Heckblende

Heckblende (pronounced hek-blend or hek-blend-ah (German)

A moulded piece of reflective plastic permanently mounted between a car’s taillight (also as tail light, tail-light, taillamp, tail lamp & tail lamp) assemblies and designed to make them appear a contiguous entity

1980s: A German compound noun, the construct being Heck (rear; back) + Blende (cover).  As a surname, Heck (most common in southern Germany and the Rhineland) came from the Middle High German hecke or hegge (hedge), the origin probably as a topographic name for someone who lived near a hedge.  The link with hedges as a means of dividing properties led in the Middle Low German to heck meaning “wooden fencing” under the influence of the Old Saxon hekki, from the Proto-West Germanic hakkju.  In nautical slang "heck" came to refer to the “back of a ship” because the position of the helmsman in the stern was enclosed by such a fence and from here it evolved in modern German generally to refer to "back or rear".  The Modern German Blende was from blenden (deceive), from the Middle High German blenden, from the Old High German blenten, from the Proto-Germanic blandijaną, from the primitive Indo-European blend- and was cognate with the Dutch blenden and the Old English blendan.  Because all German nouns are capitalized, Heckblende is correct but in English, heckblende is the usual spelling.

The German blende translates as “cover” so the construct Heck + Blende (one of their shorter compounds) happily deconstructs as “back cover” and that obviously describes the plastic mouldings used to cover the space between a car’s left and right-side taillights.  Blenden however can (as a transitive or intransitive) translate as (1) “to dazzle; to blind” in the sense of confuse someone’s sight by means of excessive brightness”, (2) (figuratively and usually as an intransitive) to show off; to pose (try to make an impression on someone by behaving affectedly or overstating one’s achievements) and (3) “to dazzle” in the sense of deception (from the 1680s German Blende (an ore of zinc and other metals, a back-formation from blenden (in the sense of "to blind, to deceive") and so called because the substance resembles lead but yields none (but should not be confused with the English construct hornblende (using the English “blende” in the sense of “mix”) (a dark-green to black mineral of the amphibole group, calcium magnesium iron and hydroxyl aluminosilicate)).  A heckblende thus (1) literally is a cover and (2) is there to deceive a viewer by purporting to be part of the rear lighting rather than something merely decorative (sic).  If a similar looking assembly is illuminated and thus part of the lighting system, then it's not a heckblende but part of a full-width taillight. 

1934 Auburn Boat-tail Speedster.

On cars, the design of taillights stated modestly and few were in use before 1914, often a small, oil-lit single lens the only fitting.  Electric lights were by the 1920s standardized (although the oil lamps lingered on some commercial vehicles into the next decade) while early legislation passed in many jurisdictions specified the need for red illumination to the rear (later also to indicate braking) but about the only detail specified was a minimum luminosity, shape, size and placement left to manufacturers.  Before the late 1940s, most taillights were purely functional with little attempt to make them design motifs although during the art deco era, there were some notably elegant flourishes but despite that, they remained generally an afterthought and on lower priced models, a second taillight was sometimes optional, the standard of a left and right-side unit not universal (in the West) until the 1950s.

A tale of the tails of two post-war economies:  1959 MGA Twin-Cam FHC & 1959 Daimler Majestic (upper) and 1959 Chevrolet Impala (batwing) flattop & 1959 DeSoto Adventurer convertible (lower).

It was in the 1950s the shape of tail lights became increasingly stylized.  With modern plastics freeing designers from the constraints the use of glass had imposed and the experience gained during World War II (1939-1945) in the mass-production of molded Perspex, new possibilities were explored.  In the UK and Europe, there was little extravagance, manufacturers content usually to take advantage of new materials and techniques mostly to fashion what were little more than larger, more rounded versions of what had gone before, the amber lens being adopted as turn indicators to replace the mechanically operated semaphore signals often little more than a duplication of the red taillight or an unimaginatively styled appendage.

