1980 Austin Princess mild custom - 1951 Lanchester LD10

Haven't really read this as yet, very interesting and your xantia is developing into a 90s bertone styling exercise, quite splendid!

As for purples, how about volvo blackberry? Struggling to provide a link due to iPad issues...

That's bad. Seized engine, rot in all the doors and arches, I'd be surprised if there isn't rot in the floor and the boot and the sills too. The Wolseley variant is highly prized for being both the last Wolseley and for being quite rare as they were only made for 6 months. But they're still a Princess with a bad nose job wearing a posh frock. If someone takes that on they've got a lot of work ahead of themselves, but they are a very rare version of a rare car so it might just get squirrelled away by someone.

I think it is safe to say you have waaaay too much free time.

Step away from the A40 lights, step away!
Not one of your better ideas, angular lines of princess totally wont work with rounded lines of those lights.

After much deliberation I've ended up acquiring a pair of rear lights for the Princess that nobody (including myself) thought to suggest, that I hadn't looked for and because of how cheap they were I would have been silly not to go for on the off chance. This time it's paid off, I've finally found a set of rear lights that I'm happy with and they come from Ford.




The set I bought were £nearlyfree which is a good price. Quite rough and ready as they'd been repainted at least once and I've got to get at least one indicator lens, which do pop up online for £nottoomuch. I started taking the paint off expecting them to be low grade mazac or possibly steel but they seem to be a moderately good aluminium or alloy that takes and holds a polish pretty well. This is better yet as I wanted something a bit showy on the back, be that a full width flush-fit light bar or an interesting older style light unit.







I can't show a proper mock-up on the car. I've dry-fit them to the back valance and they fit really nicely. Fog light and reversing light will be taken care of with the pair of stainless steel bodied Wipac fog lights I've got, one of which I will need a clear lens for. I'm keeping the bumpers now too, that extra chrome shelf is needed to make the new lights look right. Once I get to the welding stage I'll make a final decision as to whether or not I french the new lights into the rear panel a little bit, it may look slightly better.

You'll have to make do with this digital rendition of what I'm hoping to achieve. To me the lights make the car look less dumpy and they don't fight against the lines of the car too hard.



There's a good amount more polishing still to go on that casing too, it's good, but it could be just that bit better.

Not my choice but not my car either. I think 3 small round lights (frenched) would look far better. you could be flash & fit 59 Caddy lights.

Looks good Lamborghini espadaesque!

I could cut the casing down, I think. Mounting is courtesy of two bolts that go through the panel, it's really easy, another two holes for the bulb holder tubes. What I need to do is offer the lights up to the rear of the car but get a length of metal with a couple of holes to clamp them in place rather than just holding them to get a rough idea, the original light cluster holes on the Princess are the right shape and location to let me do this without cutting anything. If the lights sit too proud or a bit too sloped I can probably trim off the excess without too much bother but if I need to trim a lot off to make them sit right then frenching is the best option.

Trabant lights on the Golf very nearly work. Need to move the number plate down and smooth the entire tailgate and original lights out. A set of square lights, like those on the Datsun 610, would work better. Why have I never seen anyone put lights in that lower bar on the Mk2 Golf? It makes a lot of sense.

I like the rear end treatment on that silver Golf, I even like the strange looking tailgate result. The Skyline lights work, but seems really safe comparatively.