Interesting use of an Imperial

[b-body-bob]

1956 Imperial–Bodied Dodge Magnum SRT8​

Current Bid: $30,000 Ends in 6 days
1956 Imperial–Bodied Dodge Magnum SRT8

"This custom Imperial-style vehicle is said to have been created by combining the body panels of a 1956 Imperial Southampton two-door hardtop with the drivetrain, suspension, and interior components of a 2007 Dodge Magnum SRT-8 wagon. "

 

[Dr.Jass]

So close, and yet so far off the mark.

The paint would be OK were it not for the garish red striping, which cannot be said of the interior. The latter needs much more rework than just getting rid of the dreadful red vinyl. The seats and dash are hopelessly out of place, where the vintage stuff would've been downright cool. The Rubbermaid dash is trashy-looking in its OE application, and really clashes badly with an all-steel tank.
Though the Truck-lite LEDs up front are the best of their breed in appearance, retrofit LED headlights don't look good on anything. People need to learn that, and soon. If you must have LED, get H1/H4 conversion glass and use plug-in LED modules.
I'd give up some economy and performance for it to be riding on genuine period wire wheels with wide whites, or period-looking 17" wires with modern rubber.

There's just too much clash betwixt old and new here, and in almost every case old is cooler. Something as iconic as a '56 Imperial deserves better.

 

[69.5CUDA]

i could live with most of it...except...those fucking wheels and the dash
for the love of god even throw on some cop car steel wheels and a set of salt flat discs or period spinner caps(they make em in bigger sizes now)

as bad as that red stripe shit is..i could over look it if the other things were adressed..wait no..another look..nope couldnt live with the red stripe..thoe the red stitching in the seats wouldnt bother me in the slightest

 

[71ChargerRT]

So close, and yet so far off the mark.

The paint would be OK were it not for the garish red striping, which cannot be said of the interior. The latter needs much more rework than just getting rid of the dreadful red vinyl. The seats and dash are hopelessly out of place, where the vintage stuff would've been downright cool. The Rubbermaid dash is trashy-looking in its OE application, and really clashes badly with an all-steel tank.
Though the Truck-lite LEDs up front are the best of their breed in appearance, retrofit LED headlights don't look good on anything. People need to learn that, and soon. If you must have LED, get H1/H4 conversion glass and use plug-in LED modules.
I'd give up some economy and performance for it to be riding on genuine period wire wheels with wide whites, or period-looking 17" wires with modern rubber.

There's just too much clash betwixt old and new here, and in almost every case old is cooler. Something as iconic as a '56 Imperial deserves better.

My thoughts exactly Doc. I'd also blackout the cailpers behind the 17" wire wheels.

 

[b-body-bob]

The high bid was $58,000, but the reserve was not met.

 

[Dr.Jass]

The high bid was $58,000, but the reserve was not met.

Whether or not it cost more to build it, I would've taken that amount and run. That's the highest bid it'll ever get.

 

[b-body-bob]

I don't hate that car nearly as much as the rest of you but I thought that was a strong bid for it too.

 

[69.5CUDA]

lets just call that 60k, honestly its clean, but its molested, and unless theres THOUSANDS of pics showing how it was done to prove that it isnt a total hack under the lipstick, then it isnt worth half that...if its got full documentation and was truely done well then sure by all means its a good price
problem im seeing with the new wave of chassis swaps is that everyone seems to think it doubles the value cause it took 2 cars to build it

 

[thrashingcows]

I totally agree with you Doc on the LED headlights...I've yet to see a set I think look good. Your conversion suggestion might just be the way to go...going to look into it myself.

 

[69.5CUDA]

I totally agree with you Doc on the LED headlights...I've yet to see a set I think look good. Your conversion suggestion might just be the way to go...going to look into it myself.

i 10X that....ive not once seen a single reasonable good looking setup

HOWEVER, i also have yet to find(and ive tested a bunch for clients who DEMAND LED) a single "aftermarket" LED headlight bulb(socket type not whole headlight) that works....yeah they "look" bright but fail to project at any usefull distance, you need a fully intigrated shell aiming every LED at a focal point and then projected thru a projector lens for it to ever work right...which is why some of those aftermarket rounds and square work...but...most of them are NOT LED but are listed as such as they useualy have some LED's in them for halos or "driving lights"

HID on the otherhand is bloody amazing, tho sometimes requires propperly "spacing" the bulb in the housing to get it aimed right....at this point ive got HID on 4 rigs, and 2 sets for my bikes ready to install and a set for the lloyd... both high, low, high/low, fogs..if its forward facing "light" ive HID'd it, and even worked out a safety feature for cars using independent high/low where the "low" stays on so when you transition you dont get a dim n warm up time flying down the road...high/low singles are typicaly a "flip shroud" so the bulb never turns off

the other thing ive done some playing with is "projector housings" and thers clearly some benifit from it "if" you can make use of it

if you want a "cheep" but good H4 conversion lense thats GLASS and steel my goto is "autopal"
and if you want to try out a cheep HID setup, look up "innovited" on amazon, ive got 3 sets on the yaris, 3 sets on the XB 2 sets on the exploder etc etc....the only issues ive run into has been a high low relay fail and a bad ballast out of the box , to which the company promptly set out replacements with extras!, they stand behind their stuff

 

[Dr.Jass]

I totally agree with you Doc on the LED headlights...I've yet to see a set I think look good. Your conversion suggestion might just be the way to go...going to look into it myself.