1961 Chrysler Turboflite show car (left), 1966 Dodge Hemi Charger (centre) and 2024 Dodge Charger (right).

Across the Atlantic, US designers were more ambitious but one idea which for a while was flirted with without being used was the full-width taillight and that must have been by choice because it would have presented no challenges in engineering.  Instead, as the jet age became the space age, the dominant themes were aeronautical or recalled the mechanism of rocketry, taillights styled to resemble the exhausts of jet-engines or space ships, the inspiration as often from SF (science fiction or Sci-Fi) as the runway.  Pursuing that theme, much of the industry succumbed to the famous fin fetish, the tails of their macropterous creations emphasizing the vertical more than the horizontal.  Surprisingly though, despite having produced literally dozens of one-off “concept” and “dream” cars over the decade, it seems it wasn’t until 1961 when Chrysler sent their Turboflite around the show circuit that something with a genuine full-width taillight was shown.  A version appeared on the first Dodge Charger (1966-1967) and the corporation revived the look for the eighth generation (LB) Charger introduced in 2024 but the plastic fitting didn't attract much comment because most of the attention focused on the lack of a V8 engine.

1936 Tatra T87 (left), 1961 Tatra T603A prototype (centre) & 1963 Tatra T-603-X5 (right).  For students of art deco, the early Tatras have much appeal.

That same year, in Czechoslovakia, the Warsaw Pact’s improbable Bohemian home of the avant-garde, Tatra’s engineers considered full-width taillights for their revised 603A.  As indicated by the specification used since before the war (rear-engined with an air-cooled, 2.5 litre (155 cubic inch) all-aluminum V8), Tatra paid little attention to overseas trends and were influenced more by dynamometers and wind tunnels.  However, the taillights didn’t make it to volume production although the 603A prototype did survive to be displayed in Tatra’s Prague museum.  Tatra’s designs, monuments to mid-century modernism, remain intriguing.

1967 Imperial LeBaron four door Hardtop.

If the idea didn’t impress behind the iron curtain, it certainly caught on in the West, full-width assemblies used by many US manufacturers over the decades including Mercury, Imperial, Dodge, Shelby, Ford, Chrysler & Lincoln.  Some genuinely were full-width taillights in that the entire panel was illumined, a few from the Ford Motor Corporation (FoMoCo) even with the novelty of sequential turn-signals (outlawed in the early 1970s, bureaucrats seemingly always on the search for something to ban).  Most however were what would come to be called heckblendes and were intended to created only an illusion.

Some of FoMoCo's takes on the idea: Clockwise from top left: 1974 ZG Fairlane (AU), 1977 Thunderbird (US), 1966 Zodiac Mark IV (UK), 1970 Thunderbird (US), 1973 Landau (AU) & 1970 Torino (US).

Whether heckblendes or actually wired assemblies, Ford became especially fond of the idea which in 1966 made an Atlantic crossing, appearing on the Mark IV Zodiac, a car packed with advanced ideas but so badly executed it tarnished the name and when it (and the lower-priced Zephyr which made do without the heckblende) was replaced, the Zephyr & Zodiac names were banished from Europe, never to return.  Ford Australia picked-up the style (and typically several years later), using heckblendes on the ZF & ZG Fairlanes (1972-1976) and the P5 LTD & Landau (1973-1976).  The Fairlane’s heckblendes weren’t reprised when the restyled ZH (1976-1979) model was released but, presumably having spent so much of the budget on new taillights, the problem of needing new front end styling was solved simply by adapting that of the 1968 Mercury Marquis (the Marquis name also shamelessly borrowed for the up-market version), colonies often littered with hand-me-downs.

For the mainstream HK (1968-1969) range, Holden used the taillight assemblies to denote a model's place in the hierarchy: The basic Belmont (top left), the better equipped Kingswood (top right), the blinged-up Premier (bottom left) and the sporty Monaro GTS (bottom right).  By their heckblende (or its absence), they shall be known.  It's not believed Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021 and since 2025) modelled the fall of his tie on the HK Premier but it's not impossible one may have sent him a subliminal message.

In Australia, the local outpost of General Motors (GM) applied a double fake.  The "heckblende" on the HK Holdens (1968-1969), as a piece of cost-cutting, was actually red-painted metal rather than reflective plastic and unfortunately prone to deterioration under the southern hemisphere's harsh sun; it was a fake version of a fake taillight.  Cleverly though, the fake apparatus was used as a marker of the model's place in the pecking order, the Belmont (intended for fleet sales and the economy-minded) with just taillights, the (slightly) better-appointed Kingswood (the mainstream "entry-level" model) granted heckblendesque extensions, the up-market Premier (for the aspirational middle class) with extended extensions and the Monaro GTS (a coupé which, off the showroom floor, curiously could be configured from "taxi-cab" specifications being almost race-track ready) fitted with a full-width part.  Probably the Belmont and Premier were ascetically most successful.  Exactly the same idea was recycled for Holden's VH Commodore (1981-1984), the SL/E (effectively the Premier's replacement) version's taillight assemblies gaining stubby extensions which, unfortunately, looked as "tacked-on" as they were.

