Lights! (Interesting and Awful please)

[NewcastleFalcon]

plain round lights
but a decent smattering of shining chrome
makes a very pleasant picture.

Regards Neil

[mickthemaverick]

They look much nicer than the modern offerings!! If anyone fancies a bit of a project I have the raw materials available at the moment:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/325443408520

[NewcastleFalcon]

Following on from Mike's recent whatsthisthen on the Pickled Egg Quiz thread (link viewtopic.php?p=748713#p748713 ) I came across this in my travels.

It's an interesting enough morning coffee flick through...Who knew the McClaren Fi got its rear lights from a bus!

Spot the difference...Cars that share the same rear lights.

https://www.retromotor.co.uk/features/c ... re%20items

Neil

[CitroJim]

I can never take a McLaren car seriously, even if it has bus lights... In my younger days McLaren made baby buggies... I guess buggies to supercars is a natural progression

Will we have a Silver Cross supercar soon I wonder?

On the subject of lights... I came across this photo of a Bristol with what appears to be Rootes Arrow (Hillman Hunter etc.) rear lights turned through 90 degrees...

No idea who the scruffy bloke is...

[NewcastleFalcon]

Its Liam Gallagher Jim, he of Oasis fame.
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Back to the lights. Morgan are not averse to digging into other manufacturer's parts bins for their lights. This is a Morgan Plus Six spotted today. Looks of pretty recent vintage (Nov 2019 on looking it up), back and front lights.

Falcon original couple of clicks and it gets bigger

Neil

[CitroJim]

Its Liam Gallagher Jim, he of Oasis fame.

Ahh! Thanks Neil As you will know from my very infrequent forays into the PE Jukebox, music is not a big or important part of my life... I'm aware of Oasis but to recognise any of the protagonists is not my forte...

Back to lights... Morgan have been using those since the very dawn of time!

[Jay-Bruce]

The morgan has lancia thema lights on the rear arches, and I believe them to use new mini front headlights. The Aero 8 was a mainstream model spun off of the one-off then "limited run" aeromax, which is sex on wheels and I want one:



The only cavaet with the aeros, both the aeromax which has the sleeker looking fastback coupe line and the pompus bulbous softtop equipped Aero 8, is they looked somewhat cross-eyed from certain angles:

Am I the only one that thinks the halogen dipped beams on the X7 are horrendous?

I have had to switch to main beams more than once in a sticky situation because of how poor they are. The main culprit to my eyes is the large non-reflective ring of steel that sits parallel to the bulb filament blocking 90% of the light out

I've tried those Philips super extra 1000% brighter bulbs as well as the Osram night breaker laser bulbs, but they seem to be 1% brighter lasting only 10% as long as normal.

Yeah about that, our X7 is specced up with everything gucci, except for the poverty spec halogens, which are utterly useless. However, 4 months into our ownership, it got uprated halogens for main and cornering bulbs, and an eBay HID kit fitted to it. the pattern is OKish, but doesn't glare/dazzle oncoming traffic, so it's workable. I'm toying with the idea of the latest and greatest Phillips megabux LEDs for dipped and maybe also main beam? I'm also toying with opening the clusters to graft in some of those HID projecor kits. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/281516964424

[Jay-Bruce]

Incidentally, this video goes into the origins of the standardisation of sealed beam lamps:


And the 7" sealed beam "style" is very much alive and kicking, defender xenon lights were available for a while, but seem to have been displaced with LED 7" round sealed units, of which there are heaps of styles available, from subtle almost original looking:





...through to the sort of kalideoscope that makes you wonder has your lunch been spiked with LSD?

[NewcastleFalcon]

Nice contribution Jay,

Did spot a Morgan Aero 8 in the wild a couple of years ago...

As I walked past this it stopped me in my tracks, and out came the camera.
That qualifies as being "interesting" in my book. More of what on earth is that, don't think I'm that keen on it, odd looking lights.

Not intended as a scratch your head whatsthisthen? even left the badge on, and it looks like what it is, but don't think I have seen one quite like that before.

Neil

[CitroJim]

Sad to see Morgan has lost its way and gone over to the dark side. That car, lights and all, is absolutely awful. Grotesque is a better description...

Just my personal view.

[myglaren]

Can't disagree Jim, a horrible contraption.

[NewcastleFalcon]

Nothing to write home about in the lights department really, pleasing enough front end, but it was our whatsthisthen today and you will not spot that badge very often if at all.

NF Original

Neil

[MattBLancs]

Rear light cluster close up

Back end

Saw one of these today and nominate it for "awful"

Not because the cluster is particularly ugly, but because of the three vertical lines visible on the zoomed in image, the outer is brake light and immediately adjacent to it is the indicator. Both LED and individually operated both clear enough. But the two lit together!?! One disappears into the other! Awful!

Image from Google/ hey car

https://heycar.co.uk/vauxhall/mokka

[CitroJim]

Both LED and individually operated both clear enough. But the two lit together!?! One disappears into the other! Awful!

It's OK because indicators are now only an option and rarely used...

This has been going on for years in that style has been winning over form and making lights, especially brake and indicator, hard to see. A few Germans have pinpricks of light for indicators and the latest Tesla monstrosity has pin-pricks for brake lights now...

As far back as the Golf with indicators in the headlight cluster, they became invisible as soon as the headlights were switched on... But who cares, no German ever uses them so it's academic...

[NewcastleFalcon]

Lets have a look at the lights of the today's first generation Fiesta recorded on the Classics spotting thread.

You may notice they are round, while the bog standard first generation were oblong and the indicators are in the bumper.

front

rear

Neil