Design

[Niteshooter]

I dunno, simultaneously seemed weird to me, but also at the same time not really surprising.
If you’ve dealt with unions from both (all) sides of the equation, you can likely appreciate that.

Hard to imagine that the CAW had that kind of clout back then.

What seems more likely is that this person mixed things up a bit as the square headlight sizes were metric which was sort of a Canadian thing, we got swapped into metric back then and as a result my toolbox has both SAE and Metric tools. Though metric is more prevalent now I suppose.

Anyhow in terms of the lights, back then the government controlled headlight design, with the round 7" and then the round 5". It was probably a big deal to get something 'new' design wise when the square lights were approved for use. Also worth noting that around that time halogen bulbs were illegal. I had/have Hella H4's on my Jeep and T-Bird and technically they were only for 'off road' use.

I suspect it was a combination of things, AMC thought it might be cool to use this new style of headlight never imagining that Jeep purists would flip out and also since this was likely an AMC thing they felt it saved money to use a bulb that they were using on their other cars. If you look under the hood of a Jeep from that period such as my CJ7 you will find a real dogs breakfast of parts. I have GM and Ford as well as AMC parts under the hood so it seems to me they went with either what they had on the shelf or what was the cheapest.

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[Ian cj10]

If you look under the hood of a Jeep from that period such as my CJ7 you will find a real dogs breakfast of parts. I have GM and Ford as well as AMC parts under the hood so it seems to me they went with either what they had on the shelf or what was the cheapest.

its thje same under the hood of my cj10 & ive got the square head lights which are the same ones used on my fsj & on xj's so they got pretty good milage out of those same head lights

 

[DanW]

Why would square lights be a concession to the union? What does the shape of the light have to do with anything? Just curious...

They might have been supporting union shops in the us making square headlights, which were in decline at the time. It also could have been because installing the square headlights was more labor intensive than the newer modular composite headlamps that snapped right in. My Dad was a GM engineer who oversaw plant layout, and he fought these battles constantly with the union. Anything that saved labor (thus, cost), they fought against tooth and nail, which is understandable, from their perspective.

 

[nowandthen]

im guessing the tail lights with the clear center are export for the amber turn signal indicator

This makes sense.

 

[MotorMan]

This makes sense.

This is likely not true because some of the JLs with a clear taillight center have export bumpers, while some do not

 

[nowandthen]

Europe requires yellow turn signals. Perhaps we are seeing Franken-Jeeps. But for US, perhaps the clear tail lights will be an option?

 

[The Great Grape Ape]

Hard to imagine that the CAW had that kind of clout back then..

Wasn’t thinking it was CAW concession, more of a UAW concession for moving the jobs North out of Toledo, but regulatory makes just as much sense.

As I was mentioning and DanW illustrates, the Unions can make ‘interesting request’ and usually they are about protecting jobs, etc.

Anywhoo, just thought I’d share the experience as it related to the subject.

 

[The Great Grape Ape]

Europe requires yellow turn signals. Perhaps we are seeing Franken-Jeeps. But for US, perhaps the clear tail lights will be an option?

Yeah, Franken-Jeep makes sense when testting the mules, as there’s one of each in the config, no need to test the bumper on all or ambers all and vice/versa.

I would love to get a stock amber option for visibility, as the conversion is a pain in the a$$ as it’s not just plug & play.

 

[freegld]

There may be a thin bezel (I don't see a bezeL, so maybe I 'm not understanding your comment), but the glass has a very wide blacked out area around it's perimeter. To me, this seems to defeat what Jeep did with the mid-model refresh, where they made the hard top opening wider, thus better rear visibility.

Bezel, essentially the frame around the glass. The blacked out glass perimeter is just added camo

 

[Matt The Hammer]

The blackened out sides - with the wider JKs, is there the same width blacked out sides? Most (all?) JK hardtops are tinted, so it's not so easy to see.

I know on mine, the blacked out sides is where the rear defrost wires are at. Maybe the wider JL area also conceals the rear wiper motor wiring too - as it's now at the bottom of the glass.

Not a great shot - like I said, un-tinted glass is hard to find - but there seems to be a significant section blacked out on the JK too:

 

[Matt The Hammer]

They might have been supporting union shops in the us making square headlights, which were in decline at the time. It also could have been because installing the square headlights was more labor intensive than the newer modular composite headlamps that snapped right in. My Dad was a GM engineer who oversaw plant layout, and he fought these battles constantly with the union. Anything that saved labor (thus, cost), they fought against tooth and nail, which is understandable, from their perspective.

This is a pretty neat perspective. We all just look at new car designs as updates - your Dad and the other people who work in that industry look at it as less/more work for them.

I never thought of that angle before.

I always thought the YJ went to square for the simple fact that the Jeep CJ was getting long in tooth and getting killed for safety in the media. So with the radical times of the 80s, AMC was looking to show that the new Jeep was all new.

Like new Coke.

 

[The Great Grape Ape]

LOL, and in the end Coke Classic ended up going the cheap corn syrup route anyways.

Still miss Coke BlāK.

 

[WaltA]

Europe requires yellow turn signals. Perhaps we are seeing Franken-Jeeps. But for US, perhaps the clear tail lights will be an option?

This comment isn't limited to just the Wranglers, but yellow turn signals in the rear aren't illegal in the US. So, I don't understand why so many times, manufacturers make two different taillights (US and Export), when one (with yellow) would do?

 

[WaltA]

Like new Coke.

BTW, Coke is trying the "new" again, now with their Zero product line. One would have thought that Coke would never, ever, try that again considering how it ended the last time.

 

[MuhThugga]

BTW, Coke is trying the "new" again, now with their Zero product line. One would have thought that Coke would never, ever, try that again considering how it ended the last time.

History repeats itself. Just look at Cadillac with the ELR, aka Cimarron Part 2.

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