Nowadays a pop-up is something annoying. It’s those adverts or similar which appear out of nowhere when you are browsing the web and they always get in the way. It takes at least one extra click that we need, and that takes a lot of effort. But way back when the internet was just a twinkle in a college graduates eye, Pop-Ups were something a lot less annoying. They were those lights which appeared from the bodywork of a car most likely made in the 70s or 80s, and epitomised the decades as much as Pong and The Carpenters. The lights were first introduced back in the 1930s with cars like the Cord 810 and Buick Y-Job, when new regulations were in place for headlights to be a certain height from the ground and in accordance to the bonnet too. As well as that, the pop-ups were considered unreliable and now it is the law for manufacturers to stick with the ‘aerodynamic’ headlights that we see around us today.
Even from the views of someone that isn’t a fully blown petrolhead, they are pretty cool.
Pop-ups don’t come in one simple style, oh no. There’s the ones that pivot at the rear, others that tilt the lights, some that spin side to side, the double pop-ups, the pop-up and glass combos. And not only are there the ones that pop up or rotate, but there are many more ways that a headlight is ‘revealed’ or shown off. Here are my favourite 5 pop-up headlights. Every single one just oozes with coolness, like a Cadbury’s Creme Egg used to. That was before they were taken over by that American company. They aren’t necessarily the best, but they are basically the main ones that I can remember right this minute.
The Opel GT doesn’t have any old pop-up headlights. In fact, they don’t really pop up at all, they more swivel around a central axis. This is a choice which I expect most people would only really remember because of a certain Forza Motorsport 6 car pack. I think the main reason that they added this to the game was to show off the headlight animation because other than that, it wasn’t an extremely interesting car.
The lights on the classic XJ220 are an odd one. When the headlights are switched on, it almost looks like a half-arsed job, because of the location of the lights and there being no styling to them. I doubt having a large chunk of bodywork missing from the lights would also help with the aerodynamic properties of one of the fastest cars around, but there is something about them that gives the Jag a character. The smallest of drops in the bodywork can reveal these two bulbs, which is something that I can not remember ever seeing before.
Quite possibly the only car to come with quad pop-up headlights, the Cizeta V16T is one of the rarest supercars produced. it also happens to be one of the only cars in my list to actually include pop ups. It is also one of the only cars to have ever been produced with a V16 engine, other than some very early and modern concept Cadillacs. The double pop-up system looked good, but it did drown the car in headlights, as you can probably see from the picture above. The stupidly high prices made this car sell in very few numbers, so it was quickly sent to the history books.
These are sort of pop up headlights… I mean, they lean forward and tilt a little, but they don’t pop up with the excitement of a pubescent teenager. Or for the underage readers, as highly sprung as one of those multicoloured pop-up tents which were then nigh on impossible to then collapse down and reinsert back into their round packaging. These headlights merely have as much movement as a viagra-less pensioner. The main reason that Lamborghini used this style of light was so that they could keep the swooping bodywork of what could arguably be the first supercar. Due to restrictions, the lights needed to be at a certain angle, so the best compromise was to tilt them up slightly. Therefore metaphorically killing two birds with one stone.
One of my personal favourite cars of the 70’s, the Alfa Montreal showed us a new type of headlight. Actually, these headlights don’t in any way move, it is merely just the raked grille above them which pivots down underneath the lighting system. By having this mechanism, Alfa Romeo could keep the Montreal’s aggressive styling with part covered lights, but these would otherwise be completely useless as the angle of projection would be good enough to see a few metres ahead of you. As the bodywork over the lights then moved down, the headlights were visibly shown and their functions are fully achieved.
A shorter post for this week but due to a busy schedule, this is all you are getting!
All images courtesy of their rightful owners.
Opel GT – http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view4/4702285/opel-gt-headlights-o.gif
Cizeta V16T – http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/edyzzqe50xkta3r4hdno.gif
Alfa Romeo Montreal – http://roa.h-cdn.co/assets/16/31/1470146287-montreal.gif
Jaguar XJ220 – http://i.imgur.com/kNzrqwp.gif
Lamborghini Miura – https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s–ZGGUDioT–/c_scale,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/1381045347777275431.gif
Car Design IMHO 
Ahh I do miss the good ol’ pop ups!
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