There’s this new trend of bumper mounted headlights that car manufacturers have started following, but is it just a fad?
In the past few years, automakers have been facing cut-throat competition that gets tougher and tougher by each passing minute. In this competition, one manufacturer comes up with an interesting idea that lures in their customers. And before you know it, other manufacturers have picked up on that idea and developed on it more than one could imagine to really outsmart their rivals.
One such example is the bumper mounted headlamps that we see on the latest SUVs. It’s time we pay a visit to such trends and see what makes them loved by the consumers and automakers.
Bumper Complexion!
In the Indian market, a quintessential facelift formula mainly involves tinkering with the bumpers. This is because bumpers are made out of plastic, and they are easy to change up. And since they make up quite a lot of the front, and rear fascia of the vehicle, they seem to bring a significant change. Case in point – 2019 Maruti Baleno, 2018 Hyundai Creta facelifts.
This is true for new cars also. Whether it be the massive grilles, fake vents or our element of today, headlamps! This trend picked up in India only recently, like very recently with the Tata Harrier. We were teased this setup by Tata, and it stirred quite a lot of excitement. Then we had the Hyundai Venue, and then, recently the MG Hector. Let us see their approaches towards this Idea!
Tata Harrier
The Tata Harrier gets Xenon projectors with halogen fog lights for those mismatched white colour temperatures. The DRL/indicator housing that is sitting where the headlamps would normally be. The fog lamps and the headlamps are closer together comparatively, and that makes the black housing look big. Another thing to note are the hexagons. The headlamp surrounds are hexagons, the mirrors are hexagons and some interior bits of the car are also hexagons.
While the DRLs may look small when compared to the headlamp housing, that effect is mainly observed only in pictures, at least for me. In person, the DRLs are situated a bit backward and the entire frontal design adds up to provide a unique menacing look overall.
MG Hector
The MG Hector one-ups the Harrier with this setup. I say this because the DRL/indicator assembly that, for one, looks a bit bigger, and gets Audi-esqe sequential indicators that I first remember seeing in the Renault Captur in this segment.
Apart from that, this headlamp version is pretty similar to the Harrier, except for the fact that with the MG, it’s all right angles, even with the projectors themselves. The entire front fascia is more squared off and box-shaped than the Harrier, which itself has a hexagon theme going. The fog lights are spaced a bit more than the Tata and the entire assembly is a bit lower to the ground.
Hyundai Venue
The Venue comes with halogen projectors and fog lamps. It has the least complicated assembly out of the lot I’m covering today. The headlamp is surrounded by DRLs. This ring reminds me of the Volkswagen T-Roc. Only that the ring of the T-Roc is not covering a headlamp, it is just a ring. The car being small, has the headlights themselves in a low spot, and the fog lamps pretty much are at the bottom of the bumper.
Up where the convention headlamps would be we have only the indicators, that too bulb style indicators. I feel like Hyundai decided to do this design, and didn’t know what to put up there. You can see that the surround for that bulb is a bit bigger than what’s needed. Nevertheless, it looks different and good overall.
Conclusion
The Nissan Juke was one of the first to come up with this idea internationally in 2010. While it was not the best-done job, it certainly was a new idea that was ahead of its time. Fast forward nearly a decade, and we have several manufacturers picking up on this design now. I don’t think sedans will be a part of this trend, as they are pretty low to the ground anyway.
This trend does not seem to have a concerning shortcoming when compared to the other way of mounting headlamps. One issue I can see is the damage protection. The bumpers are plastic for a reason. They are the first thing a car comes in contact with or ‘bumps’ with. I’m not just talking about crashes here. The front bumper of a car can easily hit several things because it’s so low. And the headlights being a part of this bumper increase their chance of being destroyed comparatively. And nowadays, the latest headlamps are getting increasingly expensive to replace.
But that’s not a glaring issue that’s going to stop this trend from blossoming. It would be exciting to see how other manufacturers go about their headlamp placements on their SUVs.