Hailing the return of hidden headlights | Axon’s Automotive Anorak

The world’s very first hidden headlamps made their production debut 100 years ago as an innovative and much talked about feature on the advanced American Cord 810-Series. Mounted out of sight on the 1936 Model Year Cord’s bulbous flowing front wings behind a pair of drop-away doors, the lights remained hidden from sight until they were needed to illuminate the way ahead. 

Three decades on, from the mid-1960s to the late 1990s, any creators of prototype concept cars worth their salt, along with the makers of serious sports cars and supercars, all had one thing in common: their vehicles often featured covered hidden headlights, usually by this time of the pop-up variety.

The 1969 original Raceabout featured an unusual lighting arrangement, with its main headlights mounted high above (and behind) the driver’s head on a giant roll bar, these being supplemented by a pair of low-mounted driving lamps set far too low to be legally permitted in most countries.

Due to the very limited planned production of only 25 units of the revived Raceabout, Bertone believes that by reintroducing pop up headlights on the model its low volume build will give it legal type approval exemptions in many markets. The same applies to the coachbuilt Italian Ares Design Project 1 supercar, which also features pop-up lamps and is also planned for very restricted bespoke production.

The advantages of hidden retracting pop-up headlights include a smoother aerodynamic flow, plus a stylish solution to overcoming lamp height restrictions. I’ve owned at least half-a-dozen cars with pop-up lights over the years and can vouch for their benefits, although the lights of my Matra Murena would often close shut if hitting a large bump, which was slightly alarming, and the lamps of my Porsche 914 often got stuck, refusing to raise when switched on.

Following the November 1935 New York Auto Show unveiling of the innovative front-wheel-drive, Lycoming 4.7-litre V8 Cord 810 and 812 family, its manually operated concealed headlamps making it the first car to feature hidden headlights, other motor cars also soon began to appear with hidden headlamps, from a handsome Pininfarina custom bodied Alfa Romeo 8C in 1936 to the famous General Motors (GM) Buick Y-Job ‘concept car’ in 1938.

After WWII, concealed headlamps soon made a limited but welcome comeback; GM revived the feature for its 1951 Le Sabre prototype concept. The celebrated Italian design houses occasionally showcased a prototype with pop-up lamps throughout the 1950s, usually applied to an exclusive and expensive sporting bespoke machine.

In the mid-50s, French sports car specialist and successful Le Mans class winners Deutsch Bonnet (DB) unveiled its Coach coupé (later HBR5) with pop-up lights for an aerodynamic advantage, while several small, low-volume British sport car makers also dispensed with conventional headlamps in favour of sleeker concealed units.

By 1962, gifted Lotus founder and engineer Colin Chapman introduced the first powered pop-up lights on his excellent Elan model, using a vacuum system which famously made an older Lotus appear to be winking as one light unit involuntarily raised if the system had an air slight leak, as they often did.  

The Lamborghini Miura was sensationally revealed in 1966 as the first true mid-engined supercar. The stunning Bertone design of the V12 Miura used exposed but pop-up Fiat 850 Spider-sourced headlamp units that laid flat, like the starring eyes of a dead fish when not in use. In the same year, Maserati unveiled the Indy fastback coupé with covered quad pop-up headlamps, the first Italian exotic sports production car to incorporate regular pop-up light units.

By the 1970s and ‘80s, pop-up headlamps had almost become a compulsory feature of any car with sporting pretensions, gracing virtually every Ferrari, Lamborghini, De Tomaso and Maserati model, even featuring on more mainstream mass market machinery such as the Mazda 323 F, Triumph TR7 and Mazda MX-5 NA, plus Porsche bravely offered a 911 (964) Turbo S Special Equipment ‘flat-nose’ open with pop-up lamps, doing away with the 911’s familiar and iconic VW Beetle look.

Part pop-up ‘half covered’ lamps also made a brief appearance, providing a raised eyebrow appearance. These proved to be something of a Bertone speciality for its Alfa Romeo Montreal and Lamborghini Jarama amongst others.

By the early 2000s however, hidden headlamps had fallen out of favour, with legislation changed to effectively outlaw this feature as they were not considered to be pedestrian friendly as a large protuberance from a car’s bodywork, although pop-ups were never officially banned.

Now they make a return on Bertone’s Raceabout V6 model. Available in open top Barchetta or closed Targa formats, the new Raceabout is a modern V6-powered rework of the Turin designer’s original 1969 Gandini-penned one-off Bertone Raceabout prototype, with just 25 examples planned to be built from 2026.