Encyclopedia Hoonatica: Center-Mounted Headlights

EH-third-eyes
Mounting a headlight along the center-line of the vehicle is one of those recurrent ideas that seem offer plausible advantages with a minimum of technical difficulty, but for some reason simply don’t become popular, either with the public or with designers. But there have been a number of production cars that have tried it, and they are subject of our encyclopedia entry for today. We want your help compiling a list of all the cars with a center-mounted headlight.
The Caveats (there are always caveats):

  • Single-headlight cyclopes or third-eye overachievers are both allowable.
  • “Headlight” means “headlight.” It can be auxiliary in nature, but it must be something intended primarily to provide forward illumination, not just a marker/position light or glowing hood ornament.
  • Likewise, it needs to be conspicuously in the center of the vehicle: in other words, lighty-uppy stuff that’s only vaguely centralized and multiple element light bars that uniformly traverse the whole front of the vehicle don’t count, even if there is technically a point of illumination along the center-line.
  • Production cars only. No concept cars, one-offs, customs or race cars.
  • Original equipment only. No aftermarket accessories.
  • Trucks, both light and heavy-duty, are allowed, as long as they are road-legal. No construction machinery, mining equipment, or lawn mowers.
  • As far as motorcycles go, you know that chuckle-then-slap animated GIF? It’s just waiting for YOU, pal.

Difficulty: Medium Rare. For some of you, the low-hanging fruit on this one is already out of reach.
How This Works: Read the comments first and don’t post duplicates! Bonus points for adding photos.
Image Sources: wikipedia.org & bbc.com.

By Peter Tanshanomi

Tanshanomi is Japanese [単車のみ] for "motorcycle(s) only." Though primarily tasked with creating two-wheel oriented content for Hooniverse, Pete is a lover of all sorts of motorized vehicles.

75 thoughts on “Encyclopedia Hoonatica: Center-Mounted Headlights”
    1. …multiple element light bars that uniformly traverse the whole front of the vehicle don’t count, even if there is technically a point of illumination along the center-line.
      I’m guessing no.

    1. Are you sure that’s OE? Those turning center headlights were a popular add-on. Here’s a nearly identical one on one of my boss’s Studebakers:

    1. I’m wracking my brain trying to conceive of how that severely-recessed light could have any sort of decent spread.

      1. I know; and when the rest of the vehicle is a series of such rational design choices…

      2. I don’t think it would have been too much of an issue, due to the (lack of) speed of the truck!

  1. Early 1980’s Subarus had a flip-up headlamp under the Subaru badge.

      1. We petitioned my dad so hard to get a GL in 1984 but he bought a Buick Century instead. Good thing for him – Ontario road salt melted most GLs into oxidized heaps by 1989. Instead, Dad just had to suffer through multiple changes of steering rack and CV joints.

      2. But why settle for only three lights when, with judicious application of both dealer-supplied and aftermarket accessories, you can have no fewer than seven!

      1. I want a Ferguson (grey), and I have a Minneapolis Moline U (yellow) and an Allis Chalmers Roto-Baler (orange implement), so needless to say, I enjoy this picture very much!

    1. Wow, Manwich. Haven’t thought about him in years. Turns out that he’s stuck it out over there and is still active on Jalo…Kinj…whatever it is that he’s technically active on over there.

  2. Can I get a waiver until it’s actually in production? Also, *technically* not *quite* centre-mounted.

  3. Seeing how far I can push my luck on this one with the Peugeot 402, largely because it gives me an excuse to post a picture of the 402 Eclipse.

  4. Surprised we haven’t had the Rumpler Tropfenwagen yet. As featured in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.

  5. And now the Rumpler Tropfenauto. Can’t think of another vehicle that used stacked dual centre headlights.

  6. Oh, I just found another one: Bruetsch Mopetta (1952) with a 50cc scooter engine.
    I knew that I had seen this before, but I took it for a Peel P50 “convertible”. Which it isn´t.

  7. I hesitate to point this out, but the Rover JET1 Turbine prototype in your opening photo does not meet your own criteria since it was not a production vehicle. The earliest production P4 was the Rover 75 we lovingly call the Cyclops.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

The maximum upload file size: 64 MB. You can upload: image. Links to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other services inserted in the comment text will be automatically embedded. Drop files here