs up for introducing the topic of auto headlights and specifically the sealed beam ones and for providing a design background history. The contention between standardized SB (sealed Beam) and creative least regulated designs is very similar to the "mother, may I?" control freak culture and the anarchistic "I'll do as I damn well please" culture, the latter being my usual preference.
The results of what we get is a tension between function vs. fashion with a dabble of economics in the middle. SB provided the opportunity for all cars to have adequate and predictable lighting under the broadest range of circumstances which is a huge advantage to the driver and to anyone who sees what is coming. The inert gas and filament design gave incredible long life and uniform service and oh boy are they cheap.
Other considerations came into play such as optimum position and lamp color. If any headlight is too high off the ground, they lose effectiveness at lighting the road and they are much more prone to blinding oncoming drivers. Have you ever been sitting in a Honda Civic and have an F-250 pull up behind you at night? You can feel the heat on your neck from those blasted headlamps. To do their best work headlamps should probably be limited to less than 42" off the road, the challenge here is to see well and not be seen too well. Color temperature is another issue, daylight (5000K+) is actually dangerous at night. It takes much more time for the human eye to adjust from blackness to a daylight (5000K) low beam than to a 3000K source. The difference in time constitutes blindness and represents a higher risk counted in milliseconds of blindness. Daylight lamps are great in offices with large picture windows, but they are lousy for night driving (look up why do submarines use red lighting).
For your enjoyment, please read "the development of the All Glass Sealed Beam Headlight pg.127-131 from Carl Breer's book The Birth of Chrysler Corporation, SAE press ISBN 1-56091-524-2

I definitely eagerly await an episode on Carbon Arc lighting. Perhaps even delving a bit into moonlight towers that were once commonplace.
Given how rare Carbon Arc equipment is though, I imagine it will take a hot minute.

Don't get too excited for adaptive headlights, Being randomly blinded because the giant suv in the other lane has decided you don't exist anymore is honestly worse then them just having brights on

Those round sealed beam headlights could be adjusted slightly left or right, up and down. As part of the annual inspection, mechanics had to check the alignment. they would usually tack on a small charge for adjusting the headlights

I do love the current recent modern styles of cars. They look very futuristic.
But yeah, replacing failing lights in those sound like a real hard pain.

What I really miss from the old cars is the floor switch. Instead of being on the steering column both of the (automatic) cars I learned to drive had the high - low beam control on the floor so you tapped it with your left foot to change it.

6:31 I remember repair manuals had DIY instructions on how the owner could measure and mark with masking tape “targets” on your garage door so you could adjust them yourself. But I also remember high beam switches on the driver floor. So there you go.😂

Wow, what an illuminating video! I'm dazzled by how you shine a light an old subject long lost down a deep and dark well of automotive history. You, sir, are truly brilliant!

You left out one really major advantage to having these standardized lights. With only one type of light in two variants, the production runs were enormous, in the 10's of millions, so the prices were very low. If you had, say, an 8-million car year, that's 16 million lamps and probably an equal number for the replacement market. In the '70s and '80s, I remember a "regular" sealed beam going for maybe $2 and a fancy halogen one for $5 (about $5 and $12 today, respectively). Generally they were so rugged that they could last 10 or 15 years and I only had to replace them when the lenses got too eroded by rock chips.

these old lights are kinda charming! i really wish there were some regulation on how bright LED headlights can be. i recently had to replace the headlights on my 15 year old car and while they were noticeably brighter thanks to getting rid of cloudy plastic, they still dont stand a chance against the super bright LED headlights of oncoming traffic. so often when i drive at night i find myself completely blinded. it's especially scary when im going around turns like i just have to hold the wheel steady and pray until i can see again. it's like everyones driving around with their brights on at all times, but i know thats just how bright new LED headlights are now.

I remember how hard it was to find headlamps for my Camaros. 93 and 96. Small, rectangular units that were $30 each if I could find them. The redesign for 1998 eliminated the need for such headlamps, making them even harder to find.

