Gottlob Honold

Honold was born on 26 August 1876 in Langenau, in Germany, about 10 miles northeast of Ulm.

His task was to build an apparatus "that would produce a hot spark of relatively long duration (arc) with nonmoving electrodes."

By December, collaborating with Arnold Zähringer, Honold had a test model using a common power source for the low and high voltages in a single unit.

Although lights had been used to some extent for night driving, the early lanterns did little more than to draw attention to a vehicle, and were of little use for illumination.

It was Honold who conceived the idea of placing parabolic metal mirrors behind the lamp to increase the amount of light without taxing the automotive electrical system.