911R / early 911 round headlights?

[pieterk]

Okay, I've tried searching, to no avail, and this continues to confuse me.

This headlight is exactly the style I want:



In other words, not the H4s that have the sort of flat bevel on top, with the pebbled/frosted appearance. According the Pelican parts page, the H1s also appear to have that H4 style flat bevel.

I want the ones in the picture: very gently rounded from edge to edge, uniformly convex, with no pebbled or frosted top edge.

I've seen them up close on other early Porsches (356s included), and I'm pretty sure I've seen this style with both Cibié and Bosch lenses.

I don't need unobtainium NLA parts. If I can use readily available H4 guts, that's fine. $1,000 per headlight won't do in this case.

What's the solution early car experts?

[Zeke]

I'm not having any luck with a search for you, but the man you want to look up on that subject is Bob Tilton. That's his user name as well here and over on the Early S BBS. The lens is an early VW part. Early_S_Man has posted on this a couple of times, too.

[tcar]

You might check early VW beetle and bus boards, also.

[RWebb]

Early 911S bbs just had a thread on that - Marchal.

[RetroSC]

Those are found on a lot of SWB 911's and most 912's. The covers are Hella 356 stuff and are pretty pricey. I found repo's on Ebay pretty easily, they just don't say "hella" on them, but are what you are looking for. You can run several lights in the buckets, I found some Marchal Amplilux that run H1 bulbs, but they are pretty hard to find. I think they're just a standard 7.5 inch light.

You can find the whole assembly's on Ebay as well, usually listed under 912 headlights. Try the search 'Porsche hella' as well.

Here's the only pic I could find of mine.

Bill

[pieterk]

Awesome stuff guys; thank you!

Now I have an idea what to look for, and it looks like it's doable on a budget. Sweet!

[TRE Cup]

the lamp holder assembly is standard usa spec housings as found on any 65-67 911 and 912. The R used a lot of cibie lamps , due to a sponsor deal with the factory. There are several manufacturers of the concept known as bi-iodine (2 halogen bulbs per lamp, not a kinky sex practice!) From this era, Hella came up with the now super expensive H-1.
But i digress; the correct cibie lamp has a small flashlite sized reflector for high beam and low beam bulb situated behind it. It was not very good, but sure looks cool
Marchal made the amplilux and Carello made a lamp too (strangely very close in reflector design to the H-1 Hella)
These three units will give off a dark grey cast on the low beam side of the reflector, with the bright lower section for high beam. This being during the day.

So... what you need to convert your recently aquired swb is a pair of PORSCHE 911 or 912 headlamp units from 65-67. The 356 and bug units have the same sized lenses BUT attach with a tab , rather than a screw hole through the bottom of the rim.
I suppose if this was a total budget deal, one could kludge a pair of the brazilian VW lamp units (remove the tabs, and make a small reinforcement for the hole required). VW/ 356 units will have a very rounded rim, compared to the flatter Porsche rim
Glass or plastic lenses are available (with plastic in yellow or grey smoke)

fwiw- the cibie, marchal, and carello units are bringing big $$ with ferrari, maserati, alpine, porsche collectors worldwide

hope this helps clear it up

[andyjboy]

The other alternative (as used by Bob Tilton & others inc me) is to use the chrome rims from a pair of Bosch Euro H4 headlamps together with the earlier swb 'buckets', the clear Hella lenses + the sealed beam unit of your choice.

[ttweed]

I bought a complete set of NOS Hella units for my '67S (less sealed beam headlights) for about $350 from Brian at EINMALIG a couple of years ago. Don't know if they have any more left but you might try them.
http://einmalig.com/
5455 Production Drive
Huntington Beach, CA 92649
Toll Free: (888) 777-6772
Phone: (714) 895-6567, Fax: (714) 894-7126

[speedo]

I have a set for sale...I have opted for the H4S. I have not posted them for sale...PM me with a fair price.