Brake lights vers driving lights on Beehive cars ??

[Jim Clement]

I have a early 1957 356a coupe. 4 light BeeHive
Restored by myself and lots of others.. it has turned out well..
The brake lights on the back are simply not good enough for today's standard.. so am upgrading to CU layer lights..
The question that I am having is are the brake lights on the outside of the arrangement, or the inside ?
I currently have the signal lights and the brake lights on the outside, in a dual filament configuration, and the inner as the driving lights ?
so when I step on the brakes, the outside two light up, and if i have my turn signal on, on brake light on and the turning side is flashing as turning.
All of the tail lights are standard repro from Stoddard.

is this correct ?

[Mike Wilson]

According to Joe Leoni's book, the stop/blinker lights are outside, the tail lights are inside.

Mike

[Jim Clement]

okay..
good news .. so I have it correct !!

[Mike Wilson]

Mike

[Chip Flor]

Jim,
The pre A's tailight beehive configuration had the brake light inside and the turn signal light outside. The T-1's (as yours and mine is) has the brake and turn signal as one unit on the outside. The inner lights are the driving lights.
I too have the CU layer lights they make a huge difference. They are much safer. I would really have wished Porsche would have left the T-1's like the preA's beehive tail light configuration.

[Jim Clement]

Chip
did you get the dual filament RED bulbs ? or the white bulbs ?

[Jim Clement]

I have ordered a set, just need to confirm what type / colour

[Phil Planck]

My repro bee hives from Stoddard had dual filaments. The inboard light only used 1, so I ran a jumper wire from outboard tail lite to unused inner so I had 4 tail lites instead of 2.

[Jim Clement]

so jumpered from the brake light to the empty contact ? or ??

[Phil Planck]

Jumpered from outboard running light to inboard unused running light.

[James Davies]

FWIW, the pre-A rear beehives had 2 single-pole lights and 2 dual-pole lights. For the 356A, all 4 rear beehives were single-pole, single-filament.

[Jim Clement]

James, you are correct, however most of the new ones available today are all dual ..
my originals were too far gone to restore.

so, given that, an opportunity to add a bit more light in the back..

[Chip Flor]

I'm not sure if they are red or white led bulbs. I would speak to the CU layer person.
Whatever I have they work brilliantly (pun intended).

Yes the driving lights wired over in series to a dual pole brake/turn signal (outer) lights is a great idea. One pole for the brake/ turn signal light the other for the driving light. The more light at night the better.

[Chip Flor]

There are some folks that run red LEDs in the back up light as accessory brake lights. They use the clear glass and it looks perfectly stock. However when the brakes come on the red LEDs make it look like it is a red lense.

Many 356 enthusiast's run one of the existing brake lights, with the turn signal flashing depending one whichever side you wire from. So depending on whether you have your signal and brake light on...sometimes the middle light will flash.
The correct way is to splice into or connect at the brake light switch (master cylinder) wired over via the tunnel to the back up light switch (in the center of the tunnel). This completes the circuit to the rear of the car with stock wiring. This providing a brake light only circuit.

The original factory Porsche wiring works the back up light only when your headlights are on and shifted into reverse. Pretty much a useless scenario. Brake lights and safety are important especially with these bee hive cars, so giving up the back up lights (that only work at night) is a small price to pay. I am also planning on using this same circuit to wire my inside beehives as driving/brake lights (with CU layer LEDs).

So center back up light lense = brakes red LEDs .. Inside dual pole driving light/brake LEDs and outside dual pole driving/(brake/ turn signal LEDs)

Yes not stock, but I think safety and also giving the tailgater on his cell phone a better shot at not hitting my car wins the day.