Allow Pop Ups: Cool Models from the ‘80s with Pop-Up Headlights
We kicked off the week with a montage of too-cool cars from the 1990s which featured pop-up headlights as a major part of their personality. We’ll extend that notion today with a sojourn into the ‘80s - and you know the ‘70s will be on the docket for tomorrow.
In case you missed it, the styling feature has popped up (pun intended) again on a relatively new machine thanks to an outfit called Result Japan. That company plans to roll out pre-orders of its Neo86 at this year’s Tokyo Auto Salon, a car which blends old-school AE86 styling with GR86 modernity. But if the ‘90s posed a challenge for vehicle selection, the ‘80s brings the challenge double. There are far too many to count or even be briefly mentioned in this short gallery, such is the wealth of good-looking cars with pop-up headlights from that era.
[Image: Honda, Mareks Perkons/Shutterstock.com, theenigma/Shutterstock.com, Lamborghini, Johnnie Rik/Shutterstock.com]
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We’ll start with a dose of so-called regular traffic. When the third-generation Honda Accord showed up in our market for the 1986 model year, pop-up headlights were all the rage on expensive and aspirational sports cars. Placing them on a family sedan was a huge deal, one made possible by Toshi Oshika’s styling pen.
And the creative angle of its engine, of course, to permit a (then) impossibly low hood. Solid build quality, towering reliability, and features like double wishbones also helped its stature. Given this car, and the new Taurus from Ford, salesmen at GM dealers must have been talking to themselves.
Speaking of GM, that company installed pop-ups on the Pontiac Firebird and its trim variants when it appeared for 1982. Bolstered by a major role as KITT in Knight Rider and a windshield raked steeper than anything else The General had tried up to that time, the third-gen Firebird was seen in the moment as pretty futuristic.
Well - even if that was a wretched and wheezy Iron Duke under the hood in initial base models. Best to pop for a V8, of course. Our favourites come from later in its model run, like the SLP Formula Firehawk which appeared in the early ‘90s.
If you’re looking for European exotica for some pop-up goodness, there’s plenty from which to select. Lamborghini was a bedroom-wall poster for many gearheads, particularly the impossible wedge of a Countach. Yes, it initially appeared in the ‘70s but it had plenty of appeal in the ‘80s as period-correct (if ultimately useless for performance) wings and the like were added.
Ferrari and its Testerossa were also part of the chat, thanks in no small part to Miami Vice and Don Johnson, while Porsche got in on the fun with cars like the 944.
