Sleek Z

DAW, I am with you on several of your comments. As much as I am interested in custom tail light swaps and construction, I do like the basic 240Z design in many ways. Mostly it is the dated surround panels and expense of new lights that that my mind thinking in other directions. It seems to me that on a relatively stock looking Hybrid Z with original factory chrome and stainless steel trim intact, seeking a tail light mod with matching chrome trim makes a lot of sense, whether it be a part of another model's stock design or as part of a custom design. I agree with you that in some cases it is a very important accent that has to be there to make a new solution look finished. Also, I liked the ideas of several customizers at the MSA show this year that purposely used the stock tail light cut out and sheet metal mounting surface as a place to insert their own designs without cutting into the body. Good example is below. Link to large photo is at http://www.zparts.com/events/wcn2002/promo/image/DCP_3320.html It will show you a lot of detail of the owner's ideas and economical solution to give many practical inspiration. If you have not seen this photo up close, you owe to yourself to check it out closely. Check with Pete Paraska also. I believe he tailked to the owner about what the guy did. I'd like to see a photo of the Toyota tail light idea you are working and place it in my Tail Light Showcase section if you wouldn't mind sending it to me. Lastly, there is no way that I can find the time to display all the what-if design ideas and tail light photos that I have been accumulating lately, but today I published a new page called PHOTO STUDIES of NON- Z CAR TAIL LIGHTS and LENSES within the Tail Light Showcase section at ZPARTS.COM for the purpose of publishing select photos of interesting tail lights, lens and lighting experiments that I have been doodling with this past week. The page may seem to have some rather extreme or odd choices, but with time I hope to clarify my design reasoning as relates to the custom tail light topic. For now there's just 2 samples to see withing the format I have in mind. Suggestions and comments welcome.

I am a bit late on this thread, but since I part Z cars out on a daily basis I thought I'd add my 2 cents. As others have said, you start with all the visible 10mm bolts and philips head screws along the top of the fender, along backside of fender cone on down to 2 that attach lower, outer valance to center valance. If the bumper has been removed first, removing the entire fender with cone and lower valance attached as one unit is a lot easier for further dissassembly than trying to remove each piece while still on the car before fender removal. Next, open door and remove windshileld cowl panel to access the 3 hidden bolts there. The 2 philips head bolts under the cowl can be particularly difficult to remove without undesirable consequences occurring. At my ZPARTS.COM website I have just published a new section on PARTS REMOVAL TIPS & PHOTOS that has some brief comments about removing these two problematic bolts that might be useful to you or your Z friends in the future. After you remove all upper bolts there are 2 more bolts at the bottom of fender just forward of the lower door area which often rust bond into the lower body of the car. I find that quite often one or both of these rusty bolts will break off if they do not start to turn freely at first try. If great resistence is encountered, I'd suggest cleaning off visible rust and debris and applying some liberal doses of Liquid Wrench every hour for awhile before proceeding. When I do resume, I usually start by applying tightening pressure (clockwise) first until I feel a slight "give" to the bolt before I start applying counter clockwise torque. Once bolts move a bit i reapply WD-40 or Liquid Wrench to rusty area before continuing. Once all bolts and head light/marker light wires are removed or disconnected, gently prise/lift lower fender area outwards & upwards until it comes away from body slightly. Next, gently lift up on on rear and wheel well areas until fender lifts up a few inches. At that point fender can be slid forward and upwards in a motion that should cause it to come away from the body. Hope some of that helps someone.

JENS You just need to understand that a server is similar to a woman. You have to "sweet talk her" a bit before she'll reveal her inner most beauty. Is this what you wanted to show us?

Big Phil, I'd very much like to see that article on forming plastic taillights. By all means, please send it to me at eric@zparts.com If you xerox the text sections and mail them to me I might be able to OCR the article for my Tail Light Customizing archives and send a copy to Owen as well. Terry, I've hacked away at "repainting" your rear view photo of your tail light section and found that I over estimated my Photosho skills in that dept. I am sending you my first experiments, but think I will have to trace your image in Illustrator first and then take it back into Photoshop to get the realistic shading and gloss paint finish I had hoped for. Question: What types of businesses in a large city might sell medium sized (4' x3') steel sheet metal panels similar in grade & thickness to Z car body panels suitable for hammer shaping experiments? I want to buy a few if they aren't too costly just to play around with. For the sake of just experiments, are there "grades" of panel steel that would "harden" less from hammer work and remain soft and pliable longer than others? Any suggestions for types of steel panel or sources for such in the SF Bay Area would be appreciated.

