Page 2 - Butchering Your Aerodyne

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Lucas L594’s

The original L594 “warts The replacement indicator with
The original L594 “warts The replacement indicator with
I inherited with the car a red rear light lens as well
I inherited with the car
a red rear light lens as well
An as yet incomplete story of searching
An as yet incomplete story of searching
Lucas L539
for the perfect solution that probably
for the perfect solution that probably
does not exist!
does not exist!
This started off as the story of a 50+ year saga of someone who is usually very decisive
being very indecisive indeed and eventually goes on to cover more changes and up-
grades. I would never have described myself as an Anorak kind of person but the lights

Lucas L691 on my first and second 401 became somewhat of an ongoing obsession. The thoughts
of drilling and cutting through my 401 body were absolutely horrifying and yet we all
have to take full consideration of safety issues. I bought my first 401 in 1968, when I
was young, single and poorly paid but ran it, even after I got married and started a
family and had even less to spend.
Most owners of 401and 403’s may already have resolved their lighting issues
with varying degrees of a successful final look but just in case there is one person still
Lucas L632 pondering what to do, the following is the continuing story of my lighting obsession,
which started with indicators at the front and especially the rear and then expanded to
other lighting upgrades like Brake/Tail lights and a brighter dashboard at night.
One of the issues I had with my original 401, which was a jinxed car but that’s
another story, was that whilst you could still (just about) get away with trafficators in
the 60’s, fewer and fewer people were looking for them, besides which, front and rear
flashing indicators are indeed much safer and I had a young family to think about.
Wipac Mini Someone ran into the back of my 401 after they did not see my Brake lights and
I set about pondering how I could fit indicators and wing/door mirrors with the absolute
minimum of drilling and cutting or preferably with none at all, which of course was
an impossibility. I resolved the mirror issue with clip ons that were “attached” to the
door window frames with no drilling required but I was still pondering the issue of in-
dicators some 3 years or so later when I parted with “Jinxie”, which afterwards was
finally written off (again) and broken up. My subsequent 405 was much less of a prob-
Maxpart LX677 lem with indicators fitted but having returned to a 401 some years ago, I’m back again

with the same old indicator dilemma.
When I acquired “Cammie” in 2000, the bug ugly L594 “warts” that some un-
caring and unsympathetic person fitted to my 401 are certainly safer than trafficators
but not to my taste and certainly don’t suit the sleek look of a 401, especially at the
rear, see the top photo on the left and the final resolution on the right. So here I was
again pushing towards 50 years later with part of the same problem.
My “new” 401 had already been butchered with holes so at least that part of my
Lucas L824 dilemma had been resolved. However, I want the indicators to look as “reasonable” as
Jaguar Export I can make them with the most sympathetic SAFE indicators I can fit, at least within
reason. Sure, I could spend a lot and have everything filled in and restored but that’s
Amber & MGB a step I was not prepared to take as I still wouldn’t know what indicators to fit!