aftermarket headlight idea! check it out! Options

[uberschall]

so, i got to thinking the other day. i'm just as disappointed as everyone else with the aftermarket headlight scene for celicas. everyone has made good points about the cost of production, design, and materials, which are the three biggest barriers to a/m availability. then it hit me. why not do an aftermarket impreza style light? they are nearly the same shape and don't have a fairing, which i think would make them pretty cheap...especially because we'd only need one projector per light, unlike the subie units.


here's an example of some aftermarket subie projectors:



and here's a crappy hand-sketched rendition of what i think they could look like on a celica:


sorry about the doodle, i'm not so handy with photoshop. anyway, one projector per capsule, and the plastic bezels coulg be left black, wrapped in cf, body-color matched, etc.

opinions, suggestions, comments?

edit: i forgot to mention that the impreza headlights shown above sell for about $150 a set on ebay. even if each set of high or low beams cost us the same (which isn't likely given the fewer components necessary for our application, see above), we'd still only be looking at $300 for all four!

This post has been edited by uberschall: Aug 28, 2006 - 9:36 PM

[uberschall]

true, true. but if they did the r&d to make aftermarket lights for jeeps and cavaliers (as i mentioned before), which are surely more complicated internally than ours would have to be, they can do it for these.

for laughs, just go on ebay and search for "projector headlights." browse a couple of pages and see all the wacky cars they make them for, and it becomes more realistic to see some for a celica.

i think that as a community, we could come up with a carset of lights to furnish a manufacturer with for r&d. they wouldn't be passing any inital costs on to us if we organized a group buy or something. if you were to figure that they can make aftermarkets for, say...a 97 200sx, and sell them at $100 online while presumably turning a profit...they could easily make money on a 4-light package that retailed for $250-300.

any thoughts?

edit: i'm still going to pick up some cheap halogen rounds (like 4" diam) and try fabricating a facsimile using the bucket from one of my cracked headlights.

This post has been edited by uberschall: Aug 29, 2006 - 10:28 AM