Hi, ALL Perhaps it would be useful to add a link to reference page for those of you interested in this topic. Last year I published a page devoted to the topic of one piece front ends for Z cars, past and present. Included are several photos and brief text notes contributed by myself and others. The direct link is http://www.zparts.com/showcase/bodykits/S301pc_front/tiltfrt_sample.htm

joeinCA Don't worry, The thread is not dead yet. I've been contacted by several around the country working on "surprise" solutions, some inexpensive, others, "sky's the limit" (I think he's serious 'cause his wife voted for the idea', but I'll let him speak for himself when he's ready). I think that now that so much discussion has occurred on the topic there are many now in their garages and/or in graphic programs trying to work up solutions, that they don't have time to post here. You know, "enough talk, more action" types of thinking. As i stressed to several Hybridz members wanting to start cutting and chopping instead of carefully planning out a strong design or plasible swap, "solid thinking, inspired designs,carefull preplanning, and liberal willingness to experiment ", usually lead to the best custom solutions in the end. Perhaps many ointerested in this topic are up to one or more of those actions at the moment? For myself, I've started to investigate some fringe ideas related to this thread that have always been my pet interests. One is that of finding ways to reform tail light plastic or cast/forge my own with refraction patterns more appropriate to both the 30 year old S30 body design or flared Z and any custom tail light design that that particularly strike me as "YES". Not much to report yet, but I've published a first experiment that shows I have a long way to go. Links to my designs and experiments can found in my FIRST EXPERIMENTS section at ZPARTS.COM Terry, you've already done quite a bit of work.. I wish I could quickly knock out a fiberglass panel idea like you have. Recessing into the panel certainly seems a wise direction. If you take a dead on rear shot back aprox 15-25 from rear and send it to me, I might be able to add some realistic paint color over lays with 3D lightting to enhance what you've achieved so far. If I get some time, I'll first try on the photo you have displayed here to see if it works. I was wondering whether you've ever considered any kind of thin, (black?) horizontal gille-like panel stretching across the back tail light area with tail light cut outs sections similar to some exotics that could pickup on the vent and louver themes elsewhere on your car?

Hey, well if there's gonna be a new forum devoted to body kits for Z cars, I might as well point out reference to one of the least known about, but often mentioned, radical kits for the Z car, the Tomahawk Z. It now has been designed to fit 3 different Z car models, the S30's, S130 (280ZX) & Z31. However, even though technically still in production, getting the maker, Rory Bateman, to actually accept payment and start on building one for you is a bit problematic. "He's an 'artist' ", as some like to say, and doing business regularly is not quite his forte. Lacking that opportunity, you can always opt to drop by ZPARTS.COM and take a gander at the small collection of photos in the TomaHawk Z Kit Showcase or at some of the other misc URL's below. Latest photos of newest Tomahawk built on early 300ZX (Z31) body. Enjoy,

ZERO, That was an interesting find. Not too crazy about the large white back up lights on the top, but the whole tail llight swapped in pretty decently, it appears. Not many Chaser tail lights around here to find, but maybe a few of our fellow Hybridz'ers in Japan will have more to say or show? For myself, my mind will not rest about several questions related to this thread. One thought I have about both new designs and construction techniques that might look good on S30 cars, while still managing to look fresh and updated, is concerned with utilizing correcly scaled and complimentary lens refraction patterns as a strong part of any custom tail light design. Pretty hard to illustrate what I mean (I spent half a day of failure dinking around in Illustrator this morning), but today, I assembled a test web page layout that hopefully will fill up with many examples of non Z car tail light lens refraction patterns in the coming months. Now I need to start roaming around the Bay Area and junk yards with my camera to see if I can build up a pattern library suitable for both my visual thinking and hopefully, some of yours as well. If you want to take a peek at the type of ilbrary concept display I a working on please go to http://www.zparts.com/showcase/taillight_showcase/nonz_gallery/550h/TLsamp_91vw-81Isuzu.html If any of you are keen on the potential of refraction patterns as part of the design and want to submit a few close up digital photos of what you find in your area, please send them to me at zcarphotos@attbi.com. One way to get good pattern photos is to have direct sun high over over your shoulder hitting a tail light refraction area at just the right angle and it will light up the whole pattern inside quite clearl without overlaying a lot of ugly sun light glare on the outside. Photos of internally lit up tail lights in shade aproximately 30-45 minutes before sunset also work out pretty good if lit area does not overexpose. -- Sleek Z

