5 Cars That Chart the Progress of Pop-up Lights

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This story first appeared in the November/December 2024 issue of Hagerty Drivers Club magazine. Join the club to receive our award-winning magazine and enjoy insider access to automotive events, discounts, roadside assistance, and more.

It has been 20 years since the last cars with the distinctive peekaboo lighting solution went out of production. Yet for enthusiasts who came of age in the Reagan era (or who wish they did), they remain one of the clearest markers of a cool car. Their history, in some respects, tracks the evolution of the automobile itself. Join us for a brief tour of the rise and fall of pop-up headlights.

The Pioneer: 1936 Cord 810

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Car design in the 1930s was all about streamlining. Industrial designers pared down the ornamental aspects of art deco but kept its smooth, sleek shapes. Protruding headlamps literally stand in the way of that aesthetic, so many designers began fairing them into the fenders. The logical next step was to hide the lights entirely. Auburn stylist Gordon Buehrig was the first to do so on a production vehicle by adding Stinson retractable airplane landing lights to the 1936 Cord. 

If you should pass a Cord on the road, don’t expect its driver to offer you a “pop-up salute” (quickly raising and lowering the headlights)—the Cord’s must be cranked up and down by hand.

The Nose-Job: 1970 Plymouth Superbird

1970-Plymouth-Superbird-popup headlights
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By the 1960s and early ’70s, hidden headlamps had become a fashionable aesthetic across a range of models, but a few sports cars, including the Stingray Corvette and Ferrari GTB/4 Daytona, specifically exploited pop-ups for aerodynamic advantage. Yet no one took it as far as Mopar. Dodge was first, affixing a big schnoz on its Charger so that it could dominate NASCAR in 1969. Sister brand Plymouth did the same the following season, placing a nose cone on its Road Runner.

Because Dodge and Plymouth had to sell limited numbers of street versions in order to race on Sunday, they integrated retractable headlights into the fascia of the road cars.

As far as nose jobs go, these have to be among the more expensive: Due to their racing pedigree and rarity, a Charger Daytona or Road Runner Superbird with a numbers-matching Hemi can be worth hundreds of thousands more than a wingless Charger or Road Runner.

Muscle Metamorphosis: 1982 Pontiac Trans Am

Trans-Am-Popup headlights
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Amid unpredictable gas prices and tightening fuel-economy regulations in the 1980s, automakers were scrambling for every efficiency improvement, including through aerodynamics. The sealed-beam headlamps mandated by the federal government created a lot of drag, so many automakers opted to tuck them away.

Of course, pop-ups also fit the zeitgeist—at the dawn of the computer era, everyone wanted to look futuristic. For cars, that meant a sleek wedge shape, with no headlights to be seen.

More cars with pop-ups were produced in the 1980s than in any other decade. Everything from Alpines to Accords had ’em, but our favorite remains the third-gen Trans Am. Perhaps nothing captures the difference between the ’70s and the ’80s better than the transition from the rough-and-tumble Burt Reynolds’ Bandit to David Hasselhoff’s sleek, computerized KITT.

Peak Pop-Up: 1991 Cizeta Moroder V16T

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Cizeta

No one does excess quite like the Italians. The Cizeta boasts 16 cylinders and four retractable headlights. It was built by ex-Lamborghini engineers and penned by the man behind the Countach. Improbably, the supercar funded by a pioneering disco producer and launched during a recession was not a success.

The Holdout: 2004 Chevrolet Corvette

C5-Popup headlights
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In 1984, the federal government—with heavy lobbying from Ford as it prepared the aerodynamically advanced Taurus—loosened its regulations concerning headlight standardization. By the early 1990s, automakers were getting the hang of making flush-mount composite headlights, and the expensive and failure-prone pop-up mechanisms began to seem like a bad idea.

By the time the fifth-generation Corvette debuted in 1997, sports car rivals like the Toyota Supra and Mitsubishi 3000 GT had already ditched their hidden lamps for projector beams, and the Acura NSX was soon to follow. When the C5 Corvette went out of production in 2004, the pop-up party was over. We likely won’t see them again, thanks largely to safety regulations. Modern pedestrian protection requirements don’t explicitly forbid pop-ups, but the sharp edges inherent to a protruding light are difficult (read: expensive) to engineer around.

Read next Up next: I Restored the Custom Ford That Got Me Into Cars

Comments

    As the previous owner of a 3rd gen Trans Am gta and Formula, the pop up headlights were cool, until they went out. The fix isn’t that hard but you know that if you own those cars, it’ll be something that you’ll need to fix. Imo, one of the best looking cars with the headlights up is the 98-02 4th gen Firebirds. Those models have two smaller lights instead of one sealed beam light, much better design.

    I don’t think these models qualify as they don’t actually pop up but I like the old Riveria, Cougar, Dodge Charger and the Camaro with the lights that ran on vacuum pressure.

    Years ago, had a Porsche 914 after a freezing rain event, the pop-ups were frozen shut. Had to get out and chip away the ice so they would operate. So fun!

    I owned an 82 firebird with the pop up headlights. Those lights were about the only thing on the car that didn’t break:)

    For Pop Up headlights, I have a 1995 Trans Am, and have had nothing but trouble in repairing.
    Do you guys know anyone who specializes in these lights?

    You can’t go all the way back to the Cord and then skip over the first gen. Charger or the ’67 – ’70 Cougar that I think were the first to hide the lights and create a grille only appearance. for my money I would nominate the first Cougars due to the way they appeared so similar front and back and ‘hid’ all of the lights.

    First, the article is about “Pop Up” lamps, not “Hide-Away” or “Hidden” lamps…I once owned a ’70 Lincoln Mark with lamps behind a lift up panel.
    I now own a 1985 Ferrari 400i with pop up headlamps, part of 17 years of production from 1972 to 1989 of the same front end lamps on three different body names.

    How about the proud days of 1974-75 Malcom Bricklin SV1 pop-up head lights that would popped back up after the air pressure would release, worth mentioning

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