Lights! (Interesting and Awful please)

[mickthemaverick]

Not for me!

[myglaren]

Morettis on an XM take a lot of beating

Marmite! Some love them, others hate them with a passion...

I like Marmite and Moretti's. Not a good photo and they look far better IRL.

[Gibbo2286]

Just about any of the modern lights are fine by me, I recall the early stuff where they were about minus one candlepower. and pre twin filaments when the dipping was done electro-mechanically with solenoids on the reflectors, also a single rear lamp centrally located on most cars right up until the mid fifties.

The Lucas sealed beam lamps were a huge improvement as were their fog and driving/spot lamps.

[white exec]

7" sealed beam lights are still (just about) alive and well as swimming pool underwater lights.
12v 300W tungsten, would you believe, with a grounded-screen (between the windings) mains transformer .
Fortunately LED units have taken over.

[CitroJim]

Light output good, but does nothing for the styling!

True, but then the Ever Ready battery powered bike lights I had as a kid were marginally brighter than a standard XM headlight

Glow-worms in jam jars is a good description...

I jest but all of the XMs I owned had headlights bordering on dangerous on dark wet nights so I'd be delighted to swap to a set of Morettes for the sake of being able to see where I'm going and live with the styling...

I was amazed to see just how good AX lights are... I was expecting them to be XM and Xantia-like but was pleasantly surprised

[white exec]

I did once suffer from all that on S2 XM, Jim. Unsure whether S1 (was yours S1?) was worse.
A couple of known improvements:
- ensure the internal fresnels (on UK RHD) are clear/clean
- fit best Nightbeaker/X-treme non-blue H1's

Unfortunately, main beam is so good — dip beams plus two more H1 — that dipped beam alone compares badly.
I have an slightly odd arrangement here... RHD headlight units, but with internal fresnels flipped to give LHD beam pattern. Actually gives a far better dip beam 'apron' of light than genuine LHD glass units, with no fresnels. Flies against 'the book'.

The puzzlement over XM dipped beam isn't going away, it seems.

[CitroJim]

The puzzlement over XM dipped beam isn't going away, it seems.

They've become legendary now Chris I did clean the Fresnel lenses and it did help a lot

I had a very early S1 'Sinker' Xantia with XM-style lights and they were even worse than my S1.5 XM Geriatric glowworms

They were soon improved - I think when the chevrons moved from the bonnet to the grille...

Rumour has it LHD XM lights were improved in a similar way but production volumes did not warrant the development of them for RHD cars... How true that is I don't know...

[NewcastleFalcon]

They were soon improved - I think when the chevrons moved from the bonnet to the grille...

Double Double Chevrons, and a two tone xantia (blue mondial metallic (KLSCR paint code)/sapphire blue (ENUCR paint code-a nice dark blue)

(Yes the blue mondial bonnet was wrecked by the speared strut phenonemon, and replaced with one lying around! )

It presents a pleasing enough face to grace this thread



Regards Neil

[CitroJim]

No fear of mis-identity with that one! A Citroen, only doubly so

That was the colour of my very first Sinker Xantia A lovely blue... And mine had Chevrons on the bonnet!

[myglaren]

So did my sinker but I was peeved that they weren't offset like the BX.

[white exec]

Rumour has it LHD XM lights were improved in a similar way but production volumes did not warrant the development of them for RHD cars... How true that is I don't know...

LHD cars did have their dipped lights improved, by the elimination of the fresnel lens, and the front glass modified to incorporate something approximating to the spreading action of the fresnels.
At one time, I fitted a brand new pair of these later Valeo LHD headlights to the car, but was not impressed by the two bright pools of light a short distance in front of the car, rather than a good 'apron' of spread light from left to right. Experimented by popping some fresnels in (both ways round), but results still not good. Ended up re-fitting the car's OE RHD light units, with the fresnels cleaned and flipped to give LHD-dip. Good spread returned, and still running like that. Have always been surprised by the spotlight action of those pukka LHD units.

[CitroJim]

Chris, thanks for that, most interesting indeed

The improved S1 Xantia lights, when used with good bulbs and the relay modification were almost good I don't recall the same 'pooling' you saw on the XM ones but now the memory is dim - like original Xantia ones

[NewcastleFalcon]

The new Renault 5 available from 2023. £18,000 to £26,500 expected depending on spec.

Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

With the new C5X offering not being that popular, and modern identikit design not being that interesting, Hyundai have been giving their first car the 1975 Pony, styled by Giorgio Giugiaro of ItalDesign a bit of a facelift.

Now surely the skateboard platforms underpinning EV's give designers and coachbuilders that freedom back. Even without new stuff, there are some gorgeous designs across all legacy car manufacturers they could just dust off from their own archives.

Anyway on to the Pony, and onto the subject of the thread lights interesting/awful.
https://insideevs.com/photo/5751746/hyu ... ries-pony/
Here are the rears

Here are the fronts


Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

nice face

Regards Neil