Top Car

130 TOPCAR.CO.ZA|January 2016

The last thing you wantif trying toshake off the cops is distinctive tail-

ligh ts. But we love ’em, especially these. ByChris Chilton

Coolesttail-lights

Top 10

The

1

BMWZ8

The lookwas

blatantly pi nched from

BMW’s classic 50 7;

the cabin created in a

para llel universe where

it’s always 1958, except

with microchips. Yet amid

all this retro-rehashing, BMWhad the fore (or rear-) sight to

graft on some of the slimmest, coolest tail-lights ever seen

in the pr e-Millenniumera..

2 MEAn upmarket Mustan g spin -off usingRCURYCOUGAR

most of the samehardware, Mercury’s pony

car got a stretched wheelbase and more

posh, with hidden front ligh ts and some very

cool sequential rears copied from the earlier

Thunderbird, that pulsed in the direction you

were in dicating. So cool, Carol Shelby nabbed

them for his modded ’67 Mustan gs.

3 MASERATI^32 00G

Though they look ed identical,

Maserati’s raw 3200GT was radically re-

engineered in 2002 to become the much

better Coupe, swappinga twin-turbo V6

(and optional auto) for a naturally aspira ted

V8 (and optional robotised manual). Sadly

the best feature of the orig inal didn ’t

make the transition – the oh-s o elegant

boomerangrear ligh ts.

4

’59 CADILLAC

Fifty-nine was the peak, quite

literally, of Detr oit’s obsessions

with fins, but the showy sheetmetal

appendages wouldn ’t have look ed

half as loud without that year’s twin-

rocket-flame shapedlamps at each

side. For 1960 the ligh ts were neatly

integrat ed into a pair of distinctly

atro phie d fins.

5 MAThe striki ng threads of illuminatZDAFURAI ion

on this 2007 concept car look ed like a

shower of sparks ligh ting the midnight

blackness of the Le Mans 24 Hour

race the concept longed to contest.

Sadly, there were more than sparks

coming from the Fu rai whenTop Gear

barbecued it during testing for the TV

show in 2008.

10 MCLARENP1

You can’t truly appreciate how

sens ational the P1 look s until you’ve seen

one at ni ght, imposs ibly slendertail-lamps

wrappingaroundthe rear facia like a

neon motelsign on Route 66. But this is a

McLaren, so there’s scienc e involved too:

conventional ligh ts would have stopped

the colossal amount of heat the V8

generates escaping.

8 DODGECHARGER

Chargers almost always

had cool lamps, but it’s not the

four circles of the much-admired

Bullitt-era ’68 that the 320kph

modern version references.

Instead it’s the full-wid th ligh t bar

of the very first, back in 1966,

combined with a bit of Dukes’-

spec ’69 for good measure.

7 MKYou want1 CORmash with that?TINA

Ford’s iconicpie ligh ts, or Pye,

if you remember the period hi-fi

brand, are as recognisable as the

Lotus version’s green stri pes, and

turned up on TVR’s Grantura in

an early bit of kit-car scavenging.

BMW’s 02 series riffed on the

sametheme.

9 LAMBORGHINI ASTERION

Lambo lamps werelamentable until Sant’Agata

turnedthe wickupon the Murcielago to create the

trick Reventon. Now they’ve settledonaninstantly

recognisable motif, you’ll still beableto tell a Lamborghini

fromlessersupercarsevenwhen electrification finally

silencesthe V12 –thoughthat’s not happening just yet.

6 AUBack in 2013 Audi gaveDISWARMOLED

us the first taste of the OLED

technology it productionised in time

for the recent Frankfurt show. The

bizarre Swarm ligh ts look like they’d

escape up the road if your lamp ever

got smashed in a fender bender.

Worth Googling for a video if you

missed them first time round.