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Cibié 170mm Bi-Iode headlights are my favorite thing to restore. I just finished restoring a set and I took some (very amateur) pictures of them before they ship to the owner on Monday. I thought you be interested in taking a look at them.
These headlamps were used by the factory on early Porsche rally cars such as the RSR and ST. Rallies demand the best possible lighting and these used halogen bulbs which were a technological break-through at the time. There was one problem however, the H1 bulb only had one filament and the H4 bulb with two filaments wasn't introduced until 1972. Of course you need two filaments, one for low beams and one for high beams. Their clever solution was to use two reflectors and two bulbs. The Bosch H1's were the most famous at the time but they were soon followed by other innovators such as Cibié in France. Cibié had always made high quality headlights and their two reflector Bi-Iodes were no exception.
My restoration business started kind of accidentally with the restoration of some Bosch H1's. I had used them on my 1967 Rally build and other owners asked me if I could restore theirs. And things just kind of grew organically from there. But I have to admit that the Cibiés are cooler than the Bosch H1's, the best headlight you can put on an early 911 in my opinion. Unfortunately they have become extremely difficult to find, almost impossible. Fortunately the somewhat larger 190mm Cibiés used by Peugeot can still be found and I have engineered an assembly using those that is plug n' play for 911's.
Cheers,
John
These headlamps were used by the factory on early Porsche rally cars such as the RSR and ST. Rallies demand the best possible lighting and these used halogen bulbs which were a technological break-through at the time. There was one problem however, the H1 bulb only had one filament and the H4 bulb with two filaments wasn't introduced until 1972. Of course you need two filaments, one for low beams and one for high beams. Their clever solution was to use two reflectors and two bulbs. The Bosch H1's were the most famous at the time but they were soon followed by other innovators such as Cibié in France. Cibié had always made high quality headlights and their two reflector Bi-Iodes were no exception.
My restoration business started kind of accidentally with the restoration of some Bosch H1's. I had used them on my 1967 Rally build and other owners asked me if I could restore theirs. And things just kind of grew organically from there. But I have to admit that the Cibiés are cooler than the Bosch H1's, the best headlight you can put on an early 911 in my opinion. Unfortunately they have become extremely difficult to find, almost impossible. Fortunately the somewhat larger 190mm Cibiés used by Peugeot can still be found and I have engineered an assembly using those that is plug n' play for 911's.
Cheers,
John
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