Euro lights

[mal]

Am thinking of changing my US headlight to Euro Lights!
Being a purist I believe this is the way the car was originally designed and think it looks better.
However, there are two types of Euro lights: (bubble) and (Flat) my car is a  1971, so which is the correct type? should I also, remove the side markers?

Attached is a few photo ofmy car being restored. The floor pannels were completely changed
Many thanks
Malek Mrowa
280SL 1971
190SL 1961


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[Cees Klumper]

Hello Malek - (wow, Lebanon) - tastes are personal, but I agree with you on the Euro lights looking better than the US-spec ones. By all means get the bubble-shaped lenses. I have rarely seen the flat ones and I think they don't look as good. I would be surprised if the flat ones were supplied originally, but I could be wrong.
When I had my car repainted, I had them fill in the side marker holes (my car is originally US-spec, and was shipped back to Europe in 1990). I think the lines become a lot cleaner without them. I also removed the bumper overriders, and put small (plastic) chrome antenna caps to mask the holes in the bumpers. Unless you look hard you don't notice them. When it comes time to have the bumpers rechromed, I will have the holes filled in but, for now, I like the solution I came up with.
The attachment did not come through, could you try posting it again please? I'm very curious to see what it looks like.

Cees Klumper in Amsterdam
'69 white 280 SL automatic

[n/a]

Being a purist is not a bad thing...on the contrary.
However, Cees is right, tastes are personal...I myself have a Us version and therefore, would most likely keep the US version lights which came originally with the car, even if the original design for Europe was different...
If I were back home, I would change to a Euro version car rather than modify my car.
This is easy to say for me, given I am in the US!!
By the way, i would be curious to hear what Mr. Bracq says about those different lights???
Any insight??

Fabrice
Silver 1971 280 SL
New York City

[ja17]

Hello,
I read somewhere that both flat and round euro lenses are original. The flat ones were designed for halogen light bulbs and the round were for the earlier tungsten lighting. I do not know if this is accurate or not.

Joe Alexander
Blacklick, Ohio

[jcjblo]

I believe the bubble style (fishbowl) came with cars from 1963 to 1968 (230Sl to early 280SL) and the flat type from 69 to 71 (280SL)

1965-230SL 4-speed Euro/Canada version, white (050) black leather interior

[Bob G ✝︎]

Their was two different versions of this headlight. An H-1 twin bulb  low/high beam called premium with flat lenses and the single bulb version . Most popular I have seen are the single blub high /low beam with sighly rounded lenses. I have a set of rare twin H-1 bulb lights and advise that a less costly set up would be to purchase a set of Carello H-4 round 7 inch lights and keep the standard USA headlight unites in place. I got a lot of information from a company in Texas called Danial Stern Lighting. I think he has a web address and answers frequent post to European lighting questions for Mercedes-Benz Enthusiast.
Bob Geco