GeoTek I agree with you that such ovals, if in proper scale might work well as flush marker lights. I've entertained the same line of thinking several times myself. However, ovals could also fight the visual lines of the 240Z if their curves do not match the roof and fender/cone lines harmoniously. Too large or too small could also be awkard. Seems to me that side marker lights and rear tail lights, both carrying an oval theme might work even better to tie a new, updated theme together. Add oval tail pipes and maybe that would also work if in just the right scale and spatial balance can be maintained but it could get very "oval cluttered" as well. The one thing I'd be cautious of would be of getting too carried away with ovals or round lights to the point that necessary visual counter point details, such as rectangles and squared off detalisl are erased that might be necessary to give S30 body look finished balance. Nissan's 70's look of squared off bumper tip ends and rectangle marker lights being examples of the design sense in vogue in those days that reflects that type of thinking. __________________ Owen, Good job on those red panel and tail light overlays. Pretty good tinting over the silver. Nice to see those kind of subtle experiments in "what if?" What I like to do is start with a photo of a brightly painted , silver or white car, desaturate the paint selection and build up 10% to 40% color overlay fills to achieve a smooth credible paint look. You can also use PhotoShop's light effects tools in an adjustment layer above to enhance the glossy paint look even more.

As far back as 1988, I began working up concept drawings for a 2+2 convertible. Mostly I envisioned a project with no roof replacement, but I did toy with the idea of creating an entire fiberglass, lift off top, reinforced with light weight aluminum, flat box channel embedded in it as a frame adequate for sealing unit to body using slide-in, tensioning latches meant to be sufficiently resistant to wind and water, but not to take structural load after roof was cut off. I think the body, shock towers, etc, would all have to be adequately braced before cutting off top to make it all work. btw, the aluminum box channel was also meant to allow attachment of a false ceiling/headliner that could house experiment Koss flat panel speakers and lighting such as flouresent tubes. Above is one concept drawing I quickly designed many years ago to show top replacement look I had in mind. This design is stting atop an actual stock 2+2 upper body outline in proper proportions. Lower areas are again a custom concept of that designing period. Kickup rear spoiler was envisioned as being integrated part of one piece fiberglass top. Perhaps the above idea will give you some new ideas. I'd love to see what you come up with because I think the potential of the much ignored 2+2 Z car body needs to be re-examined this point in time. Note, I'll make a shameless plug for the convertible and /or bracing kit that I sell on my website called the Z Spyder, designed by well known designer, Sam Freeman. Another Hybridz member here, working on a 2+2 convertible, has seriously looked into using the rear cap on his car while others have been eyeing the virtues of the pre-fabbed bracing kit for either convertible or V8 projects. You might want to take a look at it for reference. Links to more info are at http://www.zparts.com/home.html http://www.zparts.com/inprogress.html