I know you just recently talked about smoke detectors but could you take about thermosonic fire dectors? I just found out that I have those in my house and I am curious as to how they work

I remember seeing these in the 90s and early 2000s. They last a decent amount of time...not as good as LED, but still good.

I never had too much trouble with the old headlights; I learned to drive in a 77 Caddy, never had too too much trouble driving it, although I will say visibility was a little tougher on windy or hilly roads. I have a tougher issue in my hazy-lamped car from 97. The inserting new tech into the old headlights is a pretty cool option. Say a vid by Vice Grip Garage where he put some LED lights in their old crew-cab Chevy; scene in another vid where they happened to be on the hwy at night, it was lighting up like nobody's business. Great option if you aren't running a show car or otherwise trying to stay strict to era-appropriateness. Thanks for the share about RH-drive vehicles; one of those pieces of information that might be hard to miss when importing and driving a vehicle here. Because of the fair rarity of the Figaro, probably better to avoid nighttime deer-infested windy back roads in that; really neat cute little car, though.

I’ll never figure out how this dude pumps out perfect scripts like this so quickly. Good work as always, and never let the pressure of success slow ya down.

Getting JDM car guy tips from my favorite niche tech channel wasn’t what I was expecting and was a very genuine surprise

The only issue I have with these newer headlights is exactly what you mentioned. Driving at night is more dangerous now because people don't maintain correct calibration of the position their headlights are pointing, blinding oncoming traffic. The sorriest excuse I've heard after outing quite a few people in my neighborhood is "it came like that from the dealership so it's not my fault". This adaptive stuff sounds amazing though, reducing the number of people with this issue is quite possibly the best thing since sliced bread.

Great video! I would, however, disagree that the older style headlamps perform better than current headlights but I do agree that it varies greatly between car makes and models, as modern testing seems to suggest. I would never want to go back to the old headlamps from the late '70's/early '80's. In my opinon, the HID headlamps on my 2017 Mustang are amazing, especially the high beams. Another interesting thing I've read in some tests is that the HID's actually often performed better than LED headlights. But I know there are others who feel, as you do, that the headlights on their new cars just don't seem to be that good. Also, just my opinion but I see no problem with red rear turn signals, as long as they are actually being used and are distinguishable from brake and "parking" lights. Thanks for all your in-depth and entertaining videos! PS: IF Dietz made headlamps and you had a pair with a part number like, oh say NUTZ..., You would then have a pair of Dietz NUTZ :)

Something I’ve never thought about but here I am learning about it. Thank you sir!

FYI, if your plastic headlights are foggy, they're actually pretty easy to clean up & restore. Grab a bottle of clear plastic polish and with 5 minutes of elbow grease, they'll look nearly good as new.

I hope they're doing more than "letting us have adaptive beam headlights." They still don't address the actual problem of people using too bright of beams, because they don't react fast enough when people go over bumps or come around corners quickly. They really need to look at how many lumens the headlights throw out and in what pattern - LEDs often end up blindingly bright in one spot because all the light is focused there.

My 1997 Mazda Miata had pop up headlights that used these sealed beam lights. I replaced them with lights of the same shape but takes modern H4 bulbs. A lot brighter. They also make LED versions of the whole assembly. Jeep Wranglers often swap out their headlights for bright LEDs.
I do recall back in the early 80’s there was talk about legislation that would allow car makers to design headlights of any shape, and that when that happened, car designs would change dramatically, especially the front end design.

I see a lot of GMs come through the shop needing new headlights. We contract with large company fleets, so most of their vehicles are designed with easily interchangeable parts. GMs, especially Chevrolet Express vans, use a lot of sealed headlight housings that take a matter of minutes to replace. They may not look good, but they get the job done.

This man is a treasure. Drive safe friends. Or even better: take the train!