Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Modifications Aesthetics Reflector Idea...

Been seeing a lot of posts about painting the rear reflector, and I've been thinking... why paint it? Why not do a llittle rewiring and molding and make the whole reflector light up with the brake lights? What do you guys think of that?

STeve

Its been brought up a few times but I dont think anybodys done it. There's not alot of space behind the reflector.

I dont think it would be too hard... you could prolly have just a molding where you can drill the lights behind the reflector... then splice the lights with your brakes a voila... I dont have the money to try but if I did I would most likely try to figure out a way.

Steve

It has been attempted and done before. Some people used LEDs, obviously it didn't light up the whole thing, looked alright. Other people were talking about using a neon, dunno if it was done though. I thought hightower was talking about doing something with mercury vapor like the Mark VIII, but i dont think anything ever became of it. You could try some cold cathode tubes, that might look sweet. Just get that black backing off the reflector.

But, ya, if you can get a nice lighting pattern, it would be cool. Give it a shot.

The easiest, and most dueable by most, would be the LED's.

Let me put it this way... One of the first post I made on this site was to a guy that was doing this with LED's. That was a long time ago. Not that it can't be done, just not in a way that looks good.

Are there things that can be done? Hell ya! But, you have to understand the main theme behind most of the people around these parts. I will give you an example...

When my wife and I was looking for a used car, I had my eye's set on a 99 Honda Accord w/V6. Why? Not so much because of reliablity, but because of all the "stuff" I could do to it!

Go forward about three weeks. We find the Mercury Mystique that we own now. There was something about the essence of this car that grabed us and "no matter the price", in my mind, I had to have this car! Although we got a great deal on the car, at the time, after we got it home... we told ourselves that there was nothing we "wanted" to do to it. It was perfect!

In comes the "Fast and the Furious" & "Flash and the Fancy" days of hotrodding around this same time.

It was then that I found this site, because of a friend of mine that asked me, "Can you do that to your car?". I told him that I didn't need to, but that I would check into it. It was at that time that I found this site. After finding this site, I could not tell you how deep of a breath a took! I didn't have a car that needed a body kit to look good. I didn't have a car that needed $1000 in suspension mods to make it handle great. I had a car that, all alone, was "Wonderful"!

Now, with all that said... Do you really need that rear reflector to light up to set your car off from everything else on the road?

My Mystique has been turning heads, in my area, for going on three years now and I have only lowered it and put a Flowmaster 40 series muffler on it. I did not change my rear reflector to turn heads, I did because I wanted to. And that was based on the fact that I was going to be replacing it soon.

We should all be proud owners of an awsome car that has awsome potential. If you can love that, then you only have your reflection in the paint job to thank. And as far as I am concerned, as long as you keep the above "feelings" in check - you can do anything to Contour and make it look great!

Keep the love of the car real in your mind and let your imagination take over. That way, you will stay true to the Contour. And that is what it is all about.

Just my two cents!

It's all about what you like.

I feel it pretty cool that I can turn heads with this car. At first I thought there was no chance this car could look "cool". Then I realized that its a sporty looking car and not just a "granny car" like my friends said. Now all my friends want to ride in it. I've only put on underbody lights and a system and I get more headturns than I could ask for. Sorry for hijacking the post.

ive got LEDs in mine,

ive had them in for about a year- they look cool, i'm kinda tired of them though, i'm actually thinking about painting it.

What is the stuff called they use in the backlit aftermarket gauges and hvac controls? Electrosomethingorother paper? I would think that it would be the way to go if trying to light the reflector.