Yellow headlights bugbear, is it me?

[fatharris]

I like the look of them - brings a bit of colour to a front end (Y)

[dozeydustman]

11 hours ago, willswitchengage said:

Was it ever a thing for french cars in the UK to actually use them?

Not to my knowledge unless the car was brought over from France either by a holiday maker or a private import. They look the part for a pre-1990 classic Frenchy though.

This said, selective yellow has always been a valid colour for headlamps and front foglamps for UK cars. Many British classics with front spot or fog lights have a yellow lens/bulb/reflector.

I used to fit those weird headlamp bulbs which has a prismatic effect when you passed a car with them fitted, which seemed to be common in the late 90s-early 2000s. More yellow output than white and better rain/fog vision IMO.

[EyesWeldedShut]

8 hours ago, wuvvum said:

 

Yellow foglights actually work better in thick fog than white ones. 

Renault used to fit yellow fogs to a lot of their cars sort of mid-80s to mid-90s - made them look a little exotic to me (in my defence I was young and impressionable). I used to even want it to be foggy so I could use them in action.

Being old and stupid now -  I still think they look good on frog chod 

[Stinkwheel]

I think i've been schooled somewhat. a Lot of pics here that make them look pretty damn good actually. Time to climb down off the 'they were never fitted' high horse and buy some clip on e-bay covers 🤣

[fatharris]

58 minutes ago, Stinkwheel said:

I think i've been schooled somewhat. a Lot of pics here that make them look pretty damn good actually. Time to climb down off the 'they were never fitted' high horse and buy some clip on e-bay covers 🤣

ONE OF US
ONE OF US
 

[cort1977]

As @busmansholiday has said there are reasons why the monochromatic yellow headlights are technically superior. 

As scene mods go, it's pretty inoffensive.

[danthecapriman]

I can’t say it bothers me much tbh. The stupid roof rack piled high with random crap looks far worse, or the stupid looking stretched tyre side walls and wank ‘stance yo’ look.

Actually, on a French car of the right sort of age it’s quite a nice period look having the yellow lamps. If you’re into such things. 
 

[grogee]

On 07/01/2024 at 17:49, busmansholiday said:

The other thing to consider is that yellow lights are nearly monochromatic (ie single colour). That gives you two advantages;

firstly that yellow is the peak response of the human eye so vision is better,

secondly because it's monochromatic the reflection due to fog is greatly reduced (no prismatic effects).

 

Not to be a 'reply guy' but I think both of those myths have been busted (yellow/green is the 'best' human eye colour, although I realise I'm splitting hairs).

If it were true then all the modernz would be sporting yellow lights... and instead it's OMGIMBLIND LEDs. 

Having said that, I do like yellow lights, but my own stupid preference would be:

Headlights: Yellow is OK on any French motor pre-about 1990, regardless of which side the steering wheel sits;

Foglights: Yellow is OK on anything not modern. 

[richardmorris]

6 minutes ago, grogee said:

Not to be a 'reply guy' but I think both of those myths have been busted (yellow/green is the 'best' human eye colour, although I realise I'm splitting hairs).

If it were true then all the modernz would be sporting yellow lights... and instead it's OMGIMBLIND LEDs. 

Having said that, I do like yellow lights, but my own stupid preference would be:

Headlights: Yellow is OK on any French motor pre-about 1990, regardless of which side the steering wheel sits;

Foglights: Yellow is OK on anything not modern. 

I always liked the myth* about the French government mandating yellow headlamps in the 1930s so that invading Germans would be easily spotted and shot at.

[mat_the_cat]

On 08/01/2024 at 00:11, wuvvum said:

Yellow foglights actually work better in thick fog than white ones. 

I've fitted yellow foglights to the BX, actually combined fog with spot lights to supplement the main beam. They just fit in the standard recess and look OK to my eyes. IMO full on yellow headlights would be a step too far.

[Volksy]

I replaced the fog lights on The Big with yellow bulbs. They are the inner part of the main headlight, so only obvious if they are switched on. 

