From: Philippe Courant
Date: Thu, 05 Mar 1998 11:55:00 +0100
From Philippe Courant, 57 Crown convertible (France) accf_clb@club-internet.fr
Deep purple instrument
lights on 57/58 dash. This article was sent and printed in the ITCH
newletter (March 98 issue) but I think that it'll help 57 & 58 owners :
" I'd like to mention the dash lighting on the 57 Imperial. While it is
not the incredible electroluminescent lighting of 60-63, it still is
quite beautiful. The numbers and letters of the speedo, gauges, clock
and radio are lighted with deep purple "black light" bulbs (clear
bulbs in a purple glass tube or ring). The result is beautiful at night
(although not very powerful). I've found something else : the speedo and
gauges have a green adhesive tape which makes the die cast bezels appear
green. With the purple letters and green bezels and orange pointers, the
dash looks like Las Vegas"
I've joined two pictures which show where is the green tape (sorry, I've
used yellow on the speedo but only for picture). The green gauge tape
must be heat resistant because there's a 10 W (don't use 15 W) bulb behind it!
I've made 4 small holes in the socket to evacuate the heat.
If you look at the instrument in the dark, even so you'll see numbers
because the numbers are painted with a phosphorescent paint. I don't
know where we could buy this special paint !
Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998
From: Philippe Courant
Here is another picture which completes the topic about lighting of the instrument (Deep purple). It's the
result of what I said about green & purple illuminations. The real
lighting is less shiny than the picture but in fact colors are the same.
I took this picture with my "Canon" (exposure time : 30 seconds.)
260 kph (kilometers per hour) speedometer, used in European-built 1957 Imperials.
