Back in the late ’80s and early ’90s, German luxury cars reached peak “because we can.” Owners paid extra for wood that came from trees that had personally apologized, seats that massaged your lower back with the solemnity of a Bavarian physiotherapist, and ashtrays engineered to survive a nuclear exchange. Everything had seventeen moving parts where three would have done. It was glorious. It was insane. It was the era when “built like a tank” still sounded like a compliment.
And then, just when you thought they couldn’t possibly add any more drama to the front of a car that already looked like a disappointed bank manager, some Stuttgart genius invented light wipers.
Yes, actual tiny windshield wipers for your headlights. Because apparently headlights, like the rest of the car, deserved a full spa day while doing 140 mph through a rainstorm. Flip the stalk and two little rubber arms would leap into action, frantically squeegeeing your lamps with the desperate energy of a man trying to wipe lipstick off his collar before his wife notices. Sometimes they even squirted washer fluid, because nothing says “I have arrived” like your Mercedes aggressively spitting at its own face.
The result? A feature that worked perfectly twice, then spent the next decade either frozen at a sarcastic angle, smearing bugs into abstract art, or simply refusing to retract so your proud W140 looked permanently surprised. By 1998 everyone quietly agreed to never speak of it again.
Today, finding a set that still functions is like discovering a working fax machine in the wild. We laugh, we point, we take photos, but deep down we miss that beautiful, ridiculous time when cars had solutions looking for problems, and Germany was happy to oblige.
And let's not just blame the Germans. The Swedes and others can't WIPE AWAY their past either.
Did YOU ever own a car that had them?
Discuss!