Car headlights in a world without electricity
In a world like ours in the 1980s, but which for whatever reason does not use any form of electricity. (Either it does not exist or batteries and generators etc have not been invented.) For purposes of the question, diesel engines can be assumed (so no need for electric spark plugs or a replacement).
How would people construct a car headlight without electricity? Is this plausible to do or would using cars at night just be dark and dangerous?
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The obvious retro answer would be to use carbide lamps which work by dripping water onto a chamber of calcium carbide producing acetylene as was used on the original versions of the Model T Ford:
Copyright Royce
CaC2(solid) + 2H2O(liquid) -> C2H2(gas) + Ca(OH)2(aqueous)
However, since the Calcium Carbide is made using an electric arc furnace, there may be no economically viable way to mass produce it in your world, so it might become the exclusive province of the rich.
Slaked lime (Calcium Hydroxide Ca(OH)2) Could be used to produce limelight. An Oxygen-Hydrogen flame is directed at a cylinder of the lime bringing it to a temperature of 4,662 °F (2,572 °C).
Part of the light output is black body radiation (incandescence), but part is candoluminescence giving off more light than otherwise in the green part of the spectrum.
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