You what I don’t understand at all? I mean, other than every human language other than English and the continued existence of circus peanuts? I don’t understand why cars with illuminated badges weren’t a bigger deal here in America. America is the birthplace of the gaudy, illuminated advertising sign, the birthplace of Las Vegas, home to more illuminated signage than anywhere else in the known universe, and a land that welcomes showy, bold displays of branding. So why have our cars been so tepid about lighting up their badges? Well, not all of them have, so let’s look at the small set of American cars that actually did take the effort to make their badges shine.

Before we talk about American illuminated-badge efforts, we pretty much have to talk about the one marque that has become synonymous with the idea: Wolseley, of Britain. Wolseley had been putting little light bulbs inside of their badges since 1932, and continued to do so until the marque, which had been a badge-engineered Morris brand since the 1950s or so, shut down in 1975.

Wolseleys were used as cop cars in the UK in the ’50s and ’60s, so I bet that glowing badge was a dead giveaway that a cop might be behind you. In that sense, these badges may have done a great service to motorists all over Britain. Also, knowing that these cars tended to have Lucas electrical systems, I wonder how many times a Wolseley driver has attempted to drive home in the dark with only that night-light-level badge light?

I suppose it’s fun to imagine the life of a Briton stuck out on a wet 1960s night with no working headlights, but we have a job to to here, and that’s consider, meaningfully, what American cars had illuminated badges. I think the first real exploration of this concept wasn’t exactly a badge, but illuminated hood ornaments, like what Pontiac liked to use in the late 1940s and early 1950s:

Objectively, these are kind of odd things, these illuminated Pontiac hood ornaments. The illuminated bit is almost always an amber plastic representation of the head of the Odawa (Ottowa) Native American tribe’s chief, Pontiac. Chief Pontiac started a rebellion against the British after the French and Indian war, which included an attempted surprise attack on Fort Detroit. He was a noble figure, which may be why it’s sort of odd to see his orange head grafted onto the bodies of what look like art deco aircraft.

Maybe the first actual illuminated badge-badge would be the 1965 Chrysler 300L, which had a red-white-and-blue round emblem front and center on the grille, and it lit up with a little bulb behind it:

(image from American Torque)

The connotations of the letter “L” may today may make this undesirable, but I don’t think that’s an adequate explanation for why illuminated badges were so infrequent for the next roughly two decades.

Well, actually, it’s not that simple. Should we only consider front-end badges for this? That’s how I normally think of illuminated badges, in the context of grille or hood badges, but if we want to count other lighting, we have to go back to Pontiac, who used badge-shaped rear side marker lamps for the Firebird in 1968 and 1969:

And, if we go back up front, what do we think of illuminated badges that aren’t for the carmaker themselves, but rather specific to the model of car? In that case, the 1977 Oldsmobile Toronado boasted two illuminated front end grille badges:

These seem like they could be sidelights or position lights, but that job is being done, in a style typical of the time and place, by the indicator/parking lamps. So, these really are just decorative lights.

Things calmed down again in the illuminated badge world until 1986, when the Mercury Sable decided to illuminate the whole front end of the car with a bold bar of glorious light; initially this bar did not incorporate the logo which was on an un-illuminated panel in the middle, but by 1989 lights were behind the badge and into the early 1990s, Mercury applied this bar of light to multiple models across the range, from Tracer to Nautica.

My question here is does an un-illuminated badge set upon an illuminated bar constitute an illuminated badge? I’m not so sure it does. I think to actually qualify, a badge needs to be illuminated from within, as we all are with the all-encompassing love of automobiles. Mercury eventually did manage to find the True Path, and by 1997 the now-redesigned Mercury Sable boasted a true illuminated grille badge:

Man, I’m not sure I’ve ever actually seen one of these lit up, somehow! And yet if you look at the part, you can see the plug right there for the wires that carry the life-giving 12V that set aglow a little light bulb in that badge.

Currently, we’re in a renaissance of illuminated car badges. Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, Hummer, and other carmakers are getting into it as well. What was once rare and obscure may soon be on its way to becoming commonplace.

While I revel in any attempt for a carmaker to have some fun with lighting, I will miss the challenge of identifying a car simply by its headlamp signature on a dark or even foggy night; an illuminated badge would just make it all too easy.

Still, I suppose it’s about damn time.

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