Beehive glass lens

[Brad Ripley]

Can anybody supply a photo of glass lens for a beehive light? If so, please post to this forum. Some say they existed; I've never seen one.

Any opinions as to which models such lenses were fitted?

[Chuck House]

Brad,

I have an unrestored early T1 and two '54 Speedsters. All have plastic beehive lenses front/back.

[Guest]

I was under the same impression. I asked a similar question a few years back, never really got an answer.. ... To this day i have never seen a glass late pre a /a beehive, but i have seen plenty glass early orange and some red beehives. Typically sold on ebay for about $50.. I don't think there is a red glass late factory beehive.. i have seen aftermarket red glass but they are much taller. if you polish the plastic ones they will look just like glass.

regards Ned
55 cab

[Adam Wright]

I had a pair of NOS ones a few years ago, there was quite the hub-bub on the old old Talk List about what they were. Jim at EASY came to my defense and said they were in fact clear glass front turn signal beehives. They sold for $300 if I remember correctly. I didn't save a pic, sorry, but yes they do exist.

[Joris Koning]

Adam, I disagree. Finding them in a stash of parts does not necessarily mean that they were used on a 356. Until somebody can provide some convincing evidence I'd say the glass beehive lens is an "urban myth"

[Bruce Baker]

Pictured below is a glass beehive that is very similar to those in red and clear that came on my first Speedster....marked 'Lucas.' Those were 'original'........to me, in '65.

I was curious, so I found Norm Robinson's dense red (very unsafe at night) original rear beehive lenses from his '54 Cabriolet and they are plastic, as Chuck reports on his '54 examples. (I had replaced those for him in 2006 with less dense repros after following him at night at the Mystic ECH, lost on small streets and major highways, to get him back to the hotel safely from the 'Lobsta' dinn-ah.')

Short story.....in the early '70s, I was told of an old apple barn in NY state (Burnt Hills?) that contained much 356 'NOS,' so a friend and I rented a small plane and flew up from PHL to see what I could buy for my fledgling 356 business. (Even though Adam wasn't born yet, I knew I had to get an early start to beat him to this 'stash.')

Turned out that the upper (dry) floor was picked clean, (I think it was by the original poster in this thread who had already claimed the business name of 'NLA.')

The lower floor/rooms was wet up to our ankles and totally dark and we were unprepared for what we eventually saw. We found a flashlight somewhere and were dismayed (to put it mildly) to find new (old stock) 356 doors sitting in water and muck, rotting just like those that needed to be replaced! Floor pans, hoods.....ruined! (Now, that stuff would fetch big bucks.)

As I stepped back in the dark, I felt a 'pop-crack' underfoot. I had the flashlight handed back to me and reached down into the muddy water carefully to find glass lenses that I had accidentally broken. Red beehive and red rectangular, the first time I had seen such lenses. The red was just like the clear B/C reverse light lenses I was used to (also occasionally breaking) and I was sad and embarrassed that what wasn't rotting away was being ruined in the dank murky muck by a klutz like me....

That said, I always thought the glass lenses were early and plastic was later, although a glass lens was used for reverse lights (even amber) in all 356s. However, I have no glass beehives now to prove they even existed.

[Guest]

there is a set of red glass tall beehives on ebay now item # 290501108070

regards Ned

[Bruce Baker]

Eric Wahlberg says he has clear glass front turn signal lenses on his Speedster #84840. he reports that MY old 84255 had glass front lenses, as he had assembled those prior to my sale to Chris Cannon. All marked, BTW, 'SWF.'

Eric says he will follow this with pictures.

[Barry Brisco]

What we don't have yet is an original owner who says "My 356 came with glass lenses" or "I bought my 356 from the original owner and he said it has always had glass lenses".

In the legal world, the integrity of evidence is established by proof of a "chain of custody". That principle can be usefully applied here as well.

Best regards,

[Bruce Baker]

What we don't have yet is an original owner who says "My 356 came with glass lenses" or "I bought my 356 from the original owner and he said it has always had glass lenses".

In the legal world, the integrity of evidence is established by proof of a "chain of custody". That principle can be usefully applied here as well.

Best regards,

Barry, it's only important if we care. Brad must care, but most of those 356ers I hang around with can't tell glass from plastic above 20 mph....(in signal lenses, too).