I did also replace the headlights with LED's, Jury is out on them, they provide a very bright clear white, but will have to wait and see if the beam pattern is ok for the MOT, as i think the intensity of the light is overpowering the glass prisms of the lenses so the 'tick' isn't as apparent as with halogen bulbs.  

[sierraman]

Yes on pre 1992 French cars but it should be a hanging offence on a 2014 BMW. 

[Rust Collector]

When I bought my Insight, it came with yellow H4 bulbs in the headlights which can only have been fitted by the Japanese owner who had it before me.

It seemed like a weird thing to do to a Japanese car, although I know that yellow front fogs are a thing out there.

At any rate, yellow headlights do seem to be helpful in the rain and fog. They don't seem to cast light as far as white lights, but at the same time they seem to preserve your night sight a bit better and so you can see a bit more detail in the area outside of your headlight beams. Kind of like sodium street lighting versus LED street lighting.

When they finally blew, I replaced them with yellow H4 bulbs again as I liked them - I can't seem to get replacements that are as durable as the original Japanese ones though, the ones from ebay/amazon all seem to be cheap chinese shite.

[95 quid Peugeot]

3 hours ago, Rust Collector said:

When I bought my Insight, it came with yellow H4 bulbs in the headlights which can only have been fitted by the Japanese owner who had it before me.

It seemed like a weird thing to do to a Japanese car, although I know that yellow front fogs are a thing out there.

At any rate, yellow headlights do seem to be helpful in the rain and fog. They don't seem to cast light as far as white lights, but at the same time they seem to preserve your night sight a bit better and so you can see a bit more detail in the area outside of your headlight beams. Kind of like sodium street lighting versus LED street lighting.

When they finally blew, I replaced them with yellow H4 bulbs again as I liked them - I can't seem to get replacements that are as durable as the original Japanese ones though, the ones from ebay/amazon all seem to be cheap chinese shite.

What the above gentleman said.

I've run with yellow bulbs in the headlights for last 30 years

[dean36014]

I've fitted yellow bulbs to every french car I've owned. I just find them much easier to drive with at night. Will shortly be fitting them to the c1 for the same reason. Haters will hate , couldn't give a fuck.

[mk2_craig]

Check out these yellow fog AND spot lamp lovelies on the French market Fiesta XR2i. I had this bumper on my van, with yellow fogs and clear spots, though I can’t remember whether I managed to source frog-spec light units or simply painted the lenses with that stuff in a bottle you used to buy from the Channel ferry on board shop back in the 1980s. 
 

 

[captain_cal]

Outright yellow lenses often look like a morning piss - the solution is to fit the yellow caps, for a nice soft mellow yellow bloom inside the clear lenses. I had the caps fitted to my old 944, but didn't really matter as you obviously can't see the lights when they're off!

[stuboy]

good on old mopeds scooters and french classics

[Spottedlaurel]

It's a funny thing that some French market imports have the very yellow lights. Random selection seen this summer:

 

 

 

Yet it's not so obvious on the domestic models:

 

Yellow bulbs just visible on the Simca. If it was adequate for that why didn't the importers do the same thing? One or two of those above might have been done retrospectively, but I've seen similar yellow lights on other French BMWs from the 1970s/80s.

[Richard_FM]

When my family went to France in 1989 my Dad got a kit for his car with stick on yellow cellophane & black bars for the headlights.    Luckily this peeled off easily after the holiday.

By 1993 the headlights didn't need to be yellow, but he still stuck on the black bars.

[mk2_craig]

Family holiday, France 1988. The Prairie had quite a lot of headlamp to tint yellow! 

[sierraman]

Fog lamps yes, main headlights on a modern... non

[warch]

Back in the mid 90s my mate Dave Hedgehog used to own a piss coloured Austin Metro 1.0L, to which he'd fitted six auxiliary driving lights (all in yellow because colour coded innit). I remember two things about that car, driving around the back lanes of Shropshire at night in what I imagine a mustard gas attack must've looked like and the car stalling at tickover as the overworked electrical system failed to cope with the additional load from the lights and stereo.