Taillights?
All-red taillights??
Other collectors around here?
Where's Achim when you need him...?!!
Jamie
What the heck ....
... are you talking about?
Well, Gentlemen,
basically all the info about taillights has been mentioned here, and this provides only little more insight than our very nice WIKI tech article on this topic.
http://www.sl113.org/wiki/Electrical/TailLightsIf we talk about tail lights for the Pagoda it is not good but confusing to mention "all red" and later "amber" ones ...
... it is better to refer to the
early style taillights (until 280 SL serial no. 007937, with its three subtypes) and
later stype taillights (from 007938 onwards).
However, to put a bit more spice to this story I like to refer to one of Alfred's earlier posts in this thread:
http://www.sl113.org/forums/index.php?topic=14298.0reply # 16
I do not comment on that info anymore but just fully support what Alfred found out in "those were the days".
To make a long story short; the early style taillights (and here only the subgroup of the "all-red ones") were used for US cars a bit longer than for the rest-of-the-world (until VIN 011040).
As to Jamie's main concern when the red-orange early style taillights with amber turnsignal section became mandatory in the UK, I just don't know.
This info is neither included in any of the common parts catalogues, nor in the both Engelen versions (1991, 2013) but most likely hidden somewhere in the requirements of the country-specific ordering code that was on the data card (622 for England if I am correct here)...
... and those country-specific requirements might have changed over the years, maybe from 1964 to 1965 or so in this particular case...
http://www.sl113.org/wiki/DataCard/OptionCodesMy 2 cents ...:
If you have a (decent) set of all-red taillights - keep them! Polish the lens in and out, resilver the mirror if necessary, repair hairline cracks with Palavit G or a similar epoxy resin and then the lens will look like absolutely brand new.
If you need early taillights with amber turnsignal section (the Italian style taillights) get a second set, perhaps with the appropriate reproduction lenses. But keep your originals untouched. They never make 'em anymore.
Good luck to all you other "early taillight" connoisseurs,
Achim
(not interested in the W113 per se but W113 early-style taillight collector)