The present post deals with three-segment backlights during their heyday:
By the late 1940s automobile glass manufacturing technology had reached the point where curved glass could be produced economically. That is, factory breakage rates were low enough that purchase costs for car makers made curved glass acceptable as a design feature.
Curved car window glass was essentially unknown for mass-produced cars until around the mid-1930s and was found first in modest form for backlights (stylist jargon for back windows) and small corner windows found on Panhards. Some early post- World War 2 redesigns featured curved windshields and more extremely curved backlights. By 1954, General Motors was mass-producing cars with wraparound (panoramic) windshields. A few years later some windshields combined horizontal and vertical curvature and curved side window glass was starting to appear.
The year 1950 was a point about halfway into the transition from flat to curved car window glass. Backlights were curved, but if they were very wide, their glass had to be installed in segments. Oldsmobile Ninety-Eights for 1948 and 1951 Hudsons used two-segment backlights, but three-segments was the norm. Examples of the latter on sedans (as opposed to hardtops) are shown below.
Redesigned Cadillacs for 1948 shared the same body as Olds 98s, and their backlight shapes were the same. As mentioned, Olds was two-segment; the division was down along the center. Cadillac opted for three segments because three-segment backlights had been a brand feature since 1934. When redesigned Buicks for 1949 appeared, the backlights shape was retained, but the backlight was in one piece due to manufacturing improvements. Oldsmobiles also got one-piece backlights for '49, but not Cadillacs.
Buicks were redesigned again for the 1950 model year. Backlights were wider than for 1949, so C-body GM cars such as this had to use three segments.
Here is another backlight style on the same basic body, same model year.
Chrysler sedans for 1950 had three-segment backlights that were cosmetic, not a matter of necessity. The idea might have been to mimic 1949 Cadillacs as a means of conferring prestige to the more downscale Chrysler line. A lesser Chrysler Corporation brand, DeSoto, had exactly the same backlight opening for its 1950 sedans, but lacked segmentation. In other words, there was no technological reason for '50 Chrysler backlights to be segmented.
For 1951 the Chrysler Corporation line was given a modest facelift of its 1949 design, mostly in the form of rounded-down hood prows. But only sedans of the Chrysler brand got wide, hardtop-style three-segment backlights such as shown here in this essentially unchanged for 1952 model.
Packards got new bodies for 1951. The longer 300 and 400 series models received three-segment backlights.
Ford Motor Company redesigned its cars for 1949. This top-of-the-line Lincoln had a three-segment backlight.
Lesser Lincolns shared bodies with mid-range Mercury. This 1950 model was little-changed from 1949. Note the three-segment backlight that was retained even though Mercurys went to one-piece glass for the same window shape.
Here is a '49 Mercury with a three-segment backlight.
And here is another '49 Mercury with a one-piece backlight, one of many such images found by Googling. Mercury brand-interest club members can correct me, but it seems that there was a switch from three segment to one-segment backlights at some point during the model year.
Frazer's hardtop version of its four-door convertible had a three--segment backlight.
This was retained when the brand got a heavy facelift for its final model year.
The last USA Kaisers received a strong facelift that included a wraparound backlight. By this time, the larger carmakers had gone to one-piece backlights. My guess is that Kaiser either lacked the money for having the glass engineered as one-piece or else the curvature of the passenger compartment greenhouse was still beyond what glassmakers could deal with economically.
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