History blue dot PHOTOS from back in the day?

So much depends on the local police in your area at the time you are referring to.. Even in the 70s we'd get stopped and get an inspection ticket. We used to get muffler tickets too. In the 60s we could not go around the block if we advertized our hot cars with loud pipes and blue dots. We had the city cops, county cops and of course the MD. State Police. 3 departments all of which could mess with teenagers for sport. You guys have no idea how lucky you have it today. It was not always that way.

Why did some guys find them in garages and dusty shelves in back rooms? Because the cops forced them to replace them with the proper lenses if they want to be left alone. It gets old real quick when every time you go out you get pulled over so they ended up on a shelf somewhere.

The 70 reenactment of the craze sort of resembles the SBC revolt. So easy to come by that they lose there desirability. I'm very proud of the patina on the chrome retaining ring in the lens. I doubt that anyone notices that they are originals but I know.

 

I ran blue dots on my shoe box ford in the late 1950's ... that was in central Illinois. Many of my friends ran them also. As far as the cops were concerned, hells bells ... cops being cops, they were gonna pull you over for something anyway just as a general h***le ... be it blue dots, pipes, bumper height, curfew or fuzzy **** dangling from the mirror. You might as well run what you wanted was the thinking ... cops is cops!

 

In the 50's i used to carry my stock lenses with me to make the swap on the spot when I got stoped, most hotrodders tried to get away with blue dots as much as possable. Custom 48 Ford btw.

 

I remember them from the mid-50's onward, but there were so few rods / customs on the street in the towns where my folks lived, the odds of seeing them were pretty low. I do remember seeing them for the first time and being fascinated how the blue dot contrasted with the brake light, like magic, it had some wierd effect on how my eyes focused. Same thing happens to me now with the bright red / blue LEDs used on the new cop cars and in some advertising signs. Some sort of extreme wavelength difference / quasi dopler effect? Gary

 

Well, I don't know about back in YOUR the day but I've had a pair of blue dot Lynx Eye tailights on my Oz 1940 Dodge since about 1975.......got them still in the Lynx Eye box......so back in MY day they were o/k..........and my 41 Plymouth also has them.......so, whether it be my,yours or HIS day....they still look o/k....andyd

 

Geezer division member & I recall seeing blue dots back in Detroit.

 

Okay, so it sure sounds like they were not uncommon in the Eastern U.S., which fits in with the continental kits and other do-dads I ***ociate with the region. So my Dad and uncle might have been correct when they said they saw plenty of them in the Akron Ohio area in the mid-to-late 1950s. It would also make sense that teenagers would put them on to make sure everyone know it was THEIR car, not mom & dad's.

Now the question is, does anyone have any PHOTOS from the era, other than the one I stole and posted?

 

Regional makes sense...all car laws were regional, and also rural vs state vs. town cops are different cultures, some of them probably not interested in **** equipment rules with little connection to safety, some interested in anything to h***le kids with funny cars.
But I can tell you...mark out a wide swath from Maryland down to New Orleans, direct routes and coastal, and there weren't any on the road '50's and '60's. My one sighting was the new in box '48 Ford set sitting on the gas station shelf...

 

....More often than not, I agree 99% with you, Bruce, but I grew up in East Tennessee in the 50's and I do remember seeing at least a few cars with blue dots trolling the local hang-outs. More often than not they were shoebox Fords but also remember them on '55 and '56 Fords as well. True they weren't WIDELY seen but they were there. As a kid (I'm 61 now), I kinda found them to be cool, but any custom stuff on cars was interesting to me. Seems the Chevy guys were more often using the old Lee Plastics lenses to make their stuff different. I think the relative proximity to the "old" Honest Charlies Speed Shop may have had something to do with any popularity the blue dots had down south....Don.

 

Blue dots were quite common in this area in the 50s, (New Hampshire)
I suspect the cops today would bag you for running them as they want no blue lights, reflectors or any other type of blue on the rear or front of a vehicle.
I got a warning from a cop for having two of those little number plate bolt/reflectors holding the rear plate on my motorcycle!! (blue)