Sell red light bulbs ! ( a pet peve of mine for 33 yeears in the parts business )
Yes, I know that’s waay too difficult due to DOT rules & regs and all that crap, but it’s high time for that to change.
After all, the rules changed about aero head lamps. Remember all the nicely aerodynamic body styles were all ruined by those glass sealed beams ? Then they finally got wise and approved plastic aero lenses.
The red ‘‘lense tape’’ is too dark and hard to see that there’s any light at all in there.
Most tail lamp assemblies are hundreds of dollars and most customers don’t have that spare C-note just bumpin’ 'round in their wallet.
Sell red bulbs and allow Joe Customer to remain legal till they can afford the replacement lens.
My point ?
Is anyone reading here close enough to the DOT to pass along the need to adjust the R&R to allow the sale of red bulbs ?
You can buy red colored rubber slip overs that go over the bulbs in home landscape lights. They would probably work depending on how hot the bulb gets. Landscape bulbs stay fairly cool.
One thing the Fast and the Furious crowd discovered when clear tail lights were all the rage, is that red tail light bulbs tend to glow pink, not red. This is why you see a lot of Altezza-style lights now, rather than just clears.
If you’re paying $100+ for a tail lens, you’re shopping at the wrong salvage yard.
I’ve actually seen a number of modern cars with clear rear lenses and red lamps behhind them…LEDs. My third brake light is clear plastic with red LEDs. Since incandescent lamps for the tail end of cars are about to disappear anyway, I can’t see the point of any manufacturer adding red bulbs to their lineup.
Re: the aero lamps, I personally liked the old sealed beam lamps better. And history is ful of abosluetly gorggeous designs with round glas lamps. I offer as a few examples the Jaguar XKE, the Lancia, the mid-late '60s 'Vette, the MG (T-series through the B-series), the Bug-Eyed Sprite,…the list is endless.