DON rear lights 1952

[fozy]

DON rear lights 1952 Does anyone have a link to appropriately styled rear brake & indicator lights

[Surf Tragic]

Hi Fozy, PM sent

Cheers Surf Tragic

[Don Ricardo]

Hi Fozy,

Your question about ‘appropriate’ brake and indicator lights for your Don raises some interesting issues.

When your caravan was built, the only lights at the rear was a single brake/tail/number plate light fixed on the number plate board on the right hand side of the rear. Here’s an example of a 1951 van with the original lights:



The actual light in some cases was round similar to this one…



…or ‘D’ shaped like this one;



Some manufacturers in the 50’s had a centre mounted brake/tail light and number plate, but Don always located theirs on the right hand side as shown.

In regard to indicator lights, strictly speaking there are no period appropriate lights as such because indicator lights weren’t a “thing” until the late 50’s on motor vehicles and the 60’s on caravans.

If your van has not been significantly modified then legally speaking you are entitled to maintain your caravan with just the lights that it was required to have when it was manufactured, ie the right mounted brake/tail/number plate light. However, when I think of lights, I always feel that safety trumps period authenticity. For that reason we have period inappropriate brake/tail/indicator lights on our van! 

If you end up going for a couple of just round or ‘D’ shaped red brake/tail lights, quite a few people have used Land Rover dome style turn lights on their vans, and I reckon they don’t look too out of place.

There’s actually a thread on brake/tail/indicator lights here that you might find interesting. It includes some links to suppliers, etc, which may be useful. I see also that while I’ve been typing this up Surf Tragic has sent you a PM that I’m sure will be useful too.

Don Ricardo