Light Entertainment: Answers To the Matching Taillight Challenge
Last week, we showed you four different vehicles, each with strikingly similar taillamps. So began the Taillamp Identification Challenge. (Un)fortunately, Flybrian was around, and came up with the correct answers just 10 minutes after the post went live.
So, the challenge was short lived, and all props go to Flybrian’s keen taillamp eye. It’s almost like he knows cars, or is a car dealer perhaps. Time for the official results.
1. Lincoln MKS
The first-generation MKS, which replaced the Town Car as Lincoln’s full-size sedan, showed up in 2009 with this familiar taillamp design.
A facelift for 2013 changed the rear lenses, making them sweeping and decidedly less upright.
2. Kia Rio 5
The Kia Rio5 (that means hatchback) is our second challenge lamp.
Between 2005 (2006 for North America) and 2009 the Rio5 sported this un-unique look, while a facelift in 2010 smoked the rear lenses and revised some of the detailing. The shape of the lens remained the same in what would be this generation’s final year.
3. Maserati Quattroporte
New for 2004, the Maserati Quattroporte sported modern, aerodynamic styling not found on Quattroporte models of yore.
Could this vehicle be the genesis of the suddenly popular lamp style? You be the judge. One more vehicle awaits.
4. Kia Amanti
The Kia Amanti was also available in 2004.
The Amanti was the top sedan offering from Kia, a premium model that soldiered on through 2009 in North America. Kia had no replacement for the Amanti on our shores until 2014, with the debut of the Cadenza.
There you have it. Four different cars from three different countries of origin, sharing a design element like it’s a bowl of chips.
[Images: Ford Motor Company, Kia Motors, Maserati]
Interested in lots of cars and their various historical contexts. Started writing articles for TTAC in late 2016, when my first posts were QOTDs. From there I started a few new series like Rare Rides, Buy/Drive/Burn, Abandoned History, and most recently Rare Rides Icons. Operating from a home base in Cincinnati, Ohio, a relative auto journalist dead zone. Many of my articles are prompted by something I'll see on social media that sparks my interest and causes me to research. Finding articles and information from the early days of the internet and beyond that covers the little details lost to time: trim packages, color and wheel choices, interior fabrics. Beyond those, I'm fascinated by automotive industry experiments, both failures and successes. Lately I've taken an interest in AI, and generating "what if" type images for car models long dead. Reincarnating a modern Toyota Paseo, Lincoln Mark IX, or Isuzu Trooper through a text prompt is fun. Fun to post them on Twitter too, and watch people overreact. To that end, the social media I use most is Twitter, @CoreyLewis86. I also contribute pieces for Forbes Wheels and Forbes Home.
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Today I saw a Hyundai cuv with amber turn signals on the bottom of the tail lights - it was oddly disconcerting.
Note: the Amanti's taillights were actually horizontal (and reminded me of a Fox-Body Cougar) until about 2007.