I started on my first design theme aiming for a fresh look on a S30 body while trying to pickup where Nissan left off 32 years ago by incorporating elements that would be compatible with several of your car's paint and/or body flares or while also tipping my hat to the direction that Tim240Z has led us with his Firebird like cut-out-slit panel design. I've named this first design "Tail light theme 1a" for the sake of future reference. Several color variations of this illustration and accompanying backgrounds have been published also in the growing Custom Z Car Tail lights Ideas section under the templates page at my ZPARTS.COM website. Not earth shaking in difference, but maybe of some help to a few of you. To really appreciate the strength of the above design you really need to see it in it's intended 3D form from many 3/4 and side views of car because it was envisionjed to show quite a bit of sculptural relief from the rear tail light panel. Once I have worked out a few more themes and decided which ones I favor most, I probably will next move the vector illustration layers into Photoshop to attempt more 3D realism with more convincing "lighting" because what is not shown in present image is the 3D sculptural protrusions and recesses intended to enhance this design from many view angles of the car. Definitely, I envision all the lights as rounded protrusions coming out of the sheet metal or fiberglass panel embedded in the stock S30 tail light body area. Being a theme rather than a finished design, the idea with this one is that many of the elements can be tweaked, repositioned, scaled relative to each other and possibly, logical new components added (or subtracted) without the feeling of the theme being lost. btw, I think the weakest part of this design that needs tweaking is the equal length of the 4 stacked, off center, horizontal lines inboard of the main light. I suspect that the inboard ends of these horizontal lines need to be arranged asymmetrically by shortening the upper widths progressively or altered to create the illusion of an invisible oval-like circle forming the inboard end points. Your comments, both pro and con, would be most welcome. I'd like to see some more design ideas also. ps, Dan Juday just informed me that he's got access to a digital camera and some surprise tail lights off ebay to show us all. Of course, he is persevering with his "swap stock, from 'scratch be damned" philosophy, but I think he may be onto a pretty good idea. When he gets the pics ready, I'll put them up for all to review.

Boobala I like your first experiments with my template. Usually I am not a big fan of large tail lights on a 240Z, but it appears you made a logical extension of Nissan's original theme and I think the total look has pretty good balance. Also like your addition of the texture "realism" in the lights that you added. I've been meaning to take some close ups of tail light refraction surfaces to use as textures in design mock ups I come up with so they won't look so flat and dull as visual concepts. I am looking forward to see what other ideas you and others may come up with using the templates. Bad pun accepted. Good work, --Sleek Z

Owen & others interested to print the overlays for field use, If the shaded and colored areas obscure the value of these templates, I can turn off all fill and shading and publish one illustration as a simple line drawing if that would help anyone? Also, for those that need larger images to sketch over, I have all 8 images on my website (but not linked) in sizes that are 966 pixels wide and I can scale the line drawings to any size you need, but down load would be prohibitive for most I would presume? Let me know if any want the links to the largest images up there. What is cool about working with vector based drawings is that if you have a vector program to open a vector file, such as Adobe Illustrator, Freehand or Corel, you can literally print out a line drawing to the same size as your car's tail light panel if you have a printer cabable of feeding roll paper or if you take file to a place like Kinkos. Lines and shading will be razor sharp no matter what size you print it at. Very cool for building tail light panel card board panels to size with the aim of mocking up an idea full scale or for beginning work on a fiberglass or carbon fiber panel. Question, would having correctly measured dimensions on overlay templates be of any value to any of you? -- Sleek Z

OK Gang, as promised, I've worked up 8 overlay template variations over the rear view shot of Dan Juday's car sitting in his garage. All are similar to one above, but each will show more or less important visible or hidden details, thus giving persons here a chance to download and do his own overlay experiments over the image best related to his design objectives. Link to 8 overlay images is at http://www.zparts.com/showcase/taillight_showcase/overlays/index.html Reason lower suspension appears so prominent is because photo was centered low at level of license plate and because overlay was done on photo of Dan's car when it it did not have typical added weight of a full gas tank and thus was standing rather "tall" in his driveway. All variations were made from 11 layer Adobe Illustrator file. Layered file can also be exported to Photoshop's layered .psd format for further experiments. If any of you want the layered image in either Illustrator or Photoshop file format to play with write to me at eric@zparts.com Note: dashed lines show location of hidden lip behind exterior tail light surround panels, assorted Nissan bracings, bumper mounting bosses and screw holes behind panels, the location of which may be useful to some of you trying to mount up a tail light swap or cosmetic external panel without cutting into your stock body. These dashed lines may help you plan out designs with that aim in mind. Note 2: what appears to be tail light outlines is not that of the externally visible tail light, but rather the factory tail light cut out and related holes that Nissan designed to mount stock lights. The shapes of these cut outs are a bit asymetrical and not all that accurate in shape or exact location. Hope this helps some of you. Please give me some feed back about what other details you'd like added to the Illustrator file for your use. Next overlays may attempt to show different size and shaped flare ideas. Have fun. --Sleek Z

