There is a little more to "blue dot" tail lenses than just giving
the custom purple look to hot rods. I would suggest that their real
origin is in copying some of the premium cars of the late '20s and
early '30s. Lincolns, Packards, Cadillacs and others came with blue
dot tail lenses from the factory! For those cars blue dot lenses
are legal because they are "grandfathered" original equipment.
Another point is that those original equipment cars always used
glass blue dots. Today there are both glass and plastic aftermarket
blue dots. If you are thinking of installing blue dots in your
original or repro (not "repo"!) lenses, be sure to buy the glass
ones as the plastics do not give anywhere the effect and are a waste
of time. Also a flat or very nearly flat surface is needed for
mounting them and they MUST be directly over the tail lamp bulb to
be effective. Sometimes that means eliminating the orinal reflector
of the factory lens and THAT is illegal. Blue dots work best in
smaller lenses as a large lens's quantity of red overrules the
effect of the small blue dot to your eyes.
I just drilled my original '53 Studebaker tail lenses two weeks ago
and installed glass blue dots that I bought from Wirth's Customs.
http://wirthscustomauto.com/
One other point. I believe I read in the SEMA newsletter that that
currently are offering sample legislation to all states which would
include legalizing blue dot usage. With the huge red lenses on some
of today's cars and the federal standards red third brake lights and
the increasing use of red LEDs in tails, a little purple glow is
what really is more visible because it is something different in the
sea of red!
Wayne
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