In the United States, the shift arrived more gradually, through improving fixed-headlamp technology and tightening international certification rules that made a motor-driven, variable-position headlamp increasingly costly to homologate across markets. Mechanical reliability was its own quiet pressure throughout: a retractable headlight is one more motor, one more linkage, one more thing to eventually fail.

The 2004 Chevrolet Corvette C5 and the Lotus Esprit V8, sold the same year, are generally credited as the last two production cars built with them. What began as an engineer's workaround for a height regulation ended as a design cue an entire generation of car enthusiasts still recognises on sight, exactly why a car like the F40 can still earn a badge for carrying it.