Morris Minor Owners Club

Turn signals, as we call them, took a long time to become required. Over the years aftermarket device were offered for the owners to add. One of the first required item was sealed beam headlights which may have be applied retroactively because adapters to mount sealed beam units in older cars were common or the owners just wanted better lights. Similarly once turn signals were common in the Fifties, retrofit systems were available. Recently I just read about a car in the Fifties that had optional turn signals. For many years before federal regulations some States may have initiated requirements but it was Detroit who applied them universally because they weren't about to build differently for each State and then they turned it into a marketable feature. The combined turn signal and brake light along with taillight design feature I believe was driven by the stylists. Volume was high enough that each and every model had their unique light units for the most part, but they didn't want "clutter" with multiple lights. There were some cars that had two or three lights per side, but they just worked together. The turn signal switch was a complicated dual switch. One for the front and one for the rear that isolated the brake signal when turning. British cars had a choice to add a light or incorporate the 8-way relay. My uncle had a 50 or 51 Volkswagen (I think one of my cousins still has it) with trafficastors. Another oddity of the US is amber lights were illegal until fairly recently. This one is hard to understand. Perhaps it was Detroit lobby trying to create obstacles to imports. The Series V side lights and taillights with the amber lens had to be changed to all white and all red.

After thinking about it more I think replacing the trafficator solenoid with the solenoid in the 8-way relay, the wiring for the indicator lamp in the speedo or on the body of the switch may have originated at the switch. I can't recall if the indicator flashed in my 57.

I read that the round Sealed Beams were mandated federally in 1940 as there were too many vehicles driving around with useless headlights because people were replacing bulbs in rusted reflectors.
It was then 1975 before they modified the standard to allow Rectangular sealed beams...
Then 1984 before they finally allowed Bulbs again.
You may well be right about the Detroit influence in banning Amber indicators.
I read somewhere that the only reason they finally gave up on the white front indicators was the number of accidents attributed to the inability of drivers to distinguish a winking white indicator from all the chrome-work reflections in sunlight.

geoberni wrote: ↑Sat Sep 05, 2026 6:04 pm I read that the round Sealed Beams were mandated federally in 1940 as there were too many vehicles driving around with useless headlights because people were replacing bulbs in rusted reflectors.
It was then 1975 before they modified the standard to allow Rectangular sealed beams...
Then 1984 before they finally allowed Bulbs again.
You may well be right about the Detroit influence in banning Amber indicators.
I read somewhere that the only reason they finally gave up on the white front indicators was the number of accidents attributed to the inability of drivers to distinguish a winking white indicator from all the chrome-work reflections in sunlight.

Mine came with flashing front light that was white but had retro fitted amber rears rather than using the red lamp. Maybe my imagination but had a couple of incidents that I attributed to the white flashing light not being seen as turn indicator. I changed the lens to amber and put sidelights in the headlamps, as the wipacs already had the facility.