Holdens: 1967 HR Premier (left), 1969 HT Brougham (centre) & 1971 HQ Premier (right).

The idea of a full-width decorative panel wasn’t new, Holden having used such a fitting as a signifier of "more expensive" on earlier Premiers.  Known as the “boot appliqué strip”, it began small on the EJ (1962-1963), EH (1963-1965) & HD (1965-1966) before becoming large and garish on the HR (1966-1968) but although not then known as bling, that must have been thought a bit much because it was toned down and halved in height when applied to the elongated (the trunk (boot) rather than the wheelbase!) and tarted-up Brougham (1968-1971 and a model reflecting what the industry then thought appealed to the bourgeoisie) and barely perceptible when used on the HQ Premier (1971-1974).  Holden didn’t however forget the heckblende and a quite large slab appeared on the VT Commodore (1997-2000) although it wasn’t retained on the revised VX (2000-2002) but whether in this the substantial rise in the oil price (and thus the cost of plastic) was a factor isn’t known.

Germans, factory and not: 1973 Porsche 914 2.0 (left), 1983 BMW 323i (E30, centre) & 1988 Mercedes-Benz 300E (W124, right).

Although, beginning with the mid-engined 914 (1969-1976) in 1973, Porsche was an early European adopter of the heckblende (since used with some frequently), it was the 1980s which were the halcyon days of after-market plastic, owners of smaller BMWs and Mercedes-Benz seemingly the most easily tempted.  The additions were always unnecessary and the only useful way they can be catalogued is to say some were worse than others.  Predictably, the fad spread to the East (Near, Middle & Far) and results there were just as ghastly although the popularity of the things must have been helpful as a form of economic stimulus, such was the volume in which they were extruded; reputedly, one factory in Pakistan had to expand to meet demand.  Among males aged 17-39, few things have proved as enduringly infectious as a love of gluing or bolting to cars, pieces of plastic which convey their owner's appalling taste. 

2019 Mercedes-Benz EQC 400 with taillight bar.

After the 1980s, fewer manufacturers used heckblendes as original equipment and when they did the terminology varied, the nomenclature including "decor panels", "valances" or "tail section appliqués".  However, although it seemed the heckblende may have been headed for extinction, full-width taillights still entice stylists and modern techniques of design and production, combined with what LEDs (light-emitting diodes) & OLEDs (Organic Light Emitting Diode) have made possible, mean it’s again a popular feature, the preferred term now “taillight bar”.  Hopefully, the moment for resuscitated fad will be brief.

Lindsay Lohan with 2009 Porsche 911 (997; second phase) Carrera Cabriolet (left) and 2009 Porsche 911 (997; second phase) Carrera 4S Cabriolet (right).

After-market heckblendes appeal to a certain sub-section of the population but tend to be abhorred by the serious-minded.  However, even when fitted by the factory, factions form.  There are (1) the originality police who maintain if it was done by the factory, whatever the aesthetics, that’s the end of the matter, (2) those who detest the things on the basis of “too much plastic” and (3) the heckblende fan boys who just want the molding changed a bit.  Depending on the model, the Porsche 997 (2004-2013) was produced heckbelended and not and so specific are the requirements of some in the 911 cult (they prefer “911 community”) the feature (or its absence) might have been decisive when making a purchase.

Porsche 996 Carrera 4S (left), Porsche 997 Carrera 4S (centre) and Porsche 997 Carrera 4S with reddited taillights and heckblende (light bar).

As an example of the feeling, one redditor heckblende fan-boy thought the 997’s implementation lacked the visual integrity of that which appeared on the 996 (1997-2006 and the model which gained infamy for (1) “poached egg” headlights and (2) the fragile RMS (rear main seal) and IMS (intermediate shaft) bearing).  Accordingly, redditor took to photoshop and “raised the bar (height)”, rendering an aspect ratio closer to that of the 996 while changing the taillight shape so the inner lower corner was a true 90^o angle.  The reddited re-imagining of course divided opinion and it unlikely there was much shifting in factional alignment.