Words & Photos: John Gunnell
Back in the middle ‘60s the J.C. Whitney Catalog was the bible of many young car enthusiasts who dreamed of making their rides look like the hot rods and kustom cars they saw in magazines. Many of these enthusiasts were not capable of chopping a top or extending a fin-less fender into a tailfin, but bolting light pieces of shiny metal to headlights was something everyone could do.
These “chrome thingies” came in various styles. There were shields that covered the top half of the headlight lens. To install them, you simply backed out a few tiny screws to remove the chrome rings that circled the headlight lens. For some reason these rings were called “headlight doors.” The metal shield had a lip that the ring would contact to hold the shield in place. After you re-inserted the tiny screws and tightened them up, you simply rotated the shield into position.
Another chrome accessory for headlights was a “chrome visor” that attached in much the same way. Some accessory suppliers called them “eyelids” or “eyebrows” even though they were really neither of these. There were various shapes and sizes of visors. Some contained red, blue or amber “jewels” that reflected light. Like the shields, these visors cost only a few dollars.
Photo 1 in the gallery shows a stock 1954 Chevy headlight door. It has a little skeg at the side that lines up with the sculpted fender feature line, but there is no real visor. Photo 2 shows an accessory visor that was designed to fit the stock ring. It increases the chrome highlights on the car and has a real custom look. Sometimes it doesn’t take a whole lot of work or money to make a car look cool.
Photo 3 illustrates a typical headlight shield on a “Shoebox Ford.” This one covers a little less than half the headlight lens. For all we know, that might have been a requirement to meet lighting regulations in some states at the time. If you’re thinking your Kustom would look cool with this accessory, you’ll want to check minimum vehicle equipment rules, which vary a bit from state to state.
In photo 4 we see a Chevy with the kind of headlight visor mentioned above, along with a “T” or “Y” (depending on your perspective) shaped chrome decoration that has a kind of “mini shield” at the top. If this is a vintage design, it may be an attempt to make a single headlight look like the dual headlights that were starting to hit the market around 1957 and 1958 (they could not be nationwide in 1957 because some states had not changed their lighting laws yet).
Photo 5 shows a very large visor on a Chevy from the late 1930s. This one has a sexy curvature to the lid and looks like it might actually deflect a light beam downwards. You can see that it has a clot to install the screws through, to keep it from rotating into the wrong position.
Photo 6 shows how the front end of an early postwar Chevrolet looks with visors installed over both headlights. This design is kind of “mid sized” between the 1930s style and the 1950s style seen on the mid-1950s Pontiac in Photo 7. Photo 8 shows another slim 1950s style design dressed up with a jewel.
All of these accessories are easy to find on the Internet. Just type “headlight visor,” “headlight eyelid,” “headlight shield,” or “headlight cover” into a search engine and many options will pop up. They are available for motorcycles, cars, trucks, and semis. It's important to order the correct size, based on the diameter of your headlight lens. And don’t expect to pay just a few bucks. These days typical prices are in the $20 to $25 per pair range, plus shipping of course.