Sit back, relax, and prepare for an interesting little article about the history of front lights, more commonly called headlights or headlamps.
When, you ask, were the first front lights invented? You might be interested to know that the first headlights were on horse and buggies; they were actually real lamps fueled by acetylene or oil and protected by a glass covering and the first appeared in the 1880s. That was all well and good until the internal combustion engine pushed horses off to the side of the road; speeds increased and it was necessary to be able to see further than twenty feet in front of the driver. Thus, the need for a more useful form of illumination!
A company by the name of Peerless made electric headlamps in 1908, but it wasn’t until 1912 that Cadillac marketed the Delco electrical ignition and lighting system, which was the forerunner of today’s electrical system.
Low beams and high beams were introduced in 1915 with a dimmer switch operated by foot down near the brake pedal; fog lamps were on the market by 1938, and the standard 7-inch sealed beam headlamp in 1940. Finally, the last major innovation came to be in 1962 with the invention of the halogen headlamp.
So once the headlamp was invented and refined all that was left was to fiddle around with the shape; standard headlamps were round for decades but now today they are liable to be in practically any shape from round to square to rectangle; it’s only a matter of time before someone introduces the first triangle headlamp. (that was a joke by the way)
For those of you who think “car repair” are dirty words, replacing front lights/headlights/headlamps is an easy fix. The only tool needed is a screw driver and many times you won’t need one of those; most front lights pop in and out and have easy access, so you really don’t need to know much about car repair to replace a front light. And where better to get replacement parts than All Import Auto Parts, the Fort Worth salvage yard where you can find all sorts of used car parts at a fraction of the cost of new, aftermarket parts? We understand why someone would be hesitant to replace a transmission, but a headlight is so simple that you should never go to a mechanic to get it done. Come see us at our modern junk yard and we’ll fix you up with salvage parts that are reliable and guaranteed.