Gtsi-R red'n black coupé

[banpei]

The mystery is very intriguing!
I went through my Dutch magazine scans and found for both reviews of early types no brows:


Both reviews are from the first initial batch delivered to NL. I even think the blue one might even have been a press car.

But then I searched on Goo-net and the third zenki Levin I checked had the brows on the bonnet!

And then I found another one:

Both cars are 1983 pre-August facelift (they have square door mirrors). And I also found them on lower grade JDM cars like the three door SR

However if you look better to the not-so-shabby first one, the brows aren't even noticable:

If you then take into account that these lights have a raised enclosure behind the glass part:

So I don't think these brows are for cosmetic purposes, but rather to close the gap between the headlights and the bonnet. I could be wrong here, but it could then direct the airflow towards the center (radiator) instead of going into the enginebay.

So my guess is all zenki AE86s have these brows on the bonnet, but this doesn't explain why they are missing on so many of them... Perhaps some countries were cheapskates?