Why Ford Designed This Lincoln Twice

Same car, two faces: Mercedes' SL, Citroën's SM and Jaguar's XJ-S all wore different headlights in America. Why wouldn't America let you have Europe's headlights? It starts with a 1939 agreement on one lamp for every car, which a federal standard made national in 1968. Then come the American XJ-S lamps Jaguar's own engineering director called glow-worms, the Lincoln that Ford designed twice, and the smart high beams Europe had by 2013 and America allowed in 2022. Now, America is modernising its lighting rules, and matching international standards is on the list. The lamps American designers hid are a story of their own, in my pop-up headlights video:    • Who Killed Pop-Up Headlights? (Not Pedestr...   Every claim in this video was fact-checked, and the sources for the main ones are below. Spot a mistake? Tell me in the comments and I'll correct it. CHAPTERS 0:00 Same car, two faces 0:37 Europe's new lights 1:51 One lamp for every car 3:13 The lamp becomes the law 4:29 Glow-worms 6:02 The Lincoln's other face 7:29 The same story again 9:08 Still dazzled SOURCES Goodwood Road & Racing, November 2022: https://int.goodwood.com/grr/road/new... FCP Euro, 2 February 2017: https://www.fcpeuro.com/blog/breathin... Citroënvie, 4 February 2026: https://citroenvie.com/the-sealed-bea... NHTSA, Federal Register, 28 September 2001: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/F... NHTSA, Federal Register, 10 July 1996: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/F... Highway Research Board, 1960: https://onlinepubs.trb.org/Onlinepubs... Old Cars Weekly, 2020: https://www.oldcarsweekly.com/feature... NHTSA, Federal Register, 4 December 2007: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/F... Chrysler Corp. v. DOT, 1975, quoting NHTSA Notice 7 (1973): https://m.openjurist.org/515/f2d/1053 SAE J580, as quoted by NHTSA: https://www.nhtsa.gov/node/123431 Polizei Technik Verkehr, 1973, via TRB: https://trid.trb.org/View/40391 SAE paper 790200, 1979: https://saemobilus.sae.org/papers/hal... Motor Sport, October 1975: https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/ar... Olson, University of Michigan, 1977, via TRB: https://trid.trb.org/View/69860 Sivak and Flannagan, 1994, via TRB: https://trid.trb.org/View/413729 Automotive Industries, 1982, via TRB: https://trid.trb.org/View/181507 NHTSA notice, 31 August 1981, via SWOV: https://swov.nl/en/publicatie/federal... Continental Comments, 2001: https://lcoc.org/?p=79785 Christian Science Monitor, 15 November 1983: https://www.csmonitor.com/1983/1115/1... NHTSA Chief Counsel, 1983: https://www.nhtsa.gov/node/48886 NHTSA Chief Counsel, 1984: https://www.nhtsa.gov/interpretations... Audi, June 2013, via AudiWorld: https://audiworld.com/?p=2392 NHTSA, Federal Register, October 2018: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/F... 49 U.S.C. 30111 note (2021 law): https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/te... NHTSA, Federal Register, February 2022: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/F... Audi, via InsideEVs, 2023: https://insideevs.com/news/678638/aud... NHTSA, Federal Register, December 2024: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/F... Axios, 19 August 2026: https://www.axios.com/2026/08/19/rivi... AAA, March 2026: https://newsroom.aaa.com/2026/03/new-... IIHS, 15 October 2025: https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/head... NHTSA, Federal Register, 8 October 2026: https://public-inspection.federalregi... Wikipedia, "Citroën Ami": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citro%C... Credits: in the pinned comment and its reply, with a link to each film and photo. Photos cropped, panned and captioned, with number plates, signs and a note hidden. Photos under CC BY-SA 4.0: Calreyn88, Damian B Oh. Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Photos under CC BY-SA 3.0: Mr.choppers, Formulanone, Aude. Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Photos under CC BY 4.0: OWS Photography, Autowizja. Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Photo under CC BY 3.0: KarleHorn. Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Photos under CC BY 2.0: Rutger van der Maar, Greg Gjerdingen, Andrew Bone, Sicnag, sv1ambo, John Lloyd, Niels de Wit, Robert Basic. Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Animations and graphics: made for this channel. #Headlights #CarHistory #CitroenSM