The Latest Car Design Trends
You must have seen them by now, cars with a series of small L.E.Ds that boarder the outline of their headlights. If you haven’t a clue what I’m rambling on about next time you’re out and about on the roads have a glance in your rear facing mirror and you will no doubt at some point spot a car with a strip of light within the main head-light unit that is considerably brighter than the rest of the light being emitted. These have been branded L.E.D eye brows because, clearly they consist of a thin row of Light Emitting Diodes and they look like eyebrows often sitting above the main headlight. The reason for manufacturers using these? The cut CO2 emissions and just look damn cool!
The manufacturer that started this trend was Audi, the German marquee that has experienced real success in the past ten years, managing to elevate its brand image from that of a lowly substandard family car peddler to a genuine premium brand. As with any new feature that makes its way onto road cars like built in Garmin Sat Nav devices and parking sensors, the L.E.D eye brow was being sported on concept models five years ago, the first production model to feature them however was the Audi R8, the four rings flagship supercar that competes with Ferraris and Porsches, certainly cars that require car security.
From here the eyebrows began to feature on almost all of the Audi range, from the new A1 right the way up to the A6 exec mobile. They give the cars a touch of flair and make them stand out from a crowd, as well as letting lane hoggers know that they are in the way! As they saying goes ‘imitation is the sincerest form of flattery’ and this certainly applies with the eyebrows, rival brands were quick to recognise the healthy response to the eyebrows and started using them on their own models. Citroen for example has utilized the technology on its new DS3, but used them in place of the fog lights, presumably so as not to appear to imitate and flatter Audi!