aftermarket headlight idea! check it out! Options

[coldbluesteel]

i'm def gonna try it on my spare lights. dustin mounted a projector in the stock bucket if i'm not mistaken...but i recall him saying it wasn't nearly as cost effective as he'd hoped.

i'm probably going to try it with a halogen round first.

does anyone think we could pitch this to an a/m headlight manufacturer?

You'd have to send off your lights to them, so if you've got spares or another car your ok. R&D is not cheap, so the first pair will probably be expensive. After they have a mold ( if they find it profitable, molds are not cheap to set up on a professional level) then they could mass produce. I think I'll still be going at it myself. I'm pretty confident that I can do it, I mean I do this kinda of stuff on 40 million dollar fighter jets. The shell of my passenger low is pretty much destroyed, so I think that ones out of the question. The hi has cracked glass, so no problem working on that one. I had planned on selling the two driver side lights to recupe some of the money I'm spending on the conversion. If I work on those and they turn out well I could sell them for more, or keep them, but if it doesn't work out I'm out some $. What do you guys, and gals think?

[KB-2]

give it a try. if you suceed you will have a big hit in the celica indusrty

[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

[celiracer]

Take it to them. Let them know what you want. And see if they would make them. Or talked to Boosted6g and see if VIS would produce them.

[uberschall]

idk any manufacturers, though.

does anyone have info about who makes the aftermarket lights you see for sale online cheap, or how to contact them with a product proposal?

anything would help!!

[WH95TE]

The only thing I want is some clear lenses. I hate the way they look with all those lines and ****.

[coldbluesteel]

I think alot of them are made in China. I do believe that APC makes quite a few aswell. You do have to think that there alot more Cherokees and Cavaliers out there than Celicas. I mean I can get custom lights for my 4runner cause there are a billion of them on the road, but on all the 4runner groups only like two people have them. I think that the company is just playing to better odds with high production cars. I'm just not sure if we have enough backing to get alot of stuff. But thats another reason I love my Celica they are unique. So it's a trade off.

[celiracer]

Contact boosted6g he works with VIS, and would probably help you out on making these.

[uberschall]

thanks celiracer. i'll try that tomorrow.

coldbluesteel, i agree that there are alot of cavaliers and such out there, but you should check out ebay if you didn't. i'm sure there's at least one car that will make you say "wtf?" oh, and i'm stoked that you're going to try to build some too. i'll let you know when i get started so we can share advice/warnings.


anyway, i'm not sure about any of this....but i just think it's crazy that nobody makes anything for celicas. if companies can afford to shoot each other in the foot by offering no less than a dozen aftermarket options for civics (talk about market saturation), there's no reason they can't corner the entire aftermarket for a car that was produced practically unchanged for half a decade and sold worldwide.

[coldbluesteel]

Yeah I just looked on ebay. Astro van WTF? Anyway. I did see some nice lexus ones on there. Those look like the same ones in the jdm lights. about $150. I don't know if I want to use bigger or smaller lights. If I use small lights I'm afraid it will look too much like an Integra.

[uberschall]

haha, astro van. hella makes a set of universal lights that includes 4 units...2 projector low beams and 2 halogen capsule high beams. they're pricey, though....

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Hella-Unive...sspagenameZWDVW

that would cover all four, though.

edit: i searched for boosted6g and it returned 2 others...is he still a member or did i mess up somehow?

This post has been edited by uberschall: Aug 30, 2006 - 8:15 AM

[joehernandez]

i really don't think they would look good, they are too small for the celica, it would screw up the fron.