Remember what they took from us

Pop-up headlights disappeared because they were a PITA to maintain in working order.

Sooo many 'winking' cars because half the popups don't work, which is a massive saftey issue.

I remember it well lol. Back in the day, I had a Triumph TR7. I had to disconnect the headlight motors and run with them up, because of 'winking'.
Car designers also mostly used them since they were forced by regulation to use circular or rectangular lights of a standard size (think of all those 80s cars that look similar in the front). Pop up headlights allowed them to hide them and create cars that looked much different from the rest. I think there is a video from technology connections on the matter.
Edit: I think it is briefly mentioned on this video, although it’s been a while since I watched it: https://youtu.be/c2J91UG6Fn8
- I'd ENTHUSIASTICALLY return to the days of uniform, regulated headlights at a reasonable luminosity.
Yep. The technology of the time was pretty limiting. We have better tech and could do it better and more reliably but we don't.
They did have manual controls on pretty much all of them, i think it was more a failure rate thing than a safety thing.

i wonder how many hit and run have there been because the driver didn't even realize he run over a child.

those gender affirming cars need to go

Gender affirming cars is such a great term because the people who drive them are exactly the people who will be most offended by it. Definitely stealing that.
- ye cannae steal that from me, i stole it from some other bloke

I have the car in the top picture and kids love seeing the popups.

Just got my Miata a a few weeks ago and I love that it's understood that we have to blink/wink every time we encounter each other
I miss my NA Miata dearly, but my back and legs sure don't 😞.
Using the popups was always the best part, partially because I liked to imagine she was helping me watch the road ahead of us.
- From getting in and out or from stiff suspension? I can understand that. It's a long way up and down.

Uh, while I also agree modern trucks are unnecessary large, I think you might be a tad lost. Your post history in this community is primarily disparaging vehicles. It's good conversation and all, don't get me wrong, but perhaps this kind of ragging feels more suited elsewhere.

As a car enthusiast, personally I 1000% agree with the post. To me this is absolutely the right place for this post.
I want my pop up and down headlights back, and instead we have dumb SUVs with bumpers 6ft tall and zero appeal so that a soccer mom can plow over pedestrians with peak lethality
But the popups are "unsafe". Because then you might hit a pedestrian. At night. When everything being open at night in the US died during covid. Makes sense 🙃
I want them back 🥹
- Guess I had a different takeaway from the graphic. I kinda see that now.
  Updoot.
- But the popups are “unsafe”. Because then you might hit a pedestrian. At night.
  Was that the reason? I figured they faded away because they were an additional manufacturing and maintenance expense because of the moving parts.
  Heck, they allowed for shallower hoods that seem to be safer for pedestrians when they are down!
I think you got me confused with someone else because this couldn't be further from the truth lol. I've worked as a mechanic and I own two classic cars.
- Alrighty. I'll concede. 🙂
  I also own a few classics, including a Porsche 944 turbo with popup headlights. But it stopped running almost a decade ago. Poor car.
Honestly, as one of the moderators of !fuckcars (and a NA Miata owner, BTW), this is the first version of the "big trucks bad" kind of post that doesn't bother me.
I'm usually very much not a fan of those because those threads easily devolve into missing the point that all cars are bad for urbanism, not just big ones, and end up with people virtue-signaling because they drive small cars instead of recognizing that they're still part of the problem. "Safety" (the subset that applies after already having been hit by a car, no less!) is only a tiny fraction of what !fuckcars is about.
This post, on the other hand, is pointing out the hypocrisy of that sort of thing so I'm all for it.
I think the disparity in regulation is among the (surprisingly large number of) things both communities can agree on!
Speaking of which: my Miata is for autocross and curvy mountain roads. My daily-driver is a bicycle. In fact, having options other than driving is why I can afford to own fun cars instead of practical ones!

I have seen so many of those pop up headlights broken, one up and one down. Turn on headlights and they switch which is up and down. lol