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Did You Know?
Guide from Beginning to End
Guide was the brainchild of three Wisconsin men: Hugh Monson, William Persons and William Bruce, who began making lamps for vehicles at a place called Badger Brass Company in 1906 in Kenosha, Wisconsin. At some point they moved their operation to Cleveland and called it the Guide Motor Lamp Manufacturing Company. In 1928 it became part of the Delco Remy Division of General Motors, having moved to twice again, first to Muncie, Indiana then to Anderson, Indiana, whose plant is pictured here. In 1929 it became Guide Lamp Division of General Motors. The Cleveland plant was closed in 1930, but in 1936 another was acquired in Syracuse, New York to make lamps, bumper guards and hubcaps. That plant became its own GM division in 1942.
Throughout the 1930s Guide was kept busy making headlights and taillights for Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick, and Cadillac, then during World War II, it churned out weapons, shell casings and aircraft nose cones. In 1947, it pioneered the manufacture of plastic tail light lenses, getting off to a rocky start when the red color, which looked great on the factory floor, soon bleached out on the road.
The division was at its peak in the 1960s and 70s when GM controlled 40 percent of the US auto market and its greatest challenge was keeping up with yearly model changes. In the 1960s it tried to get into carpet making but was blocked by GM brass, supposedly because the wife of one executive got her heels stuck in the carpet of her Corvette. But things were booming again in 1974, when it opened a plant in Monroe, Louisiana. In 1975 the name was shortened to Guide Division of General Motors.
In the 1980s foreign competition worsened. Guide and Fisher Body were consolidated as Fisher Guide in 1985. A series of layoffs hit as GM built up a huge inventory and dealers were afraid car sales would plunge. GM idled 22,000 workers in 1990. In 1992, after yet another name change, Inland Fisher Guide was put on a "troubled parts list" because of financial losses in the previous two years. In 1998 it was spun off as Guide Corporation, though everything it produced continued to go GM.
Losses and layoffs continued under the Delphi banner, and in 2007 the Anderson plant closed, marking the end of Guide production of auto lighting in the United States. --Adapted from an article in the Indiana Economic Digest 10/22/2006. Photo from the Anderson Herald Bulletin 9/18/83.
The Aftermarketers: Who were they? Where are they now?
Dietz dates to 1840, when Robert E. Dietz, a former hardware clerk and volunteer fireman, purchased a lamp and oil business in Brooklyn, New York. He was joined a year later by his brother, William Henry Dietz, and the pair formed the aptly-named Dietz, Brother & Company to manufacture whale oil lamps and chandeliers for homes and businesses. They were soon joined by three more brothers, prompting another name change to Deitz & Company. In 1868, Robert Dietz sold his interest and formed a new company, Dietz & Smith, which in 1869 became R.E. Dietz & Company.
By the 1870s, the R.E. Dietz catalog included 38 pages of lanterns and accessories, plus fruit jar wrenches, jack chains, molasses jugs, "Catchemalive" mouse traps, kerosene fireplaces, and oil stoves. The Dietz “Cold Blast Tubular Driving Lamp” was introduced in 1887, followed by the “Cold Blast Motor Truck Lamp” and the first kerosene automobile lamps in 1896. Over the next decade, acetylene headlights, tail lights, and railroad lanterns were added to the line. In 1897 the factory in New York City was destroyed by fire. To continue operating, the company merged with the Steam Gauge and Lantern Company, thus acquiring that company’s Syracuse plant. The old factory was soon rebuilt, but was closed in 1931 leaving only business offices in New York City.
Successive generations of Dietzes guided the firm through the Depression, World War II and the postwar recovery and recession. Electric emergency lanterns for highway use were added in the late 1950s just as railroad lanterns were dropped. Lantern production shifted from Syracuse to Hong Kong in 1971. In 1990, following years of declining sales, the automotive business was sold to Federal Mogul, which in 2002 sold it to Truck-Lite Company. R.E. Dietz Company Ltd. continues to manufacture kerosene lanterns in Hong Kong and China. –Sourced from “R.E. Dietz History” copyright W.T. Kirkman, courtesy of Lanternnet.com.
Do-Ray and Ser-Do are also owned by Truck-Lite. Do-Ray made Tiger Ey replacement lenses, and Ser-Do was either a supplier to Do-Ray or a successor company. (Ser-Do lenses are often found in Do-Ray boxes.) Both brands are now dormant. Truck-Lite makes lighting and other safety products for trucks and buses under its own name. Headquarters are in Falconer, New York; manufacturing and distribution facilities are in Pennsylvania; other plants are in England and Germany. See Truck-lite.com.
