Excellence Series

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Trim Rings

Adjustment Screws

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It's not trivial to classify 7" LED Headlights as Best-in-Class® but we believe these are the best in the world. This effort has been made possible due to a collaboration between John Audette of Audette Collection, Lighting Consultant Daniel Stern of Daniel Stern Lighting Consultancy and Supply, and premier Porsche parts builder Eric Linden of Auto Foreign Services. Many thanks to Daniel and Eric.

Automotive lighting is an exact science and, obviously, a safety component. That fact is continually ignored by the innumerable hucksters who will say anything to make a buck. As a business we need to make money too but not at the expense of our customers' safety. Thus our quest to build the very best LED headlights for air cooled Porsche.

We are fortunate to have Daniel Stern, a recognized world leading expert on automotive lighting, as our Senior Consultant. That enables us to skip the hype and concentrate on the science. Our reasoning is that you use the best component for every part in the assembly you are going to end up with a Best-in-Class product. We've worked a long time on this and we're excited to bring you the new AC Platinum Plus LED Headlights.

LED Light Units - Latest Technology

The JW Speaker 8700 LEDs we've been building into our premium headlamps for five years are excellent but these Philips Integrated Beam LED's, with the latest advanced technology, have surpassed them. We rely heavily on the technical expertise of Daniel, our Senior Lighting Consultant, and he has subjected the Philips LED's to extensive testing and found them to deliver significantly superior performance versus the Soeaker 8700's . Here 's an excerpt from his analysis:

I can finally give John a good answer to his question about what are the best 7" round LED headlamps. I have a new favourite, by a comfortable margin, and it's affordable: the Philips Integrated Beam LED.

This Philips lamp produces a very wide, well-formed and -focused beam, with a pleasingly sharp cutoff and lots of down-the-road light even with a low headlamp mount height. It can readily be aimed visually, optically, or with the old-fashioned Hoppy-type sealed beam aimer that interfaces with the three lens pips. And while it doesn't look olde-tyme, it also doesn't deface the car by looking like it came off a space ship.

Objectively these are superior to the JW Speaker 8700 LED units. It's been more than a few years since the Speakers were updated, and LEDs and associated optics have been evolving at a galloping pace. The Philips puts more light on the road, and it is focused more usefully for maximum seeing distance (= maximum safe speed at night), _even with a low headlamp mounting height_. This really is a knocked-outta-the-park product from Philips, and no, I am not being paid or otherwise induced to say that.

So we are switching to the Philips Integrated LED's. There is nothing wrong with the Speakers - technology has simply passed them. One big advantage of being a small business is that we are very nimble and can respond to technological advancement quickly as we don't have a warehouse full of old technology that we have to sell before moving forward.

Platinum Plus Headlight Housings

The modern 7" LED bulb assemblies are the perfect size to mount in the early sealed beamed headlight buckets that Porsche had Hella produce for U.S. delivery cars (these same headlight buckets were used for mounting Cibie Bi-Iode Rally headlights, an Audette Collection specialty. If reproductions were ever made it must have been for a short time because these have become very difficult to find. As mentioned, Eric Linden of Auto Foreign Services to the rescue.

This ultra-high quality (Eric's wheelhouse) reproduction of the original Hella housings enable us to take the AC Platinum LED Series to a new level, AC Platinum Plus. Everything is built using the highest quality materials and things fit to precision. And the powder coated finish ensures long-term durability. A Best-in-Class® product.

Trim Rings

And the same goes for the trim rings. Most reproduction headlight trim rings are made of stamped steel and up iuntil now that's been the only kind available. Here again, the quality was adequate, but not premium. A not-quite-exactly-perfect stamped steel ring is hard to mount, because steel is hard and not very ductile, which means no flexibility in fitting them over the fender ridges. Porsche originally used trim rings made of brass, which is much more ductile, and that's what Eric Linden did, too. Together with the utterly perfect fit and finish, this makes mounting the headlamps Best-in-Class^® easy

Lenses

Linden's lenses are a perfectly faithful reproduction of the originals, made of premium borosilicate clear glass. Also called "hard glass", borosilicate is much harder to break, much more resistant to thermal shock, much less prone to pitting (road rash, sandblasting), and has excellent optical properties. These new lenses have the correct SB 19-20-21 script on them, and no Hella markings.

Following Daniel Stern's recommendations Audette Collection will only be offering the Excellence Series LED Headlight Assemblies with clear lenses to assure optimum performance.

Hardware

Your choice of adjustment screws:

Chrome plated oval head slotted screws (as used originally by Porsche)
Stainless steel oval head Phillips screws

Porsche OEM mounting screws.