Modern automobiles are packed to the gunwales with subtle features that are designed to improve the driver and passengers’ comfort and safety while being as unobtrusive as possible. In ye olden days these things were more obvious — the driver-facing, fender-mounted turn signal indicators on 70s-era land yachts, for example, or power retractable radio antennas — but today stuff like this is so built-in and automated as to be nearly invisible unless you’re looking for it. One of these features, a rarity these days unless you drive a car Of A Certain Age, is the windshield shade band.
If, like me, you came of age in the days when cars were still cool (and would kill you without any hesitation), you might remember how vehicles once had a broad deep blue or green tinted stripe across the top of the windshield. This is the classic shade band. It was designed to work in conjunction with flip down sun visors to keep the sun out of the driver’s eyes and some of the heat off the passengers. When the sun was at a certain angle, especially in the summer, the good old shade band could be a life saver.
You don’t really see windshield shade bands anymore, though, at least not on most brand new cars. Why is that, have you ever wondered?
We just don’t need ’em anymore
The reason that carmakers don’t really do windshield shade bands anymore is a pretty simple one, and the same one that’s made things like in-car cigarette lighters, metal whip antennas, and manual transmissions rare as hen’s teeth on new cars: obsolescence. The steady march of time and improvements in glass technology have relegated the good old shade band to the dustbin of history.
Modern safety glass is so much better than it was even a few years ago, let alone 15 or 20 years. New vehicles have powerful anti-glare coatings embedded in the entire windshield nowadays, not just at the top. That’s why new windshields have subtle green or blue coloring. The materials used in modern auto glass provide better UV protection and heat regulation, too. The ability to use new, high-tech materials throughout a car’s entire greenhouse — instead of just a six-inch stripe on the windshield — was a huge improvement, and the shade band all but disappeared.
So, there you have it. That cool blue or green stripe at the top of an old car’s windshield is just some old timey factory tinting meant to keep you looking and feeling cool on the road.
