620 yellow ring lights origin?

[RyanC]

I see lots of 620s with the yellow lights/rings even have a scale model at home which has them.

 

Where did the trend start and why.  I like the look and curious.

[datzenmike]

Yellow inner high beams? Maybe 15 years ago along with 'rising sun' painted hoods, fender mirrors and Hardbody rims. It was a fad. I guess no harm if you drive mostly in town but if you drive on the highway at night even with halogen lamps, any speed above 30 MPH and you can easily out run your headlights. This is where the light is insufficient to see anything on the road far enough ahead and give you time enough to get stopped. Yellow is a poor color to see anything at night and any color coating on a headlamp absorbs some light reducing the output. As you can see, I'm not a fan.

 

There are spray on clear yellow coatings. Some BMWs and Mercedes had factory 5 3/4" fog lamps that were amber. Fog lamps have a totally different beam pattern and are not a good idea for high beams.   

[Stoffregen Motorsports]

I was going to say, it's a European thing, dating back to the '60s. Earlier even.

[EDM620]

Europeans (esp. common in France) had the yellow lights because of fog - real thick fog - which the yellow light is easier for others to see and drive accordingly, as in don't run into oncoming traffic. Unless you have proper fog light lenses, that light isn't getting to the road surface and therefore not doing squat. Seems the current trend is to use amber halo's as signals.

[datzenmike]

Real fog light lenses spray light side to side but not nearly as much up and down. Kind of an oval on it's side. There is a lot less reflection from snow or rain from above and below the horizontal. They are absolutely useless for use as high beams.

[RyanC]

Yes its def a pose factor than practical.  I wondered if from Europe as seen BMW's and mercs done this way.

 

Fog lights usually setup down low and have vehicles setup like this and work great.

 

Doing my own take as one hi/lo died so found some halo leds...this keeps my sealed beam spots for high beam.

 

So then do I wire them up with the parking lights or have them on their own switch with an inline fuse hmmm.  That way I can run them without ignition on or I could run them always with the ignition on.  I'm thinking on their own circuit and switch I don't think I want them as indicators but hey iguess the option is there.  I can run white and amber as halos.

 

When I get 30 mins I'll pop them in with some photos.  So far the low beam look to have a nice wide beam.