Just made an unfortunate discovery - rear up light alignment

Beautiful car, and love your eye for detail.  The VS cars do seem to have the plate ‘up light’’ installed high.

Your post is quite timely for me - I’m a new guy here, and am having a VS car built as we speak.  I’m going to dig up the placement info on the Stoddard site. Hopefully I can insure that mine is place correctly. But I think that you can, indeed, move yours down a bit as you describe for a more ‘correct’ look. Perhaps moving the plate sticker tabs to below the plate would also help make the move more inconspicuous (?).

Speaking of your license plate, can you PM me info on that? Yours is far cooler than the Colorado ‘collector’ series plates!!

Thanks, Brent

In June, someone posted a mounting guide for the speedsters.  I just checked my VS mounting, and it is per the attached mounting guide.  That said, maybe the mounting guide is off?

Keep in mind, our bumpers are slimmer than the original bumpers, thus increasing the gap between bumper and shine-up light assembly.  You can also easily adjust your bumpers up to reduce this gap.  Just bear in mind, if your bumper support touches the opening in the fiberglass, you will hear an annoying rattle when you drive over rough surfaces.

That pdf is super helpful! Thanks!

When I saw this post originally, I thought you were saying one taillight was 2 inches higher than the other one. That would be a problem. IMHO, what you’ve got going there is probably not.

If you are trying to get it down to the gnat’s original eyelash, there are about 75 more obvious “tells” that telegraph our cars’ more humble origins (the entire interior, for starters). The plate mount likely varies from car to car on originals. The steel bodies were handmade by Keebler elves.

Your car looks fantastic in it’s own right. Rock that backup light with pride.

Stan makes a great point: sort of like the Reutter badges on the original cars as well. We’ve all seen fairly dramatic variations in placement on un-restored or minimally restored cars.

Heck, in my neck of the woods you are more likely to see a unicorn than you are any 356 - original car OR replica!!  Very few folks around here have ANY idea what it might be. . . . . . but my OCD still has me striving to get things as close as ‘reasonably’ possible to ‘correct’, though.

VS did a pretty good job of making stuff look as original as possible when it didn't cost them significant production time.

The side spears, door handles, headlights, horn grills, hood handle, for example, are all pretty good. The front-to-back placement of the front wheels in the wheel wells is not, mainly because it would have taken significant time to monkey with the VW pan (and steering column) enough to get that right.

Looking inside my engine compartment just now, I see that the license light is mounted as low as it could be without the mounting bolts disappearing behind a steel frame member that the original cars didn't have. So, that probably determined where the light ended up.

To paraphrase Stan, don't worry - be happy.

Thanks All -

I took a look at everything last night. I have a removable panel between the engine tin and the body that is exactly in line with the up-light mounting bolts. Under that, there are no obstructions/frame rails, etc.. So, I am going to go for it. I found several push in rubber bumpers that I can use to fill the existing holes, even though they will be hidden when I move the license plate. I will most likely use 356 engine lid buffers ( http://www.sierramadrecollecti...er-50-65-p18624.html).

I will dive into it tonight and post pics when it is done.

An unrelated question: I have read several times about how the front wheels are not centered in the wheel well. However, most of the pics I have of original cars, as well as the half dozen real cars I have been around in person all have a far greater gap between the front of the tire and the edge of the front fender than they do between the rear fender edge. This seems to be the same with all A, B and C cars. Attached are pics of Steve McQueens car, as well as one the is currently on Bonhams showing this, and then a pic of my car. I am not seeing much of a difference. 

Everything came a part very easily. Unfortunately the rubber seal behind the up-light has been holding water. Paint was stained underneath, no way it could be buffed out. So, I am dead in the water on correcting the issue.

Bummer.

Wouldn’t that area be covered by the license plate?

It might be helpful to realize that, even though places like Stoddard’s provide part placement info, that info is often an average measurement taken from several cars.  

Why is that?  Well, because all of the original 356 and 550 cars were hand made by small teams and no two are precisely the same.  Placement of front lights are often off by 1/4” or more (sometimes on the same car left-to-right!) and placement of the rear lights can be off by as much as 2cm.  That has been confirmed by a number of creditable 356 restorers and often talked about on PCA forums.  If your shine-up light is off by 1” vertically, I doubt that anyone will notice it other than you, and is easily explained with “well, no two originals were ever the same, either.”

Is that silver a two-stage paint? Wouldn’t the discoloration just be in the clear coat?

It looks to be a very long term problem.  Paint has yellowed severely.  Yes, it is a two stage, but there is no getting it back. I hit it pretty hard and litterally no change. 

While the plate would hide a lit of it, parts would still be visible. 

Sorry for your frustration - but ultimately, your car is fantastic! It’s a beautiful day for a drive!

What does it take for me to register my car with similar ‘vintage’ plates (‘58 plates - can’t find ‘skier’ on ‘57’s) in excellent condition? Colo DMV website seems is a bit vague on the matter.

Hi 30 west - 

You can use the year of manufacture plates that correspond to the year listed on your title. My car is registered as a 1958 beetle. 

There is form on CDOT that you fill out and send in with a copy of your registration, insurance and a copy photocopy of the plate you will be using (you have to provide the plate). It is a dual registration, so the vintage plate ia tied to your classic plate number.

The stickers are not required, i did that to do everything i could to keep the police at bay.

Thank you, sir, for the info.

I mistakenly assumed that as a VS build your car was based on a later pan!