What McLaren’s Design Director Frank Stephenson was inspecting at the Geneva Motor Show is the Bugatti Chiron’s LED taillight, a continuous strip of redness all across the rear. Four years ago, the Volkswagen XL1 couldn’t have that. Here’s why.
You know the 5-star safety rating system used by NHTSA and concerned car-buying parents all over America? The one that tells you that one star is a deathtrap, and five means effective immortality? Well, there’s a proposal out now to apply that same sort of thing to vehicle lighting. And yes, the amber/red indicator…
When it comes to auto design, I’m the equivalent of a creepy guy you might meet on Craigslist: I’m open to anything. For me, being boring is the most unforgivable thing a car can do, and that keeps me pretty open-minded when it comes to radical design ideas. So I’m very interested in this patent application from Ford…
We all have our roles at Jalopnik. Raph rolls cars, Travis goes out for a pack of smokes and never comes back, Patrick slaps people, Mike will do anything for $50, and I’m the Guy Who Gives A Shit About Indicator Lights. That’s why I was stunned to find out about the Slo-Lite, which I’ve never heard of before.
When Audi gave the world a 610 hp supercar with freakin' laser headlights, the U.S. government said no, thanks. So guess what they would say to this?
Giant light bars give you useful visibly in foul weather and the pitch-black of remote trails. But let's be real; 99% of the time you can navigate the night just fine with the two headlights god gave you. Who cares, extra lights will instantly make your car look extra awesome.
Okay, everyone, go to the nightstand, get your diaries, and unlock them. Check back around July— see the tear-stained entry where you're lamenting how you knew, just knew you could have done better in the Great Headlight Quiz, but it was too, well, unfair? And how you'd kill for another chance?
Every day, someone, somewhere gets thrown in jail for hauling bales of uncut cocaine around in their trunk. Why? More often than not it's because they had a tail light out or something dumb like that and the cops pulled them over. Don't let it happen to you!
Like most car guys, I have a wildly overestimated faith in my car-identification abilities, especially at night. Ever since I was a kid, bouncing around in the luggage well of my dad's '68 Beetle or the family's vast '73 County Squire, I loved trying to identify cars by just their headlight/running light patterns at…
Getting rear-ended may never be your fault, but that doesn't mean it's not a pain in the ass to get a busted bumper fixed. One way to help avoid such situations is with a product like Sudden Stop, an array of ultra-bright LED lights that reside on the left and right sides of your license plate. Sudden Stop works by…
For when flipping the bird or giving a friendly wave takes just too much effort, one company now offers the Drivemocion, a device that mounts to the rear windshield and will display one of many differ emotions to drivers behind. Was that car nice enough to let you merge on the freeway during rush hour? Greet them with…
DARPA may have that whole "driver-less vehicle" thing locked down and Las Vegas may be the city of lights, but this tricked-out Jeep could probably take a run at making both of them jealous. That is if cities or quasi-public Department of Defense agencies were able to express emotion. Or if they were even alive.…
Hell, you just bought that hybrid, why not go all out turning yourself into a green-bean with solar powered-driveway lights? You don't have worry about crushing these suckers, either, unlike some other solar driveway-lighting solutions on the market.
The international sign for "Hey asshole!" is generally the flashing of the high-beams — whether it is to warn of upcoming danger, show displeasure or just get attention. Regardless of which message, that vulgar phrase encapsulates them all. There are limited options that could be done if your car's high-beams are puny…
When I got my first beater car as a proto-hoon of 16, my dad had some excellent advice, straight from the Midwestern heartland where he learned about wrenching: "Son," he said, squinting at my barely-running Corona, popping the top on his can of Old Milwaukee, and taking a mighty swig, "You need to get yourself a JC…
At least one, and perhaps more of us here at the the Jalop not only fantasize about cars on a minute-by-minute basis, but also find time to squeeze in wet dreams about transportation of the two-wheeled variety. While the world of motorcycles can seem foreign and dangerous to the cage driver (that's what we call you…
