I have a few pairs of tail lights, so I typically dont go after them. However, In February, I went to checkout a vert in Rocklin PnP. It was pretty much taken apart. I did grab the pieces I needed and the rear quarter vert windows. I saw the tail lights and decided to grab them too.
I did a comparison with the Zenki Leopard tail lights (in the previous post) and I was gonna just clean them up and put them in storage when I got the news.
I immediately decided to think of old school VIP stuff and well, I looked at Ogawara-san’s pictures and I saw this:
Not to mention that if you ever saw old VIP cars, they had the “clear tail lights” (which isn’t clear), but also half red/half clear (sometimes crystal clear).
To add, before all this, I contacted Illumiaesthetic, they do cool LED tail light stuff… and I asked about their work. Basic LED was $1400 and for high end work, $2400!!
The thing is, the F31 has never came with the any aftermarket lens (from what I understand) and well, I decided to do some thing about it.
My idea would to make resin copies of the lens. These tail lights are in great shape besides the outer bezel/frame being cracked. The lens themselves are good, just need to clean up.
But then I thought I need to make my VIP style lens. and then I thought, I also need to make some crystal clear, then tinted for LEDs… then making an outline for the LED board…
So I decided to sacrifice this set of lights for research.
After taking it apart, I was surprise to see these inserts that bent light… pretty cool.
I ordered up some resin and pigment. It’s gonna be interesting.