Does anyone have an interest in the lights in/on cars?

When I was a kid I really liked listening to the turn signals clicking and seeing the flashing green arrows. I notice on older cars, the turn signals had a metallic sound, while newer cars don't since it plays a sound through the speaker.

Also I noticed some old cars used to have light strips on the pillars between the front and rear doors that turned on with the head lights. I wonder what kind of bulb those used and when and why they stopped having that?

I have a Sylvania car headlight bulb somewhere but I’ll have to dig it out. Speaking of car headlights, those fancy LED headlights on newer cars are way too bright when driving towards on-coming traffic such as the freeway. I remember when cars were just incandescents, but nowadays it’s going out of style just like having quarter glass that opens.

I pulled some out of the skip at work, interestingly they are also equipped with tiny little fans on the back to keep them cool!, I was going to post some pictures on here, but me, like an idiot left them on my desk! 

IDK, I think the LED headlights look sleek and clean from a style perspective. But yeah, they can be blinding at the same time.

It seems plenty of new cars still have halogen headlamps though, it's just certain makes or top trims that have LED headlights at this point. Although they are getting more common.

Yes, I got into automotive lights and bulbs recently. I've learned the number systems for mini wedge bulbs and headlight bulbs.

The two biggest car lighting projects I've done are replacing the oxidized headlight housings in my VW Jetta, and installing LED fog light bulbs in my Subaru Legacy.

I really like Sylvania Silverstar mini bulbs for license plates, trunk lights, etc. Sylvania's Silverstar headlight bulbs are indeed bright white and intense, but they dim and burn out quickly. Philips Xtremevision headlight bulbs are just as bright and white as the Silverstars, but last longer and don't dim out quite as badly with heavy use.

I learned that my two cars use a lot of wedge bulbs (194, 168, and 2825/W5W). I like to use the 2825/W5W incandescents wherever I can (VW Jetta interior dome lights and Subaru Legacy license plate lights) because they are the brightest of the mini wedge base lamps. The W5W LEDs are a little too white and glaring, so I use the Silverstar incandescents over my license plate.

All of the indicator lights in both of my cars seem to be LED. The biggest difference is that the older Jetta has an old fashioned turn signal relay that produces the "clicking" sound from a small unit in the middle of the dash. The more modern Subaru has a deeper sounding turn signal "click" that is generated from a small speaker on the driver side of the dash. I don't know what kind of relay the Subaru uses.

A lot of modern vehicles don't even use flashers for the turn signal/hazard lights . The flashing is actually controlled by the ECM in the vehicle ! The clicking noise coming from the speaker is just to alert you that the signals are on .

 Since most of my old cars used the 1157 lamps , I've been changing them to the 2357's as they are WAY brighter than the 1157's

I have always like sealed beam headlights

I have always like sealed beam headlights

Well, with the onset of modern plastic reflectors (which don't tend to fade), I thought the times of rusty reflectors are over so the sealed beam advantages are not relevant anymore, but the use of plastic lenses and mainly their corrosion (hazing from the sunlight UV) proved me wrong. The headlights still do degrade, just the mechanism has changed. So the "sealed beam" concept still has its beauty (all optics get replaced wwhen the lamp filament itself burns out, so no degradation issues at all).

I wish that sealed beam was still common also ! Along with the lenses of the composite style headlights yellowing , I've also seen an issue with the reflector surface getting "cloudy" from dust or other contaminates getting into the light .

If you noticed, I was wishing for sealed beams, although they were never a thing here in Europe (here the reflector was always considered as a part of the car, with the lightbulb replaced inside).
But i've had enough with the old steel reflector headlights go blind because reflector rusting, plus with the modern cars where the plastic lens got hazy, both needing replacement even way before 2'nd lamp got EOL. And because these are designed to be "part of the car", the replacement headlights are the heck of expensive (we are talking in $100's and more). So the argument the sealed beam lamps would be "expensive because they cost $20 instead of $5 for just a single lamp" clearly does not hold here at all...