The Lonely Wiper Blade

Outside of the realm of supercars, vehicles with single front wiper blades are a rarity. My first experience with these one armed bandits was with my first car, the Isuzu / Holden Impulse / Piazza. It was a royal pain in the ass to drive to one auto parts store after another to find just one 5' long (maybe an exaggeration) wiper blade insert.


The single blade design was also used in the Mark I Volkswagen Scirocco...


...and the Jaguar / Daimler XJ40.


But the most ingenious and sophisticated implementation of the single armed wiper design was by none other than Mercedes-Benz. This illustration from How Stuff Works describes the mechanism perfectly. With the Isuzu, VW, and the Jag, it's just a single arm sweeping simply back and forth in one, uninterrupted stroke.


But the Mercedes "monoblade" system, also known as a controlled single arm system, is much more complex. Remember, the Mercedes of the 1970s and 1980s was overengineered to death.

With the monoblade system, the blade extends outwards during the sweeping motion in order to cover the windshield's top corners. The blade pulls in at the ends and middle of the stroke.

This is the best, and only, video I can find of the monoblade mechanism in action.

CKY