Question of the Week: What Car Wore Quad Headlamps top?—WINNER’S UPDATE

WINNER’S ANNOUNCEMENT:

We’re back to announce the winner for our Question of the Week, where our victor will accept a $25 credit for a hat or T-shirt from the BaT Gear Store and the acclaim of their peers.

Our question this week was: What car wore quad headlamps best?

This week’s discussion was full of variety, as over 130 unique nominations were thrown into the ring—kudos to all of you!

After taking a long hard look at all of your four-eyed picks, the most-mentioned nominee is this week’s winner. The first-generation Pontiac GTO, specifically the stacked headlight cars of 1965-67, won the popular vote. BaT member @SingleClutch was the first to nominate it:

The vertically stacked headlamps on the 1965-’67 cars are what we picture when someone mentions the first generation GTOs, and this week, it’s certainly the GOAT. Congratulations, SingleClutch! Be sure to check your email to claim the prize. 

Now, let’s take a look at some other popular nominations from this week’s discussion thread, starting off with a comment from storyteller extraordinaire @CaptainMyCaptain:

The first time a 1958 Continental Mark III rolled into town, it didn’t look wrong so much as it looked like it had decided the rules were optional. Folks stood there squinting into the West Texas sun, trying to line the headlights up in their minds the way Detroit had trained them to do for decades. And that’s when it hit them: the headlights weren’t stacked. They weren’t horizontal either. They were canted. Tilted inward. Diagonal. Like they’d leaned into the wind and decided to stay there.

Like a salmon swimming against the tide.

That angle is what separates the Continental from everything that came before it. Other cars adopted quad headlights in ’58 like kids copying homework—four circles, evenly spaced, polite as church pews. Lincoln took the same parts and rotated the entire idea about ten degrees off plumb, then wrapped it in sculpted housings that look more like aerospace nacelles than fenders. It wasn’t a styling flourish. It was a declaration.

Rusty Hammer was the first to put words to it, which he did after staring at the front end for a full minute longer than necessary.
“They ain’t crooked,” he finally said. “They’re aimed.”

And he’s right. Those canted headlights don’t just sit there—they lean forward, subtly converging toward the centerline like the car is already in motion even while parked. They suggest momentum. Intent. A refusal to meet the road head-on the same way as everyone else. Parked nose-to-nose with a Cadillac or a Buick, the Continental looks like it’s already begun the argument.

Lucinda, who has no patience for bad design and even less for men who can’t commit, noticed the emotional effect immediately.
“They look like they’re watching you,” she said. “Not both eyes the same way. One’s a little ahead of the other. Like someone who’s already figured you out.”

That diagonal stack does something clever: it breaks symmetry just enough to make the car feel alive. Perfect vertical alignment would’ve made it formal, even stiff. Horizontal spacing would’ve made it grin. The cant gives it tension—visual torque—like a clenched jaw under a calm expression. No other American car before it had dared to do that with headlights. European marques toyed with asymmetry; Lincoln weaponized it.

Chad, acting manager of the Piggly Wiggly who prefers things squared up, balanced, and signed in triplicate, once muttered that the Continental’s face made him uneasy.
“Looks like it’s leaning into traffic,” he said.
Exactly. It doesn’t wait for permission.

Pastor Peterson, who trusts nothing unless it looks like it could survive the apocalypse, gave the final verdict.
“Slanted optics,” he said. “Reduces glare. Improves forward perception. That’s not styling—that’s biblical inspiration.”

And whether Lincoln intended it or not, the effect holds. Those diagonally stacked headlights slice the night differently. They don’t flatten the road; they carve it. They emphasize the width of the grille, the length of the hood, the seriousness of the machine behind them. Everything flows back from that angle—the chrome, the bumper bullets, the prow-like nose—like the entire car was designed after the headlights had already made their decision.

In Fort Stockton, where people respect anyone willing to go against the grain and make it work, that kind of confidence matters. The 1958 Continental Mark III didn’t just adopt quad headlights—it rethought how they should behave, how they should stand. Or rather, how they should lean.

Best headlights ever produced?

Around here, nobody argues that.
 They just tilt their head slightly, the way the car does, and nod.

The ’67 Shelby GT500, featuring its inboard headlights, was another popular choice, and we can see why. 

The 1965 Riviera was another nomination that wasn’t slept on this week.

We say yes!

@TheRealGuitardave writes:

Some good choices, everybody. There’s really only one for me.

The 1962 Dodge Polara 500. One year only. The absolute trifecta of early sixties, “how the he** did that get past the bean-counters?” styling.

…and please, remember the formula folks…

Weird x extreme hatred x extreme love + time= BEAUTY!!!!

And no, it’s not because I owned one for a while, and would just sit and look at it, wondering how it ever got made….OK…yeah, it is.

That poor car wasn’t worth the trouble to sort. The unit body (2-door HT) was fully (but just a little) tweaked due to having been drag raced with a 413 wedge w/o frame connectors or a cage. Still, one of the all-time pinnacles of American metal forming genius.

Two great picks, RedSi86! 

We certainly wish we could feature them all, but in the interest of time, we’ll stop it here! Thanks to everyone who participated, and congratulations once again to our winner, SingleClutch. We’ll be back with a new question soon.

ORIGINAL POST:

We’re back with our first Question of the Week of 2026! Comment on this post, and you’ll be automatically entered to win BaT merchandise. Our favorite answer each week gets a $25 hat or t-shirt from the BaT Gear Store.

This week, we’re asking: What car wore quad headlamps best?

Being labeled “four-eyes” may be a grade-school insult, but this week, it’s a good thing—we’re celebrating our many four-lighted friends in the world of automobiles. But first, a bit of history: by 1957, headlight technology and state laws were changing; just two years later, four-lamp production cars were prolific on US roads, with the trend soon spread around the world.

In our world of sleek LED shards, the idea of four separate headlights on cars is an oddity, but it was a popular design choice for decades, and helped to define the look of many of our favorite vehicles.

Now it’s time for you to weigh in:

What car wore quad headlamps best?

Nominate your favorites in the comments, and give a thumbs-up to any other nominations you deem worthy. We’ll announce the winner on Monday.