3 Lighting Mods to Clean Up Your Porsche’s Exterior

While a strong enough will and disregard for appearances can stick LED strips to anything, it is not the way to aesthetic harmony for your Porsche. From the factory Porsche’s aesthetics tend toward distinctive, yet understated. While the brand is not immune to following the trends of the moment (I’m looking at you, side strakes on slantnose 911s), typical Porsche styling strives for a cohesive whole over flashy touches. In recent years lighting mods have changed radically over the last several decades. Previously, owners could move from sealed beams to H7 lamps, or add driving lamps. Today owners can pick from numerous types of emitters, consider lamp color temperature, or even use garish clear lenses and chrome housings. But such is not the Porsche way.

Where the lighting changes made to our project 944 were about as subtle as possible (you can’t even see my headlights when they’re off), EatSleepDrive has opted for a slightly more obvious approach. By delving into the Porsche parts bin he has subtly and effectively updated his 997. The video above provides a useful guide to installing a few common parts on 997s, including the front side markers, taillight assemblies, and license plate lights.

Being 997 specific, these tips don’t work for all Porsche owners, but do provide useful pointers. All of the parts used by EatSleepDrive came from the Porsche parts bin. According to the video the tail lamps carry Porsche part numbers, and are Tequipment accessories in Europe. The side markers are also European-market items, and the license plate lights come from the 997.2.

Light Modifications for Other Porsche Models

Because of Porsche’s often lengthy production cycles, this sort of parts-bin picking can be useful for all Porsche owners. US-market 911s were long afflicted with “sugar scoop” headlamp buckets and sealed beam lights, rather than the glazed H7 lamps used elsewhere in the world. That simple change can not only improve the appearance of your 911, but increase useful light output. By the same token, all of the pop-up headlight cars can be easily switched from sealed beams to H7 lamps.

Even More Choices For Transaxle Owners

For 914/924/944 owners, the quest for increased light output is even easier. Drop-in HID conversions can be used without compromising the look of your Porsche when the lights are off.

Owners of early Boxsters and 996s can use headlights from the 2002-up cars for a cleaner look. Porsche omitted the amber front turn signal from the “fried egg” headlamps following the models’ 2002 refresh. Outside of North America post-2002 cars also used clear front side markers, which are especially clean looking on light-colored cars.

From Porsche’s long history, what lighting modifications do you find most handsome, or most useful? Do they come from the Porsche catalog, or from the aftermarket?