The joint's been jump'in around here the past several days, both with part out and shipping duties as well as a steady stream of ideas and comments coming in about this tail light discussion. In response, I have been working on developing a series of S30 rear view templates made up of over 10 "what-if" layers of details in Adobe Illustrator that I hope to post up to my website for others to use as background templates for their own design and what if thinking. Hopefully, 6-10 templates will be published this evening. Yesterday, Hoover (wild IMSA 550 hp L6 turbo & Prima Donna fame) stopped by to measure up my Fairlady ZG for his newly purchased Fairlady external mirrors and we and another HybridZ member worked over some ideas and shot the sh*t for a good time. Today, Dan Juday stopped by to review all the tail light templates and experimental ideas I have been working on and to debate where to draw the line on custom tail light efforts. I made my case again for "renewing efforts to "think outside the box" more when designing custom tail lights and about turning more toward building them from scratch as opposed to looking for other models to swap from. Look for more "hot and bothered" Dan Juday posts on subject after a few days go by, MAYBE?? Dan?? Terry Oxandale has been sketching out some new thinking and has sent me some samples that we both may refine a little more and publish at his site or mine after concepts stablize on some practical themes. I'll try to have the templates up tonight and maybe some other crude designs of my own to show Pete and company if time allows. QUESTION:

Hoover, In my photo coverage of the 2000 West Coast Nationals there is a Fairlady ZG with mirrors that you can reference at http://www.zparts.com/showcase/wczn20/pages/00r11f11.htm Also, in my sig below you may be able to discern the former location of removed mirrors on my own 74 Fairlady ZG where the Japanese enthusiast replaced them with a small chrome decorative strip to cover over the mirror mounting hole when he removed the mirrors. They are located above and slightly forward of the front wheel center caps. See below. --Sleek Z

Professor, I had similar problems. Although I am using Internet Explorer 5 on a Mac, your photo display page reported that I did not have a browser capable of viewing the photo on the page hosted at MSN photo display website. There's some irony for you. Anyway, I'd like to see them as much as Owen. Maybe you can try to post them up again or figure out the problem for us? --Sleek Z

While I was typing my last post Terry beat me to a point that I wanted to "over emphasize" as this thread matured a bit more, that of the importance of stressing horizontal lines in the rear end redesign of a flared Z car intended for both performance and striking looks. Again, my favorite example lately is the Saleen 7. Division of rear end space on the Saleen is bit complicated IMO and it doesn't solely rely on all horizontal lines to build drama while adhering to good "form follows function" guidelines of a exotic and performance car, but it all seems to work for my eye. However, I question whether the actual lighted tail lights themselves should be the main design feature that stresses the "horzontal line" look when seeking to enhance the "performance look" of a flared Z. My gut tells me that if the actual lit up tail light area mass reaches past a delicate proportional balance to the whole, the end result may end up appearing gaudy and 'heavy' on a car that is relatively small and even demure looking at some higher angles such as the S30 bodies do, with or without large flares added. My suspicions are that the horizontal line "look" must be created from 3D background elements such as thin black grilles and panel recesses that house tail lights emerging from them and from such form follows function features such as bumpers or pseudo bumper imitations, lower tail pipe insert panels, brake cooling air exit tunnels and even specialized rear end adjustable "ground effect" air spoilers. (Isn't that what is on the red Ferrari on this thread page above or am I misunderstanding the purpose of it's lower adjustable panel at the bottom of the rear valance? Terry, you'd be a great person to teach Photoshop or Illustrator to if you'd share the results here. The 2 together can produce some very cool stuff. I am no expert, but below is the type of effects that I have been able to produce so far that serves some of my practical designing needs. Chow, --Sleek Z

