Something's the matter with this sequence of events: there has never been a 49-state-legal Cibie headlamp. There were Cibie European-code headlamps which didn't meet the Federal standard (because the US was and is the only country in the world not to allow or permit vehicles and equipment meeting the international "European" (U.N.) safety standards) and so were illegal to import to the USA, and were illegal for a vehicle owner to install on a car registered in a state with an (enforced) equipment code requiring lights meeting the US federal standard. There were also Cibie DOT-certified headlamps (see ad below) which
did meet the US standard and were therefore 50-state legal, because if a regulated item of vehicle equipment meets the federal standard, any state code that would call it illegal is null and void; the item is allowed in every state no matter what that state's codes might say, and it's always been that way.
Probably what happened was this truck had the European-code headlamps during California's enforcement tantrum. What happened was the California Highway Patrol tried out Cibie and Marchal European-type headlamps, liked them better than sealed beams, and wrote to NHTSA saying "The way we read the law, state-owned vehicles do not have to meet Federal standards, which would mean we can use these foreign-spec headlamps, right?" NHTSA wrote back and said "Yep, that's right, and we'd be interested in knowing your experience after a time". Then a little while later, NHTSA went "PSYCH! Get 'em off your vehicles. We've instructed US Customs to keep a close eye on this, and any attempt to import foreign-spec headlamps will be met by their seizure and destruction". That pissed off the CHP, whose officers tended to take an
If I can't have them, then you can't either attitude to enforcement.
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