Cars - For Car Enthusiasts

The pop-up headlights were a stopgap solution to a problem that no longer exists. They're a result of the DOT at the time flat out requiring that all cars sold in the US must use the same handful of dorky looking sealed beam headlamps, bar none, without exception. None of them were very attractive and certainly not aerodynamic, especially considering that they must be positioned with their massive flat faces perpendicular to the road in order to actually work.

Have you ever wondered why every car in the '70s and '80s seemed to have this same doofy Clark-Griswold's-station-wagon lookin' square (and sometimes, circular) headlight design?

It's because they had to, by law. Up until 1983 they didn't have a choice.

Just got my Miata a a few weeks ago and I love that it's understood that we have to blink/wink every time we encounter each other

Honestly, as one of the moderators of !fuckcars (and a NA Miata owner, BTW), this is the first version of the "big trucks bad" kind of post that doesn't bother me.

I'm usually very much not a fan of those because those threads easily devolve into missing the point that all cars are bad for urbanism, not just big ones, and end up with people virtue-signaling because they drive small cars instead of recognizing that they're still part of the problem. "Safety" (the subset that applies after already having been hit by a car, no less!) is only a tiny fraction of what !fuckcars is about.

This post, on the other hand, is pointing out the hypocrisy of that sort of thing so I'm all for it.

I think the disparity in regulation is among the (surprisingly large number of) things both communities can agree on!

Speaking of which: my Miata is for autocross and curvy mountain roads. My daily-driver is a bicycle. In fact, having options other than driving is why I can afford to own fun cars instead of practical ones!

As a car enthusiast, personally I 1000% agree with the post. To me this is absolutely the right place for this post.

I want my pop up and down headlights back, and instead we have dumb SUVs with bumpers 6ft tall and zero appeal so that a soccer mom can plow over pedestrians with peak lethality

But the popups are "unsafe". Because then you might hit a pedestrian. At night. When everything being open at night in the US died during covid. Makes sense 🙃

I want them back 🥹

I think you got me confused with someone else because this couldn't be further from the truth lol. I've worked as a mechanic and I own two classic cars.