Peek a boo – the story of pop-up headlights

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As we grow up and are forced to take on the responsibilities and expenses of being adults, we tend to relinquish the things that we enjoyed as kids. But, once in a while, we’ll be reunited with something from our childhood which gives us a sudden, unexpected burst of excitement. It could be a Thomas the Tank Engine colouring book, a Power Ranger toy, one of those toy kitchen things with the plastic pans which slid really well on a wooden floor, or any number of things which gives you a sudden and unexpected burst of childlike enjoyment.

I have a few things like this, but one thing that I loved as a child was Pop-up headlights. Even as a young car enthusiast I knew that cars with pop-up headlights were cooler than their fixed light cousins. They seemed to have more personality and made my giddy to see those little lights appear and vanish into the bodywork like a Bond car gadget.

“Hidden headlamps” have actually been around since the Mid-1930s on the beautiful Cord 810, and appeared on cars such as Corvettes, Lotus Elan’s and Esprits and late 1960s Dodge Chargers among dozens of other cars through the decades.

The Ferrari 365GTB/4 “Daytona” also utilized pop-up lights to conform to U.S. safety regulations. Originally the Ferrari, which was designed in just 7 days, used acrylic covers over fixed headlights, but regulations deemed covered headlamps to be unsafe, presumably to avoid leg injuries in a collision with a pedestrian. Although I suspect that getting hit by a car in the first place would do more damage than a plastic cover.

Ironically, it is due to pedestrian safety requirements that pop-up lights are no longer used on production cars. Although they are still legal to use on new cars, manufacturers likely deem it to be impractical and expensive to develop a car with pop-up lights that will still pass modern safety requirements. As a result, the last production cars to use them were the Lotus Esprit and Chevrolet Corvette C5 in 2004. It is a shame that they no longer appear on new cars, but it does mean that the older cars which have them are that much more special.

In 2010 I replaced my 1995 BMW with a 1991 Mazda MX5/Miata. When I was looking to buy the Mazda, I never seriously looked at the later versions and focussed solely on the first generation, almost purely because it had pop-up lights. I had an opportunity to own a car with one of my favourite features, and to realise a childhood dream.

It’s been 5 years since I bought my Mazda, and the novelty of seeing two large, body coloured panels rise from the nose still hasn’t worn off. Whether I’m driving at night, flashing the lights giving way to someone or simply seeing a young kid tugging on their parents coat while pointing at my tiny blue sports car and popping the lights to make their day, they always take me back to my childhood. They remind me of a time when I would sit in front of the TV watching car shows showing Lamboghini Diablos and Ferrari Testarossas. A time when my biggest problem was recovering my Micro Machines from under the couch or where that piece of Lego I needed had vanished to, and when I remember those times, I can’t help but smile.