Although I too Like the large original style on a Hotrod. I decided to go with these and eliminate the ugly separate turn signal. Now I like them better.
Being from Santa Clara, CA., with my eyes first opened to hot rods in about 1948, one of the first things I noticed about the fenderless hot rods locally was the widespread use of King Bees and Dietz lamps. Some of the other stuff were oversize rear tires and the obdurate use of twin exhaust pipes! But I never saw the large bug-eyed 'A', Deuce-'34 lamps used until Street Rodder mag encouraged such 'poetic injustice'! I have a nice old set of 'Arrows' for my '27 tub, but my '27 Highboy roadster gets the chrome Dietz. (!) 1955, my bud Teddy Demello had a '33 Tudor sedan, black, 'mad rake'. He said he couldn't WAIT to get those 'search lites' off there!
I'm going with a pair of these, when I get to that stage. They will be the perfect way to eliminate the small signal lights, that get hung on the front of most T Buckets.
I'm still sitting on the fence on lights for my Model A but Petejoe's photo sure makes that model of Guide light look just right for the look I want. I ran H-4 lights in my 48 for years and when I had the Cibie headlights in it with 55/100 bulbs I could see down the road until I ran out of road to see down on high beam. Low beam didn't leave any shadows. That's pretty nice to have when you are coming back over one of the passes from Portland, Tacoma or Seattle at dark thirty and livestock, deer, Elk or a coyote strolls out in front of you. If the speedlimit is 80 I want lights that are good for 120 and not 50 as some of those cute lights are.
I don't mind large headlights on a fendered car, but prefer smaller lights on a hi-boy. 34 Commercial on my rpu, and guide's on my coupe. Mick
Wow what a car. This is amazing. Want to trade for original 32 roadster. We just trade body for body?
Things we hot rod nuts knew in the 1950s an 60s,the 7in. sealbeam headlight was best light too both light the road,and look cool....=high tech,plus small light bucket that was made for them was racey ,aero n lite lbs. ,vs 1920s an 30s big old ugly lights did not light the road for crap,were not aero an too many lbs.=good trash can filler. Yes,I know you can make those big ugly things finely light the road now with fanzy new bulbs,but they are still not 50s n 60s prefered hotrod lights,but are the now days bubble of BS look good junk to add to your car,so you can say"I like them big lights",well I like them in the trash were I left them many years back. Did I happen to say I don't like big over size lights? LOL Eye of the day late 50s,yes twin lights on some show cars were cool,when it was a new thing .
I came by a pair of Arrow driving lights the other - model 500. They have bulbs behind the lenses. One lens has DRIVING cast near the bottom edge, the other has PASSING on it. Each lens has a different light focus pattern. They are about 5" in diameter. The have brackets for mounting on bumper irons. I've never seen a set before. I see a set of big and little lights on something in my stable soon.
I know this is a headlight thread, but look how nice the brakes fit inside the wheel, could be a topic for another thread. Bob
My problem is the ones I like standing in front of the car in the daylight aren’t the same as I like sitting in it in the dark. Damn, getting old is tough.
Dietz on my '34. If my car was all original I'd put the big stock lights on it. Anybody got a picture of a hot rod with big headlights from back in the day?
Damn straight.... The last 15 miles to my house is a curvy, hilly road with maybe 10 street lights it's full length (and those are at intersections) with critters that like to wander in the road on occasion. Living in a rural area, most of the roads I drive are like that. Be out there on a night with no moon and overcast and the only thing darker is a mine shaft. I won't settle for poor or indifferent lighting anymore, I want lights that let me SEE.... Cibies for me if it's possible to fit them. I've got 'em on my avatar, and the few that notice them ask if they're OEM... LOL. No matter what sort of 'fixes' you do to those vintage lights, you'll still be hobbled with 80-year-old lens designs that aren't optimized for modern lamps and that does make a large difference... And as was pointed out, in the post-war 40s/50's/60s you almost never saw the OEM lights on anything that didn't have them built into the fender. So by this sites definition, they're not really traditional....
It all depends on the car, but I do prefer the bigger lights, as low as you can get them. My Roadster has Dietz. It had some E&J's at one point, but it was a love hate relationship with those. I just looked and I don't have any good pictures of them.
Several of the repop joints claim that the light on top is the signal light, that never was the intent of that light, that is a parking light, Kenworth trucks used the Guide light with the park light on top, Peterbilt used Dietz with an amber light in the headlight ring as a park light,never a signal light either, for commerical rigs there is or was a law describing the size of the signal light,here in Ca there was one size but if you ran out of state there was a bigger lense, I believe it was 3 1/2" and 4", I wonder what Johhny Law says today about size of signal light.
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