Quote:
Originally Posted by lunarhighway
why did these metro's have these silly straight lamps to begin with in the us, Clearly the car was not designed to have them, so i can only assume some old regulation or cost considerations could be at the heart of this.
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I vote for the regulation. Until sometime in the early 1990s US FMVSS code 108 restricted manufacturers to 7" round lamps as standard-beam from 1940 until the 1970s when it also allowed two sizes of rectangular lamps. The aerodynamic "Euro" headlamps were not legal until the 1984 model year, but this meant that they were not practical on vehicle designs that were undertaken until sometime after 1984. Still the replaceable-bulb lamps we all have today weren't common in the US as many companies continued using the old-spec sealed beam lamps (I have the larger rectangular style on my 1988 Dodge truck (not in EM garage). GM kept using the old sealed beams and may have insisted on keeping them on the Metro as par of their original "design language."