Remember when you could id a car at night?

Many times while I'm driving around at night,and look in the rear view I remember being a kid in the 60's and being able to figure out what car it was by looking at the spacing of the lights and markers.my friends and I would pride or selves on this great skill.now I look in the rear view after driving some 30 plus years and have no idea whats behind me! Anybody else remember this?

 

If there are red and blue blinky lights, it's a cop car, and you're screwed. Other than that, they all look like big blobs

 

Normally I followed so close I couldn't see the tail lights in front of me while playing bumper tag with my buddies with my headlights off!!!!!!! And as for looking in the rear view mirror I only looked for the shadow outline of a bubble gum machine on the roof.

 

I was pretty good at ID'ing cars at night by their headlights when I first started driving...

I can still ID a Crown Vic, a Dodge Magnum, a Dodge Charger, and a Chevy Impala. Most others, I could care less about.

 

I hear ya, wether you liked the body style or not they all had charactor.

 

I remember the year they started using the parking lights at the same time as headlights. Since all the cop cars were new, we just assumed that headlights and parking lights at the same time was a police car. It worked well for a couple of years!

 

It was a competitive game for my cousin and I. Not necessarily at night but all day long. That probably is the reason that I can't resist the "what is it" posts.

By the late 70s the years all seemed to run together.

 

Yeah I could do it, seemed like each make had their own qualities, subtle as they were but you could still pick them out at night, especially Chrysler Corp, and a buddies car you could pick out from a long way away.
Was taking my 77 year old mom shopping.. she looked around in traffic and said.."all these cars look alike, I used to be able to tell the difference"

I can still pick out 60s and eary 70s cars at night (and the music of the time..? all I need in the first few notes to tell you the song and the group). Sounding like the old man I am starting to be... "back in my day" the cars were faster, the music was better, the sex was sweeter" (but I will concede high school girls looked nothing like they do today,amazing! ...can I get arrested for saying that?)

 

In the mid '70s when I was in High School and college,I could tell the state cops by the headlight/parking light configuration.If I remember,I think they were Chrysler products. Sometimes it was a matter of survival...

 

hell, i cant tell in daylight....there was the day when you knew every car on the road,when they all had their own look.....now they look like abunch of clones....

 

jelly-bean cars, i still get pissed at jeeps tho, looks like somethin old comin up behind ya

 

Yeah me too about the jeeps! Close together headlights, but the driectionals give them away! When I was a jeeper I felt differently!

 

We had the local cops pegged by thier odd headlights. Rapid City was one of few towns that ran Volvos for cop cars in the early 80s.

 

I'm still pretty good at it....

 

volvos,? really. i'll be darned

 

Yep I remember those days...I also could recite the HP and TQ of the engine it had.

Then I fell and bumped my head. Whole lotta stuff came out. :frown:

 

And you could tell whether it was a GM, FoMoCo, MoPar or AMC from a half mile away just by the roof line...............

 

Hell, I can't ID this new shit in the daylight. But I can spot a Hudson, Henry-J or Stude next to a barn @ 200 yards.

 

,,,you got that right, Rich,,

 

No backup lights would indicate a '64 or older model, I think. At least my '64 Savoy doesn't have any. Amber parking lamps started in '63, maybe? Side marker lights started in '68. Factory installed turn signals, hmmm, about 1955? Mandatory factory installed seat belts, about '63 or '64, though some cars offered them optionally or as a dealer installed accessory some years prior to that. Big dumb looking bumpers started in 1973. When did dual tail lights become mandatory? I think they were required a few years earlier for cars than for trucks.

 

remember seeing a cop car behind you and being extra careful not to screw up?,,,,,,only to have the car pass you and you realize it was just a ski rack......

 

Most of the time it looks like a Jap bomber with a economic terrorist at the controls. And it usually is.

 

Yeah, even one of the Model companies made a kit of the cop cars. Us, Vail Colorado and a few other towns used em.

 

yeah, I remember being able to do that. I still can name a few at night. I drive a caprice wagon for a daily. I hate when people slow up when I get behind them. They think I'm a cop...

 

When I was a kid [in the 60s] my Dad, Uncle, Grandpa, and I would sit out on the porch at my uncle's farm near Carrollton Kentucky. I could identify the make, model, and year of about 95% of the cars and trucks passing by on the highway. They were always amazed I could I.D. so many cars and trucks built before I was even born. Heck, I can't I.D. them now after reading the name plate!

 

I'm pretty good at recognizing Crown Vics from the rear view mirror, if ya know what I mean...

 

I sure do. My wife and I were just talking about this about a week or so ago.

 

My old man taught me how to identify classics at a glance whether at night or during the day. In my 30 years i have honed this lucrative skill to include modern domestics and imports. Except for Hyundai cars; every Hyundai headlight looks just like something else. My wife thinks I am crazy. I think its more interesting to remember this kind of information than silly things like anniversaries and birthdays.

 

lest we forget the ever popular caprice... i had friend in highschool had one... he'd pull around the corner at night and we'd all stash our brew.

i still kinda play the "headlight ID" thing at night, only i do it with big trucks... them things are gettin like cars now, no difference... no soul.

 

used to be i could tell cars from any angle or time of day , big trucks used to be the same !! now they are "cookiecutters" as one person put it !!!!!!! .. steve