Glo-Brite (Globe Specialty Company, Chicago, Illinois.) was founded in 1949 by Arthur Katz, and continues to make lamps and lenses for light trucks, SUVs, RVs, and heavy trucks at its factory in Chicago. See Glo-Brite.com.
Griffin (Griffin Lamp Company, Hamilton, Ohio), maker of Griffin Ray-Flex lenses, has disappeared without a trace, as have Lynx-Eye and Stadium, whose company names and former whereabouts are unknown. Grote, (now Grote Industries of Madison, Indiana) was founded by William Grote over a hundred years ago and, according to the company website, is still a family-owned business making lighting and accessories for heavy trucks and buses. Factories are in Canada and Mexico. See Grote.com.
K-D (K-D Lamp Co., Cincinnati, Ohio), maker of KD Tri-Flex lenses, is listed in an online business directory as a manufacturer of OEM lighting, mirrors and safety equipment, but its web address is inactive. Another listing shows it as an automotive parts wholesaler.
Stimsonite (Stimsonite Corp., Niles, Illinois) made mostly OEM lenses rather than aftermarket, but also made reflective highway safety products, which were the focus of its business in 1999, when office supply-maker Avery-Dennison acquired it.
Yankee (Yankee Metal Products, Norwalk, Connecticut) made Yankee Reflex replacement lenses and accessory lighting for cars and trucks. As recently as the 1980s, it made OEM lamps for Harley-Davidson. It's now defunct.
DPCD and the Pentastar  The letters in Chrysler’s intertwined DPCD logo, adopted in the 1930s, originally stood for Dodge-Plymouth-Chrysler-DeSoto, but when DeSoto was dropped (in 1961) the second D was left without a raison d’tre. Some apologists, either in or out of the Corporation (this has never been established), suggested that the second D now stood for Dodge trucks, which was a convenient thing to say except that trucks had been part of the lineup all along, so if it were true there should have been three Ds to start with.
Chrysler never offered an official explanation, nor did it say why a letter wasn’t added for Imperial when it became a separate make in 1955. The issue was mooted in 1962, when the famous Pentastar was introduced, though the old logo remained on lenses until at least 1965. The new logo is usually accompanied by the letters CC, which obviously stand for Chrysler Corporation.
To the best of my knowledge, no one has ever explained, or even asked, what the the five points of the Pentastar mean. Perhaps they stand for the four surviving brands (Plymouth, Dodge, Chrysler, and Imperial) plus Dodge trucks, which can be included because there are no messy initials to worry about. But today the lineup is down to three (Dodge, Chrysler and Jeep) plus trucks, so there are now at least one, or perhaps two, extra points on the star, depending on who’s counting.
Early Turn Signal Patent
 Percy Seymour Douglas-Hamilton of England invented this "Device for Indicating the Intended Movements of Vehicles," possibly the first system of electric turn signal lights patented in the United States. The application was filed Dec. 31, 1907, and the patent was granted Feb. 16, 1909. So that other drivers would understand the meaning, the lights were in the shape of hands to mimic the hand signals in common use at the time. --Found on the Web.
News flash! Hand signals were in common use through the 1950s and early 60s, when electric light signals at last became standard equipment on new cars.
Sequential Turn Signals
 Sequential turn signals were factory fitted to 1965-71 Ford Thunderbirds, 1967-73 Mercury Cougars, 1968-70 Shelby Mustangs, and to 1969 Imperials. No other production cars were so equipped, presumably due to cost and complexity.
Two different systems were employed. The earlier, fitted to 1965-68 Ford-built cars, was electro-mechanical, featuring an electric motor driving, through reduction gearing, a set of three slow-turning cams. The cams would actuate switches to turn on the lights in sequence so long as the turn signal switch was set. This system was prone to failure, and therefore non-functional in many surviving cars.
Later Ford products and the Imperial used a transistorized control module with no moving parts, which was much more reliable.
Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 108, which regulates automotive lighting, has since been amended to require that all turn signal lamps operate in synchronized phase, effectively prohibiting sequential turn signals. But the standards do not apply to vehicles in use, and extension of the prohibition to such vehicles is left to each state (or Canadian province). --Adapted from Wikipedia, the free online encylopedia.
I’m skeptical about these being prohibited. Several websites sell retrofit kits for late model Mustangs, Impalas and Corvettes, and at least one of them claims that no state outlaws them. My own 1994 and 97 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supremes have factory-original sequential turn signals of a sort: When the headlights are on, the two front signals on either side flash alternately; when the headlights are off, they flash together. (I have no idea why they do this.)
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