The owner of this SI 330GT 2+2 won his first Platinum Award and the second one for this car, but he decided to take it back to Cavallino this year and try for another award! Despite the accolades, I still felt there was room for improvement on this car. One thing that drove me nuts on this car was the discoloration of the headlights. Once I point it out, it becomes very obvious! Even with the ribbon on this car, I was embarrassed by how stained the headlight looked!

What happens is the seal between the headlight glass and the steel reflector starts to fail, and moisture starts to corrode the metal. Rust starts to form, and there is nothing you can do except to re-silver the headlight reflector, or replace the headlight.

I decided the best option was to find a set of new old stock Marchal headlights in better condition. I contacted a guy I know in Europe who sells headlights and asked him to sell me four of his best lights. Two were the standard 7 inch light, but I also needed the special 5-1/2 inch high beam light for this Ferrari four headlight car. Luckily, he had both sizes and shipped them to me in the States.

The silver reflectors on the old lights were dull and peeling. They were also rusting underneath the silvering and causing the staining you saw in the picture.

The NOS lights I bought were in much better shape, with nearly perfect reflectors. The gaskets were a little yellowed, but that would be expected with over 50 year old lights. They were still better than what we had.

The other difference was the surface of the lights. The old ones were pitted and pock marked from years of service and exposure to road debris.

The NOS ones were clean and unmarked. What a difference!

I carefully installed all four headlights, and felt proud of how nice these lights looked. Now I can show at Cavallino and not be ashamed of the headlights!

Here’s the video of the work I did!