Before the modern aerodynamic lamps that today's cars come with vehicles had either round or rectangular headlights. Two large round 7" headlamps such as the original Mustang, Camaro, Alfa Romeo, Miata, Porsche, Mercedes Benz and most motorcycles and trucks or four smaller 5 3/4" headlamps such as Cutlass, Chevelle, Daytona, Corvette C2, C3 or two large rectangular 200mm headlamps as the C4 Corvette, Jeeps, or four smaller rectangular 4"x 6" lamps on some vehicles like Volvo and Chevrolet. These original sealed beams are not much when it comes to driving safety and are easily over driven at 50mph. Even the halogen sealed beams are only a small improvement as their lens flutations and glass reflector are very poorly engineered and quality of production is typically very poor.
In Europe with the unlimited speeds of the Autobahn and the over all higher road speeds allowed in most countries, driving safely at night was part of the normal engineering concept and long range lighting was expected as standard equipment. These European Hella H4 e code replacement headlamps have a precise low beam cutoff which gives a nice blanket of light on low beam instead of the two dots on the road, which most sealed beams provide. Also the Hella H4 low beams are more effective in fog and snow than most OEM fog lamps and give less glare to other drivers than sealed beam lamps.
High beam gives a long range driving beam that illuminates road signs and animals eyes for quite a long distance.

These lamps are not DOT approved and are intended for performance off road or show usage. 7" & 5 3/4" round, 200mm and 4x6" rectangular H4 European Headlamps. The below photo shows even when off the driver's side Hella lights are much more attractive, clear and quality looking than OEM lights on passenger side.