AS SOMEONE who designed several of Jaguar’s cars, I was always very aware of the impact the headlamps had on their ‘face’. The most famous of these faces originated with the MkX in 1961 and was further developed for the first generation of XJ6 seven years later.
Consisting of five elements – the larger outer and smaller inner circular headlights plus radiator grille – this face continues to give the cars and company an instantly recognisable identity.
But when we were designing the XJ40 in the late ’70s, American legislation required cars to have sealed beams which could be bought anywhere and were either 5¾in circular or 6x4in rectangular in shape. This changed the face of the car significantly compared to its XJ Series 3 predecessor. The other thing the Americans required was to have three little pips on the lenses for the aiming device which meant you couldn’t use lens covers.
This did constrain car design during this time but because the sealed beam power output was so poor compared to the halogen bulbs the rest of the world was using, America did eventually drop this requirement.
At around the same time, light manufacturers – which in those days consisted of Lucas, Hella and Valeo – developed something called ‘complex reflectors’. Instead of a simple parabola, they had little facets that projected the light where it was needed resulting in very clear lenses. This started the fashion for ‘jewel like’ lamps as used for the X308 XJ8 from 1997.
From there the technology moved on to projector lamps that consisted of a bulb in a deep, small golf ball-sized parabola with a bulbous lens in front. The light from these lamps was extremely bright, meaning they could only be used with self-levelling units.
DESIGNERS CAN NOW MAKE HEADLAMPS INTO ANY SHAPE THEY WANT AND THEY HAVE THEREFORE BECOME VERY POWERFUL DESIGN STATEMENTS IN THEMSELVES
Although most car designers always prefer slim lamps, these tiny lenses resulted in cars having an odd, squinty appearance meaning they were often disguised by a larger surround.
When I was working on t
