You turned yellow

[Uncle Jimmy]

Saw a VAGmobile, specifically a Mk3 Passat with yeller headlights or at least stick on wrap. Is this some kinda new 'Euro' look, do they have yellow tinted lenses over life in pre 1993 France? Are yellow lenses legal?

[Guest]

Yellow lenses are legal, and yes, it's just another fad, but I like it. As far as I'm aware it's no longer a requirement in France... I put yellow film on my bikes headlight as I think anything that stands out will draw your eye, making me more visible. That was the theory anyway.

[DodgyBastard]

It's not really a new thing is it?

 

E30 by srblythe, on Flickr

 

I had yellow headlights on my 325 touring in 2011

[reb]

I quite like the mk3 golf with yellow headlights, not sure how well it'd work on a mk4 with the indicators and other gubbins behind the lens though

 

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[Skizzer]

I'm so hip I had yellow headlights on a breadvan Polo 1.3CL in 1989.

 

It was for a trip to visit a very cute girl in Aix-en-Provence, but just before I set off she sent me a letter (remember those) to say she'd found a better, Frencher boyfriend with a less nerdy car.

 

I couldn't bring myself to scrape the yellow off, but it faded in the end and looked a bit rubbish. How very metaphorical of it.

[robinmasters]

I had them before they were cool. Does that make me a hipster?

 

[dieselassist]

not a new fad; when I was a kid- late 80s early 90s -my old man used to save the orange film off glass Lucozade bottles, to cover the headlamps on his Renault 18; as a practical measure, rather than 'looks' to 'winter'ise' the car - served him well visibility wise during fog, snow, hail etc etc, tho the 4 or 5 pints hed quaffed  'not so much'...

[mercrocker]

I remember how cool I thought my BMW 316 looked when I took it to Switzerland in 1984 after painting the headlights with special yellow dye from the AA port office (I lived opposite it so it wasn't last minute in the ferry lane job!)  

 

I also remember how much I swore when I got back home after a sweltering fortnight in the Alsace and the bloody stuff had virtually baked on.    

 

On a different note, my old man bought a nice new crash helmet to go with his second Honda 50 and the first night he rode home from a village meeting complained that some "Frog had nearly blinded me with his wrongly dipped yellow headlights".    Out of alignment they may have been but I don't think it was a Frenchman - his new visor had a distinct yellow tint!

[FakeConcern]

I had yellow clip on lenses for my Mini when I went to France in 1981 or 1982 (I think). I may even have a picture somewhere.

 

Edit, found a picture of 1275GT (and my girlfriend, now wife) probably 1984.

[Uncle Jimmy]

Replace the Mini with an R14 or a Fuego and you've got a great brochure shot there.

[Pillock]

Do they aid visibility for the driver, or is it all about being seen by other road users?

[Uncle Jimmy]

Does Bono have them on his Renault 16 as well as his mince pies?

[Sloth in a bowl]

I had them before they were cool. Does that make me a hipster?

 

 

 

It only makes you a hipster if you paid 10 times the going rate.

[mat_the_cat]

The fog/spot lights I have on the BX are half yellow:

 

 

I quite like the French look, but it just looks weird on headlights to me!

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

I had yellow headlamps on my first P6. 

 

 

And my second, but I had to take them out to appease an MOT tester (they're explicitly mentioned as okay in the MOT manual, but I've had to argue the point with two separate test stations) and have been too lazy to put them back. 

 

I just liked the way they looked. When the lights were off, those bulb covers make the lights look white until you catch them at a certain angle when they suddenly look as pictured above. I also loved the yellow light - the way it makes all the road signs light up bright yellow is fun. 

[Split_Pin]

I was expecting to see a list of members that had been banned.

 

When I was a wean back in the 1980s we had neighbours who took their caravan to Brittany each year (that seemed a popular destination amongst kid's parents in my class at school then) and they sprayed the headlights of their Volvo 740 yellow before they went.

 

It looks really good on 1970s and 80s French cars but on anything else it just makes it look a bit contrived and 'ironic vintage expedition'.

[mat_the_cat]

it just looks weird on headlights to me!

 

 

It looks really good on 1970s and 80s French cars

 

Actually, I more agree with you Iain. The P6 doesn't look too bad either!

