It *IS* worth it!!!

[Steve Marinello]

I tend to agree with you Steve.  With the standard lights, we could still do
the "illegal" upgrade to Euro lights and deal with their replacement when
damaged for a reasonable cost.  Not $4 a pop, but not $200 either.  The best
lights I've ever had were about equal or better than my ur-q Euro lights.
They were the Cibie 5 1/4" rounds that I put on my '72 Fiat 124 Sport Coupe
and on my '78 Alfetta coupe.  They may not have been aero looking, but they
worked great.  Standardization has its' advantages.  Compared to those
lights, I am still underwhelmed by most of the "super" lights out there in
the present.

Steve

> From: "Buchholz, Steven" <Steven.Buchholz at kla-tencor.com>
> Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2000 17:11:38 -0700
> To: quattro at audifans.com
> Subject: RE: It *IS* worth it!!!
> 
>> Sorry, but I beg to differ! The type44 has always had flush, aerodynamic
> lights.
>> Types 43 and 81 too. Only the stupid light laws in the US made them put in
> those
>> 4x5" 4-eye setups. The only Euro-Audis that used the square 4-eyes were
> 1980-82
>> Urq, GT some 4k and the T-43 200.
>> 
>>> Only till recently have auto makers started
>>> doing cool things w/ lights.
>> 
>> In the US yes. In the free world, headlights has been almost
>> all different shapes
>> since the 70s. VW, MB, Renault and Euro-Dorf had oval
>> headlights in the 60s, H4s
>> since the early 70s (it was even stock on my 73 VW type3 Squareback!)
>> 
> ... actually there was a bit of good reasoning behind those "stupid" old
> US-DOT sealed beam laws IMO.  Given that headlamps are mounted up in front
> of the car and made of glass they are in harm's way and likely to be
> damaged.  Ever priced a set of good old US DOT round or rectangular sealed
> beams?  Since every car in the US used them they were plentiful and cost
> maybe $4 a pop.  If the lens got pitted you could always go out and buy
> yourself a new set without too much trouble.  Nowadays even headlights on
> different models of a particular marque are different from others from the
> same manufacturer ... and cost $200 and a lot more to replace a single unit.
> Look at most of the cars on the road today in the snow belt ... just about
> all of them have sandblasted lenses and a good number of them have taken
> hits that have broken the glass ... do they get replaced?  No, because they
> are too expensive!  So yes, when your car is new it puts out superior light
> in a well defined pattern, but what happens when those cool projector/HID
> units get pitted from a few winters of use?  There will be more dazzling the
> eyes of oncoming traffic and less effective lighting for the driver.
> 
> In some ways it is unfortunate that the US didn't stick to its guns a bit
> more and allow the benefits of the new lighting technologies while retaining
> the benefits of mass production.  It might have been possible to have made
> it so that the owners of older cars would be able to buy replacement bulbs
> that had projection optics ... and even those to perhaps be upgradeable to
> HID!  No matter what, once the lamp's lens got badly pitted it could be
> replaced at a reasonable expense.  In terms of solving the general problem
> of having drivers being able to have the best illumination possible this
> would have been a tremendous benefit.
> 
> ... I certainly don't buy the proposition that the crappy lights we got here
> in the USA with the 5000CS were a result of the US DOT laws.  There
> certainly were a lot of other cars sold in the US during that time that had
> acceptable lighting systems.  If there is anything to blame on the US in
> this instance it was for the US not rejecting the inadequate design that
> Audi installed.  
> 
> Steve Buchholz
> San Jose, CA (USA)
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