(first posted 2/20/2017) Last week’s Citroen C6 article by William Stopford reminded me of how much I loved that model’s rear lights. My very positive response was not unanimously shared, which has led to today’s QOTD: what are the best taillights ever? You can choose from any form of transportation, or even static display cars. Factory or aftermarket, old or new. Your choice may be based purely on aesthetics, or on how well they did their job.
Now my favourite taillights ever in the history of the world are the 1967/68 Glamorbird’s, and there are others that come to mind as well. But rather than bore you with more of my own opinion (no, I insist), I’m going to turn this question over to you – our very learned CCommentariat.
I can’t say I have a favorite. Along with about half already listed, I always thought the ’59 Ford was a great design. Or I should say the ’59 Ford taillight trim ring, because the taillight is nothing without that trim ring.
Someone already listed the ’58 Edsel wagon taillight. One of the best taillights out there is the ’58 Edsel hockey stick.
Citroen C6 in action. The dark outer part is the orange turn signal.
…and the illuminated amber part in your pic is the side marker light. Outside the North American regulatory island, side marker lights and reflectors are required only on vehicles more than 6 metres long (19 feet, 8-1/4 inches), so most passenger vehicles don’t have them, and if they’re present they’re amber front and rear—except the rear ones may be red if they are physically or optically combined with one or another of the red rear lighting functions. Which is a thoughtless, silly condition, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ These on the C6 could have been absent or red, but Citroën chose to put them there and make them amber. Side markers are pretty much a styling gimmick in Europe, sort of like side turn signal repeaters in America.
1949 Buick
Hardboiled Eggs and Nuts nominated the 1963-1965 Pontiac Grand Prix hidden taillights. Here is a 1965, which to me is the best looking of a fine and memorable group.
59 Caddy, 67-68 Cougar, 70 Mustang.
Honorable mention, the common box tail lamps used on trucks and Jeeps, millions of them.
I really like these: Brazilian Fiat Uno taillights
But my overall favorite has to be a Chinese car called Ora Good Cat (yes, thats its real name, and yes, I love that name). Its taillights are hidden under the rear window making the rear end cleaner.
The beautiful 1965 Chrysler New Yorkers (early production) neat clear tail lights.
It would be interesting to fit red LED lamps in these, as you could eliminate the red seen behind the lens during daylight.
There are red glass caps that cover the incandescent bulbs. Those could be left off if using red LEDs, giving all clear lenes except for the small square red reflectors. However, I sort of like seeing a hint of red from the glass caps being reflected in the reflectors. But yes, the red LEDs would work.
Bill, I agree with you. And the more I’ve dug into these, the more interesting they get. There were two versions of the clear-lens lamps, and possibly of the red-lens lamps as well; one with a single bulb in a single large reflector, and the other, shown here on your car, with two bulbs and two reflectors (not counting the inboard reversing lamp in either case).
I think that you are correct. It seems that I have seen lenses/reflectors with only one bulb. I had narrowed the possible reasons down to a few, as to why Chrysler discontinued these clear lenses early in the model year.
However, it seems that they had a high rejection rate for assembling the lenses, and that they had a tendency to crack (or cracks were more noticeable), and they were expensive to produce.
They small red reflectors had to be hand glued in place, and the chrome strips had to be hand applied. Also, the red glass cups were another extra expense and had a metal attachment ring holding the glass cups on over the bulbs – held on my 3 screws (all hand installed). So, they stopped installing them, and simply used the less expensive red lenses from the 300 and Newport.
I had heard that some States had issues with the clear lenses, as far as the lights being hard to see against the sun light, and the red no being to code. This could have been a secondary reason that was the nail in the coffin for the clear tail lights.
You’re definitely right about the high cost of the clear-lens setup.
High rejection/crack rate: mmmmmaybe. It’s not that I disbelieve you, it’s that this could easily just be someone’s plausible-sounding guess which has vulcanised into received wisdom by repetition over the years. I’d love to see any documentation, but I don’t imagine there’ll ever be any.
I’ve heard the same thing about states, and I think that can be dismissed out of hand as probably somebody’s thin-air guess. At that time, before the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards came in, all vehicle lighting devices (except headlamps) had to be type-approved by every state—making it unlikely a state would have reason to object after the cars were already on the roads. But that’s my (educated) guess; here again, I’d love to see documentation that probably doesn’t exist.
I just got a gander at this article. First, we have proven how much you men check out rears! I submit to you the simple 1952 Ford taillight. It is simple it is elegant in its design AND for those of us who were around when this car hit the streets, IT WAS A SHOCKER. The lights appeared so very bright compared to anything else on the road. The 1952 Ford started the effort to better highly visible taillights for automobile in the U.S.
There was no such general effort until many years after the 1952 Ford.
Late 80s Isuzu I Mark is probably my favorite.
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tvmuQ-HSChI/XTaOoIhHeoI/AAAAAAABCu8/L6RkfaGlVLQ_-Jej9XQ5TKJqKNJgCTNkwCLcBGAs/s1600/2.jpg
A close second is the mid 80s FWD Olds 88, when it had amber turn signals.
https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Rear-2.jpg
I’m going to nominate these, which is a bit cheeky, but they are dual function – both lighting and aero. The spoiler part of the 981 rear lamp actually did have a measurable effect when tested in the wind tunnel. Getting such tightly packaged units to meet all the regs. was a PITA, but satisfying!
Lots of cool taillights. Now one of the reasons why I like the 67 NewYorker, and would love to have one, is because of the taillights. The 300 in 66-68 had some interesting lamps also.
Audi A6 (C5). Contour defined the entire back end, rendering arguably one of the most graceful automotive tails of the decade if not all time.
Yep, like these! Audi was on a roll at this time – look at the original TT lamps, for instance…
60 Pontiac molded the back 1/3 of the car into the taillights.
Last taillight you need to see