[dollywobbler]

Bulb covers look much better than painted lenses. I love the look, but headlamp performance is bloody terrible. On the plus side, signs and cats eyes also become yellow.

[oldcars]

I was expecting to see a list of members that had been banned.

 

When I was a wean back in the 1980s we had neighbours who took their caravan to Brittany each year (that seemed a popular destination amongst kid's parents in my class at school then) and they sprayed the headlights of their Volvo 740 yellow before they went.

 

It looks really good on 1970s and 80s French cars but on anything else it just makes it look a bit contrived and 'ironic vintage expedition'.

I was expecting a Trotters Reliant Rialto 

[Junkman]

Do they aid visibility for the driver, or is it all about being seen by other road users?

 

They do not aid visibility. How could a light source of which you filter out everything but yellow improve visibility?

In fact, they are woefully shit. Their raison d'etre was an entirely different one. Cibié came up with it after lengthy tests as far back as the 1920s.

 

The grade of yellow tint is exactly specified. The UNECE Regulations formally define a selective yellow tint in terms of the CIE 1931 colour space.

It's thus called "selective yellow", should you wish to google it.

 

The intent of selective yellow is to improve vision by removing short, blue to violet wavelengths from the projected light.

These wavelengths are difficult for the human visual system to process properly, and they cause perceived dazzle and glare effects in rain and snow.

Removing the blue-violet portion of a lamp's output to obtain selective yellow light can entail filter losses of around 15%, though the effect of this reduction

is supposedly mitigated or countervailed by the increased visual acuity available with yellow rather than white light in bad weather.

 

Although still legal throughout the ECE on cars built until 1993, after which the EU nixed them, France was the only country where they were mandatory until then.

 

There is also a long lasting urban legend that the Germans introduced it in France during the occupation so they could tell French cars from German ones at night.

This is utter horseshit since the yellow headlights had been long since mandatory in France and were also perfectly legal on German cars.

[SiC]

^^ exactly this. There is a old Top Gear episode around from 1993 that says pretty much this. Yellow lights actually decreases visibility and the program back then said people would probably still drive around with yellow lights because they think it looks "cool".

[Dick Cheeseburger]

Original yellow is period perfect. Looks gobshite on new shiz, and is as stylish* and individual* as sticker bombing.

[martc]

Yellow lenses are legal, and yes, it's just another fad, but I like it. As far as I'm aware it's no longer a requirement in France... I put yellow film on my bikes headlight as I think anything that stands out will draw your eye, making me more visible. That was the theory anyway.

 Same here, except I have a genuine yellow H4 bulb which I carefully transfer from one bike to another (currently adorning a NC750S). It does make you stand out from the myriad white DLR's. But if the pineapple brigade are starting to use them I may get lost amongst the slammed dubs; only glimmer of hope is that the bikes headlight will be higher off the ground.

[Six-cylinder]

The GS has yellow fog lights because I like the look and fitted them.

 

The DS has yellow main beam that turn with the steering because it is a French!

[PhilA]

I put yellow fog lights on my GTA because they were cheaper than the white ones, and also because that combination is somehow moderately appropriate (though I don't think actually legal in this state for road use).

 

Not that they have been used more than once but eh.

 

 

Genuine 80's feel right there, that was shot in real iso400 film

 

Phil

[Joey spud]

 

I did the mains on my Scimitar with yellow film,i thought it looked ok.

[sierraman]

They are good for Fog Lights as it increases visibility.

[PiperCub]

The GS has yellow fog lights because I like the look and fitted them.

 

The DS has yellow main beam that turn with the steering because it is a French!

 

Have yellow film'd my driving lamps (not headlights) which come on with the main beams on the 205GTi - no reason other than the French reg'd ones had them and to me it looks better. Plus it breaks up the white a bit too. 

[Isaac Hunt]

Yellow Frog Lights......not too PC I suppose. Just leave the modern plastic shite to go cloudy and yellow and 'heh, free light tint'

 

 

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[mercrocker]

Does this make me a hipster now, then?    Bugger. 

  

 

 

 

 

 
I have no idea if it is better for being yellow - I found it up the tip and spannered it on on the way back home.   Never wired it up...