Pete & Denny, I agree with you both that the 2 slit panel designs do have something pretty interesting going on when applied to the S30 rear end and I'd love to see more experimental designs along that line emerge. When this thread first began, trying to free myself from being so identified with typical round tail light designs, I had been envisioning some designs in my head formed from intersecting tangent lines of circles (as opposed to solid round lights) and straight lines aproximately 1/2" ot 1" in width developing on each side of tail section having one or more connecting lines all the way across the panel that most likely would have had to have been constructed first as a slotted panel. Where mine would have departed from the lights behind the slots concept shown in Tim240Z's design and the one in my tail light display was to develop half rounds of red, amber and white plastic that would have fitted into the slots and emerged as 3D rounded relief forms on the outside of the panel, the glow of which woud be visible from the side angles and from eye level when up close to the car in the dark. The tricks involved to give totally even luminance behind all plastic strips (slots) plus a sparkly refraction look behind plastic and still meet DOT requirements I still have not arrived at yet, but I am confident that all could be worked out.. hint, to experiment with even luminance, sand edges of several 3/8 to 1/2 inch thick plates of red plexiglass with 240-400 grit sandpaper and sandwich them between equal sized pieces of wood or heavy cardboard, tape them to the front of a light box enclosure and turn on 1-3 small bulbs behind them in the dark and see what happens. Next get out some patterned metal such as an aluminum meat pounder from the kitchen (don't let your wife catch you), heat it up hot enough to metal the plexiglass and burn in diamond refractor patters in to the sand papered edges and test the look again. Even sand blast the refractor surface afterwards for a 3rd effect. Biggest problem I saw in my earliest "tangent strips" concept was early designs did not at first seem appropriate for a performance sports car, but maybe with a bit of refinement and experimentation I could get them "tuned" to the S30 look? As for the "mystery" guy with the strong opinions, I decided to omit his name because he posted me in private and I am not sure if he is a hybridz member or not. I know the guy is working on a pretty wild looking custom Z car of his own (18" whls & no top, etc). Maybe he'll eventually post here and let his own "cat out of a bag" for all to hear about and see? 'Nough Zaid for now, --Sleek Z

ZERO, The OLDS tail light shape does fit the extended shape of Pierre's flare design decently and your assorted photoshop "what ifs" have been very helpful contributions to this thread. However, the issue for many may come down to whether those tail lights or others suggested, will pass muster within the confines of the stock S30 tail light panel area above the bumper. As nice as Pierre'z custom body is, I suspect that few customizers will be taking their body mods that far outboard. Can you use one of my early shots of Dan Judays car to work up ideas within the stock S30 panel? To me the stock panel spaces above and below the rear bumper are the most challenging and difficult to redesign in a fresh way. What do others think would work? btw, the red Ferrari pic posted by Nemeziz 8 posts previous really shows what attention to detail the designers of that car took to integrate everything together into a completly harmonious whole. Beginning with the design statement starting at the first front fender curve lifting up over the head light area, along the top, mid and bottom areas of the doors on back to the rear corner haunch and deck before coming to rest and completion in the rear tail light panel, Ferrari still resorts to a simple, but effective tail light theme of well positioned and correctly scaled ROUND tail lights. So very classic historically and yet Ferrari manages to still make their use look fresh, modern and natural to most of us. I think there is a real lesson to be learned HERE about how design can possess objective properties as well as numerous subjective ones. Very fascinating to me. Trying to understand just what it is that the Italians and Ferrari in particular, seem to understand so instinctively just drives me crazy sometimes when I am trying to come up with my own designs on a computer. (forget pencil sketching, I never have been able to draw worth sh**t) btw, blueovalz (Terry) can you say more about "headache 1" statement in your last post? I know you have thought long and hard on your solution. Your thoughts would be most helpful at this point. Hey, and guys, I've really appreciated the efforts some of you have put into this thread. This past week I've received quite a few off-forum comments about this topic and the tail light photo display published last week. One guy with strong opinions wrote to me and said, "In your (tail light) pictures of Z's there is only one person with any kind of creativity. It's the one that may have used tail lights from a 1971 ford Fairlane GT everybody else does the SAME OLD THING.The car is I-2_B jpg if he follows through with it and after it's painted it will look good." How many of you agree? You can review photo I-2b in the GUIDE TO CUSTOM TAIL LIGHT IDEAS photo display. ---Sleek Z

