J. Chapman

There’s a mid-century design parallel  that I’ve been pondering a lot lately: the connection between the Ford Thunderbird’s sequential turn signals in 1965 and the bridge of the USS Enterprise in 1966.

The Glamorous Thunderbird

The 4th generation Thunderbird was updated in 1965 to better compete with its new, more popular brother, the Mustang.  It had to look more Jet-Age. Exterior changes included a functional hood intake, a fake heat extractor vent on fenders,  and, famously, sequenced taillight turn signals.  Rather than all the bulbs in the taillight housing flashing at once, the light pulses along 3 bulbs from the inside bulb to the outside. This is sort of sweeping turn signal light that’s somewhat common today, but in 1965, it looked like the future.

Ford pulled this off in 1965 though. Tucked away in the trunk behind the rear seat was an elector-mechanical sequencer. When activated, a small electric motor turned, and as the shaft rotated, three lobes  depressed micro switches one by one, sending power first to the inner tail lamp, then the middle, then the outer. Once all three were lit, the circuit reset, giving the illusion of a continuous flowing wave.

It was Space-age yet delightfully mechanical.

Enterprising Design

Just one year later, in September 1966, Star Trek made its television debut. Right under the main viewscreen on the bridge of the USS Enterprise sat a bank of pulsing lights sweeping left in sequence. No one knows what they were for, but it looks dang cool!

TV production shops in the 1960s relied on the same industrial technology Ford used, and TV set design teams had limited budgets. To cycle Spaceship console lights and viewscreen chasers without expensive electronics, prop departments would have used miniature motorized cam timers and rotary stepping switches, often scavenged directly from things like automotive flasher relays or pinball mechanisms.

While the Enterprise Bridge set likely used off-the-shelf industrial timing motors rather than a literal Ford parts, the core technology was identical to trip individual light circuits in order.

Did the 65 Thunderbird directly inspire this now iconic sci-fi look? The lights are not there in the 1964 Pilot, but are there in 1966.

This effect and similar ones are now used on just about every fictional spaceship, including all the eventual Star Trek squeals/spin-offs.

This is a Site About Cars

Back in the real world, Ford knew they had a hit with the sequential light effect. Eventually they brought the system to the 1967 Mercury Cougar and the 1968 Shelby GT350/GT500 (which borrowed its rear lights directly from the ’65 Thunderbird). Mustangs reference it today with their rear turn signals flashing in a similar pattern. The feature returned in

Solid-state transistors and other electronics eventually replaced spinning motors for electronic timing. But there’s still a charm to knowing that both a Mad Men era Thunderbird making a right turn and a 23rd-century starship cruising at Warp rely on tiny, silly, rotating motors knocking into little switches.