Once upon a time ... the pop-up headlight
07/22/2022
Almost exactly 88 years ago, on July 19, 1934, Harold T. Ames (Cord) received the US patent for the "retractable headlight structure" under the number 2084120: headlights that disappeared into the body when not in use and only appeared at night. The Executive Vice President of Cord Coperation got the idea for this from the retractable landing lights of Stinson airplanes, which conveniently also belonged to the Cord Group.
However, the hidden headlights did not appear on the road until almost two years later, when the first Cord 810s were delivered in the spring of 1936. In contrast to the patent drawing, however, the lamps were not located on the inside of the fenders facing the radiator grille, but at the front. When production of the Cord was discontinued a year later, the sleeping eyes initially disappeared again before they were rediscovered in the 1960s and became widespread.
As they allowed a particularly flat front design, pop-up headlights were particularly popular on sports cars until the 1990s, when the Opel Omega B with plastic lenses appeared in 1994. The new material offered completely new possibilities for headlight design, so that the folding, illuminated air brakes were soon outdated and permanently mounted, recessed lamps could be covered in transparent material instead.
Almost seventy years to the day after it was patented, the folding headlamp disappeared again. With the fifth generation of the Chevrolet Corvette, the last production car with retractable headlights was discontinued on July 2, 2004. The last De Tomaso Guarà was not delivered until 2011 - but with a construction time of seven years for a single car, you can't really speak of "series production".