Ran across this thread and thought I'd mention a rather nice looking used wood steering wheel For Sale at ZPARTS.COM at http://www.zparts.com/ads/arrivals/recent%20parts%20arrivals.html It's half way down the page. A larger photo can be seen there. Formerly installed in the famous "Purple Candy" Tomahawk Z of Vincent Hudson pictured below. What's kind of nice about this older wheel is that it comes with the higher quality solid aluminum hub adapter which is very hard to find these days and costly if you find one one ebay. btw, the wheel looks even more beautiful in person than it does in the photo. Owner has it consigned for sale and will consider offers if anyone here might be interested. Sleek Z

ZERO, Interesting ideas. Can you expand the black inset panel around the lights a bit more and give some shading to it? recess and shadow the license plate and perhaps pull the 2 dual tail pipe insets closer together so they form a V alignment arrangement with the out board tail lights? If you want to start adding realistic color to the silver paint and panel, select the desired silver painted areas, desaturate the selection, brighten the highlights in LEVELS and fill with 20-50% color on a layer above using fill's 'overlay' mode. Thanks much for your efforts. Owen, Good thoughts. Interesting that you'd zero in on a popular tail light kit (image 00r10f09a.jpg )from the '70's no longer in the market, as one of your favourites. I agree, it does have pretty clean style and attention to detail that the flatter panels do not. btw, image DCP_3400 is of a prototype of a tail light panel kit possibly coming to market. I met the designer at this year's MSA show and he told me that he had tentative plans to produce it commercially. It seemed cleanly made and installed, but struck me as a bit bland and the off the shelf back up lights didn't look quite right to me. Otherwise, I liked his ideas and craftsmanship. I told the designer I'd be interested to market his design and gather feedback about it after I publish photos of it. Anybody care to offer their opinions so I can forward them on to him? btw, the guy told me that he worked in the automotive design industry and might develop other aftermarket add-ons. Any suggestions for him? My apologies to Big Phil and Tim240Z for not including their innovative work. It was an oversight in haste that I will soon correct. --Sleek Z

Chris and others that have been contacting me about this thread, I set aside a bit of time this evening and rounded up a bunch of photos of custom tail light shots I had on my hard drive and published them on my website for the sake of this thread. About half have never been online before. For those of you that dig on Pierre's Silver custom Z , there are 5 new ones taken at MSA 2002 showing the car's tail lights from different angles. Link to photo display is at http://www.zparts.com/showcase/zp_tail%20light2/index.html Terry Oxandale contacted me about an idea he is working on that may surprise you all, but I'll let him announce it when he's ready. I think he wants to perfect it a bit and then show photos later if it flys. If you have a worthy photo or concept illustration to contribute please send it to me at zcarphotos@attbi.com Sleek Z

Tim240Z About your site address not showing as a clickable link. Try copying the URL for your site either into your hybridz sig or directly into your posts with out encasing it in any UBB code and I think you will see it will appear as a clickable link in hybridz forum posts back to your freeserver hosted webpages. paste only the following and nothing else. http://tim240z.iwarp.com/index.html Hopefully we all can now click through to your project pages each time you post. Sleek Z

Pete, Excellent comments IMO. Restraint when designing something fresh from aesthetics of the recent past is very difficult and tricky. IMO, Dan did some very creative thinking when he started assembling his mix and match design concept for his project. I liked it from the start.. However, Dan just informed me this morning before going to work that he has just taken a 'leap of faith" in a solution suggested in this thread that I am not certain I will agree with him on. Nevertheless, Dan and I have a lot of fun batting around these "what if" concepts, but now I gotta "look out" because when Dan "makes a project decsion" ya don't want to be rock'in his boat once he gets to truck'in on it 'cause he can get that cranky look in his eye if you asking him to rethink some things. In all fairness, I am probably the same way. Dan usually checks mail and happenings here around 5 pm PST after work. Bet he'll have a thing or two to say about all these opinions as well. There's a bunch more to your comments that I'd like to respond to, but I gotta run for now. Ball's in someone else's court. Your serve. --Sleek Z