The storied history of the humble headlight
I could drive forever. Up ahead the highway is smooth, clear and dry. Night drive. Tunnel vision. The painted lines flit by, crisp and whiter than white. It’s just me, the trucks, the black tarmac, and no scenery to distract.
I break Montreal’s city limits as the sun sinks below the horizon in my rear view. The plan is to stop in Quebec City for the night before continuing the drive in the early morning to Fredericton, New Brunswick. But I can reach Fredericton in a mere eight hours, and I’m willing to forfeit an evening in Quebec City for the blackness in front of me, at the edge of my headlight range.
My eyes don’t usually like night driving. However, a new contact lens prescription has cranked up my vision a couple of notches. I feel like an eagle on high alert, eyes sweeping the highway for the unexpected — a deer running out from the woods, a vehicle skidding suddenly on a patch of black ice.
An eight-hour night drive through Quebec and into heavily-forested New Brunswick? Piece of cake.
Of course, my headlights help. A mere 120 years ago, this drive at highway speed would not have been possible. Or at least, not advised. In the late 1880s, headlamps on vehicles were fuelled by acetylene. Although resistant to wind and rain, an open oil flame at a speed of 100 km/h would obviously have been snuffed out.
The Electric Vehicle Company introduced electric headlamps on the Columbia Electric Car in 1898 — as an option.
A mere 20 years since Thomas Edison had somewhat perfected the incandescent light bulb, headlamps on automobiles were finicky. The filaments weren’t durable and there wasn’t a generator small enough yet with sufficient power to run a current to Edison’s new bulbs.
Plus there was still no lens to focus the light.
In 1904, an acetylene torch in a sealed lamp, the Prest-OLite, was developed. Sound dangerous? It was. A facility in downtown Indianapolis producing the unstable gas blew sky-high.
The Conaphore, the first light to use a lens, developed by the Corning Glass Company of Corning, New York, used technology borrowed from lighthouses. A major safety feature of the automotive headlight was the ability to focus the light, making it more efficient and the glare less deadly to oncoming traffic.
Speaking of oncoming traffic, high beams and low beams were perfected by Cadillac. Up until 1917, when Cadillac put a lever inside the vehicle that would allow the driver to adjust between high and low beams, a driver had to physically get out of the vehicle to do so.
Things were happening in automotive headlamp innovation all over the world.
In the 1940s, the sealed beam headlight was introduced and used by all manufacturers in Europe, Japan and North America through the 1960s.
Thinking about headlights prompts a call to my husband, out on the road. Because he grew up in a slightly earlier era than me, his automotive perspective is often enlightening.
I picture him sitting back in the driver’s seat, hands on the wheel, as he settles in for a little ‘Bluetooth’ chat about headlights.
He begins: “Any car nerd coming of age in the ’50s and ’60s in North America knows the year 1958. Major, major, automotive design evolution.”
I dutifully ask: What happened in 1958, dear?
He snorts: “That’s when North American vehicles went to quad headlights. High beams were no longer in the same unit as the low beams. They were separate. Major.”
I murmur appreciatively and let the waxing-on continue.
“When I was kid, sometimes I’d see a car with really dull headlights. ‘Dad,’ I would ask. ‘Why are those headlights so low?’ Dad would say: ‘He’s got a bad voltage regulator.’ That sounded serious. And a bit embarrassing for the driver of the offending vehicle.”
Still on the ‘light’ chatter, my husband regales me with tales of his auxiliary light prowess, er, obsession: “In the ‘old days,’ lights on cars and trucks needed to be ‘upgraded.’ You know what I would do?”
Me: What would you do, Hun?
“Take out the ‘normal’ lights and replace them with ‘special’ ones. Ever see the high beams on my 1991 GMC Jimmy? They could melt a snowman at 300 metres. Retina fryers.” Me: Ouch. “And it’s not just driving and shifting gears, you know. It’s about controlling those auxiliary lights. When there’s no one around, flick that toggle switch and Wham! Warp Speed!
“You know,” he continues, “I was into all those lights before anyone was. My ’73 Volvo had a single white pencil beam and a yellow fog light. Very avant-garde.”
Now, he’s listing off his vehicles and their lighting excellence: “The Porsche has great lights. High beams on the BMW are exceptional. The Firefly? Not so much.”
Suddenly, he shouts: “That’s it! I’m sick of driving around without auxiliary lights. I’m putting some on my truck when I get home.”
He is enjoying our illuminating discussion. I start daydreaming.
I’m back on the road, staring far into the headlight beams ahead, black pavement and white lines shooting by. Follow Lisa on Twitter:
@FrontLady