Brad wrote: "Can anybody supply a photo of glass lens for a beehive light? If so, please post to this forum. Some say they existed; I've never seen one."

I did just that, but it was a Lucas lens, for Brit cars. I had those on my A-H Sprite AND my first Speedster! Consecutively.

I've also seen others in glass, those marked for German-made cars (SWF), as has Eric, Adam and Ned......but...here's the key.... Brad didn't ask if they were original on a 356. Joris, beyond "assumed guilt" you may be correct but I can't know more than anyone else. I just defer to 'never say never or always in regard to anything 356.' Then, there are 'the Books.'

Try this: "644.631.421.00 or 10: Glass for tail-stop-blinker light (.00 red/.10 red-orange) and more lens items identified in the A parts manual as "Glass."

Regards,

[Barry Brisco]

Bruce, if we didn't care, we wouldn't be posting in the Authenticity Forum, would we?

My point was that what matters are verifiable facts, not speculation or comments such as "I think I saw a car with that on it" (not quoting anyone in particular, but it's common for such statements to be used as evidence of the factory using a part in a certain way).

Best regards,

Barry

[Charlie White]

I've been accused on several occassions of looking too hard at the "books" with regard to what's what with 356 Porsches. There's one thing that Bruce mentioned that you should keep in mind when your talking 356 Porsches. Never say Never! And Never say Always! When talking authenticity, I have a hard time accepting the comment often heard when talking what's original and what's not.....Well, I'm the second owner, and the first owner told me the car is absolutely all original, or some such comment. Or even a first and original owner saying my car is absolutly original and that's the way it came from the factory. Even in those circumstances there are situations that might have occurred before ownership that could have changed something on the car.....like the dealer, for example. And I have a problem with "memories", and well that's how I remember it. Not good enough! Memories fade, and can be too erroneous for absolutes. And the I've seen it/done it that way a thousand times, so it must be so. Well, that's only one thousand out of many thousands. The odds are against you in that train of thought. That's why I like the "books", workshop manuals, parts books, service bulletins, and the like. At least it was that way at some point as per the factory's own written word. Yes, it could and probably did change, at the factory, and later, for lots of reasons. And I have a hard time with the comment that well, the factory manuals are full of lots of errors. The Germans are and always have been a pretty diciplined and detail oriented people, hard to accept that the "books" have lots of errors. I'm sure there are some! Now I respect those that have large amounts of experience with 356's who feel they know these cars, but even they have to accept that memories fade, and the universe that they saw is only a small part of the total universe. So we're back to Never say Never, and Never say Always! That lesson seems more and more obvious as it relates to 356 Porsches.

Charlie White

[Mike Smith]

Very well said Charlie but you missed out

Translation Errors

Techinical Translations are always difficult, the translator has to actually understand the product he is describing and its function

[roy mawbey]

How correct Mike is saying that about technical translations. I was often called on to do the final check on the German into English text with respect to written information on CNC machines tools. I worked for the manufacturers and luckily it was also my job to understand the workings enough to sell them into the UK market.

Without knowing them to the point of actually also being able to use them, its an almost impossible job to technically translate correctly without that capability.

I have met technical translators whose spoken word in conversational English was perfect, I would never get into conversation with them in their own language for fear of getting a really red face, but, if they did not have an engineering background specifically in the building of machine tools and their processes then wow, many mistakes were made. ( And I always understood why.)

Often, price lists, spare parts lists etc, translated into English also had to checked most carefully.

By the way, I remember by brothers 51 had rectangular glass reflectors Hella I think now very hard to locate I understand.

Roy
RHD356A super75 106954

[Bruce Baker]

Very well said Charlie but you missed out

Translation Errors

Techinical Translations are always difficult, the translator has to actually understand the product he is describing and its function

If you refer to the lens listings in the A parts manual, the English word used is "Glass" and the German term used is "Ersatzglas" and the French is "Verre de feu." Confusing? "Plastic" is "Plastik" in German and "glass" is "Glas." How technical (technisch) is that for a translator?

"Ersatz" translates into replacement, substitute or alternative. I'd say by the illustration in the book that they offered replacement glass lenses, and I've stepped on at least one in the dark.