"charles" wrote in message
...
Older cars (eg 1950s Ford Zephyrs, and very early pre-Aeroflow 1962 Ford
Cortinas) had flashing white indicators at the front, but I'm not sure
about the indicators at the back.

They should have had amber bulbs - my Cortina did from new.

So it looks as if new cars got them from the early 60s. I'm not sure when
flashing white/red on older cars actually became illegal and needed
modification to amber.

My impression is that whenever I saw a car with white flashing lights, it
was an old one with white indicator glass. Maybe this is because the amber
coating had worn off the bulb (which it does very quickly) or the bulb has
been replaced with a standard white one when the original amber one blew.

I keep a bit of orange sweet wrapper in with my spare bulbs to convert a
white bulb (or an amber one where all the paint has flaked off) into an
amber one until I can buy a proper amber bulb.

Why do modern car designers think it looks trendy to have clear indicator
plastic (requiring amber bulbs) rather than using amber plastic in the
cluster as they used to? They don't do it for the side/tail lights - those
are always red plastic, not clear plastic that require red bulbs.