Lots of plastic for little light
On the subject of " everything is getting bigger and bigger" , I can also contribute a little something. At the top of the picture we can see two Opel rear lights. Strictly speaking, these are actually only one and a half lights. The one on the right comes from a 1959 Rekord P. The one on the left is the outer half of the left-hand light from an Omega B a good 40 years younger, which nevertheless contains enough polymethyl methacrylate to equip both sides of the mid-range model from the 1950s.
Nevertheless, the designers in the nineties did not succeed in fitting the same number of light sources and signals into a component of approximately the same height and three times the width. From top to bottom, the upright Gothic stained-glass window of the Rekord allows the rear lights, brake lights and indicators as well as the reversing lights (at extra cost) to shine. The wide omega corner only offers space for the direction indicator and a two-filament bulb for the brake and tail lights. The reversing light had to move to the tailgate, where it shares its own housing with the rear fog light.
Sure - the realization that car add-on parts are constantly increasing in size and have now taken on absurd dimensions is nothing new. Nevertheless, I was amazed when the package with the Omega light half arrived last week - because I couldn't remember having ordered a medium-sized microwave oven in the recent past.
Incidentally, when installed, the modern corner pancake no longer looks so big. It always depends on what you're comparing it to. After all, the Rüsselsheim millennium flagship, which looked so massive next to the Rekord, is now narrower and lower than today's Mini Countryman.
