Trivia post.
For some reason I was thinking about the evolution of indicators. From the very basic of sticking your arm out the window we've come a long way.
The earliest example I can think of is semaphores or trafficators. I love these and if I had a car with them on I'd definitely get them updated with brighter lights so they were infinitely more usable in modern traffic.
The other early option was to fit a flashing orange light to the bodyshell and later car manufacturers started to adopt this. To let the driver know, the green light on the end of this indicator stalk flashes when the indicator is in use, as found on this Wolseley and Morris Minors. Probably found on more cars of the same period too.
As an accessory, you could buy yourself some "Mickey Mouse" indicators if your car or vehicle didn't have them to start with. Very much function over form, they're usually a little bubble of orange that sticks on the roof where the B pillar is. When I used to live in Sheffield there was a Morris Minor with them fitted and they were surprisingly visible from quite a long way off.
This Scammel Scarab has a great example.
After a while, putting an orange light on the front and the back was usual, the roof-mounted deelies disappeared but we saw another change. Cars started to get wrap around indicators.
We also got side repeaters coming in, something that no modern car seems to be without.
The latest innovation I can think of with indicators is probably ones fitted into door mirrors, which I first saw on a Mercedes. Again, nice and visible because they're far away from the other lights and quite a sensible thing to add. They seem to be fitted to everything now.
For some reason I was thinking about the evolution of indicators. From the very basic of sticking your arm out the window we've come a long way.
The earliest example I can think of is semaphores or trafficators. I love these and if I had a car with them on I'd definitely get them updated with brighter lights so they were infinitely more usable in modern traffic.
The other early option was to fit a flashing orange light to the bodyshell and later car manufacturers started to adopt this. To let the driver know, the green light on the end of this indicator stalk flashes when the indicator is in use, as found on this Wolseley and Morris Minors. Probably found on more cars of the same period too.
As an accessory, you could buy yourself some "Mickey Mouse" indicators if your car or vehicle didn't have them to start with. Very much function over form, they're usually a little bubble of orange that sticks on the roof where the B pillar is. When I used to live in Sheffield there was a Morris Minor with them fitted and they were surprisingly visible from quite a long way off.
This Scammel Scarab has a great example.
After a while, putting an orange light on the front and the back was usual, the roof-mounted deelies disappeared but we saw another change. Cars started to get wrap around indicators.
We also got side repeaters coming in, something that no modern car seems to be without.
The latest innovation I can think of with indicators is probably ones fitted into door mirrors, which I first saw on a Mercedes. Again, nice and visible because they're far away from the other lights and quite a sensible thing to add. They seem to be fitted to everything now.