The present invention relates to vehicle lamp device suitable for use as a tail light, tail and mark light, or the like, which may be attached to the corner portion of a vehicle body.
Conventionally, as a tail and marker lamp (hereinafter simple referred to as a "lamp") attached to a corner portion of a vehicle body, there has been known a vehicle lamp device arranged as shown in FIG. 1. Such a lamp device will be described in brief. In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 designates a lamp body which is curved to conform to a corner portion of a vehicle body and which is opened to the front and side of the vehicle body. The inside of the lamp body 1 is partitioned by a partition plate 2 into two (upper and lower) lamp chambers 3 and 4. A tail and marker bulb 5 and an inner lens 6 are disposed within the upper chamber 3, and a back-up bulb 7 is disposed within the lower chamber 4. The front and side opening portions of the lamp body 1 are commonly covered by a front lens 8 which curves along the corner portion of the vehicle body. A rear cover 10 is fittingly fixed to a rear opening portion 9 of the body 1. The bulbs 5 and 7 and concave reflectors 11 and 12 for reflecting light emitted from the bulbs 5 and 7 in the forward direction are mounted on the surface of the cover 10. The front lens 8 is formed to curve backward at a position corresponding to the partition plate 2 so that the front lens 8 has an angular shape in longitudinal section. The inner lens 6 is disposed on the partition panel 2 substantially perpendicularly to the latter, and a Fresnel lens 13 is disposed on the rear surface of the inner lens 6 to convert light emitted by the tail and marker bulb 5 into parallel light rays extending parallel to the optical axis of the inner lens 6.
In the thus-arranged vehicle lamp device, the inner lens 6 is plate-like with a leg portion 6A bent backward by about 90 degrees, and it is integrally formed with the inner lens 6 at its lower end for purposes of better productivity, standardization of parts, lower manufacturing costs, and the like. However, because the inner lens 6 is arranged corresponding to a part of the rear surface of the front lens 8, which is curved along the vehicle body corner portion, a central portion of the inner lens 6 is separated from the rear surface of the front lens 8. As a result, a dark zone, as indicated by marks xxxxxx, tends to occur on the partition plate 2 at the portion 2a in front of the inner lens 6, thereby making the appearance of the lamp 14 poor when the lamp 14 is viewed in the direction of an arrow A. Further, there has been a problem in that the inner lens 6 is apt to be deformed by the heat of the bulb 5 because the volume of the lamp chamber 3 is made small by the inner lens 6.