It's not an ideal solution, but none of the LEDs really are. The problem is always with the light pattern (dispersion). A parabolic reflector is designed for a 360° emitter (bulb) which by nature an LED by can't ever be at the luminosity required.

The best I've yet seen, and they're still not ideal, is in my friend's '31 Model A. It's a period-correct postwar hot rod with era-correct Guide headlights on it. Because it still has a generator (alternators didn't exist in 1947) the electrical system will not support high-wattage incandescent bulbs, even after the 12V upgrade. He installed Hella-style H4 conversion glass enclosures and used LED H4 "equivalent" modules which draw much less amperage. He did a lot of tweaking on the modules to get the best pattern he could. Still, dispersion is an issue and there's not a huge difference between high and low beams. But, there's a ton more light out front than it ever had previously, which is important in the Land of Venison Hood Ornaments when you're relying on hydraulic '38 Ford drum brakes to stop you.
His biggest bitch is the horrible bluish-white light (6500K) that virtually all LEDs emit. The lousy CRI minimizes contrast in your field of vision which is tiring on the eyes; the bluish tinge increases eye strain further. Why nobody does 4000-5000K LED conversion modules is beyond me. Some were being advertised back when I sold 'em, but once installed they were definitely 6000K or higher. Anyhow, with the lights off you'd be hard-pressed to tell they're conversions. At night, though, that color of light emitting from a vintage vehicle's headlights is just... wrong.

 

[69.5CUDA]

LOL i imagine on the generator setup LED's are quite the step up...tho..i know the hella h4 conversions in my 58 ford(also stock genny) made a world of differance..yeah they dim a bit at idle

ive tryed various kelvins of HID and have found ..atleast for my eyes the 8k and "low" 10k i like..tho the ones ive been getting are damn neer pure white with maybe a slight tinge of blue for the first week or so of use...but the yellow of 4-6k has always bugged my eyes..proof that the kelvin is all personal to the person

 

[Dr.Jass]

4000-4500K is the equivalent of sunlight and has the best CRI. Anything 4600K or higher has a blue tinge, even on fluorescent replacements. 8000K actually appears bluer to the human eye than 6000K while also being noticeably dimmer at the same light output due to the wavelength difference. The higher the temp, the bluer they appear and the dimmer they get. That's not an opinion, it's literally the physics behind the Kelvin scale of light temperature.

I've already got H1/H4 conversion glass for my Challenger and '68 Valiant (all Hella), but I probably won't use the Challenger parts because the lens shape is different between the H1 glass and the H4. Appearance matters a lot to me on that car. I'm looking at Koito glass now, which ain't cheap but looks consistent across both bulb styles, though not OE. I'll stick with incandescent bulbs not only for the reasons I stated about the lights on Pete's '31 nor because they're widely known to cause serious electrical gremlins in modern cars and/or electronics due to EMI. It's also because LED and HID conversions are illegal in the entirety of North America (and Europe, and Great Britain, and literally every other first-world country on Earth). If it's not a 100% factory setup, it's illegal. Period. A black vintage Challenger with a loud-ass yellow stripe will likely attract enough police attention without blue-tinged headlamps. The blue tinge is also illegal in all of North America for reasons unrelated to the conversion laws: Only law enforcement can have even a hint of blue in their lighting.

If you ever want to go down the rabbit hole of why LED and HID conversions suck even though you perceive them as better, spend some quality time reading the tech information at www.danielsternlighting.com. The man is exceptionally intelligent, which you may already know (he goes by "slantsixdan" at several other forums). What you may not know is that he's been consulted by several foreign countries' governments and even the UN on the subject of automotive lighting, primarily forward lighting.

 

[69.5CUDA]

huh i had no idea the Koito were worth so much....ive got a few of em, id seriously look at the auto pals, they are damn neer clones, or atleast the ones i got some time back were...so they may be worth checking out at the very least
ill take a look thru that

fwiw some states really dont care about hid and really care more about how youve got your shit aimed....and i know the blue your talking about, the bulbs ive been using the 12000k ones have that blue your talking about those tweak my eyeballs..the 8ks i buy do not, they are very true white...and i know manufacturers tend to rate stuff not always as sold i suspect they are closer to 6k

 

[Dr.Jass]

Dan Stern sells the Koito housings for $170/pr--that doesn't include bulbs--and I need two pair for the Challenger. It's an investment, but the whole car has been so what's a few more hundred bucks into safer lighting? What's cool is that the Koitos have three options for the high-beam-only (H1) position: "stock", longer beam reach, and wider beam spread. None of them look "stock" since they have flatter lenses, but at least they match. The Hella outboards are convex like a musclecar-era stock sealed beam, where the high-beam fixture is flatter like the Koito. It's one of those little details that would annoy me on that car. I prefer the convex look, but not as much as I prefer four matching bulbs.

On the Valiant(s--I may do both), the Hellas are fine. It's a single 7" per side and those obviously match. I'll probably just use standard H4 replacement bulbs for maximum life expectancy. Running the lights through relays is actually as big an improvement as the lights themselves, so I think they'll be fine visibility-wise. Of course, I don't have thirty grand tied up in either or even both of those cars, so playing "Whack-a-Doe" isn't as much of a concern to me.