The original tail lights on my 2011 black PTT were looking a little cruddy and I'd been playing around in Photoshop to try and get an idea of how I wanted to tweak the look to get them to "blend" better with the car. Hopefully getting the effect on the rear of the car I got on the front when I switched to the black GTS style headlights.

After figuring out what I wanted found pictures of a car a place in Chicago worked on and the lights were pretty much dead on with what I'd done in Photoshop. Had Suncoast send a new set directly to them and just got the finished product today. Very happy with the results.

Not just a film they apply to the lens. They first darken the lens to one of three options of ... darkness (mine are the lightest) then apply 3 coats of polished clear. I had them mask off the clear sections because I wanted something that looked like it could have been a factory option. Even on super close inspection the finish looks pretty amazing.

 

Wow. Just wow. Those look incredible! How much did that set you back? Any links to the shop you used? I am super interested in doing something like that. Love that you left the clear, too!

 

Very nice! At first I was like it's just tint overlays, but then i saw 3 coats of polished clear...then my jaw dropped. Very nice!

 

Oh by the way, have you installed them yet? Is the reverse light bulb accessible?

https://www.6speedonline.com/forums/...amera-gts.html

 

Those look great! Make sure you post pics after installing!

 

Thanks. Even though I'd seen pictures of their previous work and really liked dealing with them was still a bit apprehensive (brand new pieces and not like I could undo the process if I didn't like it) as soon as I opened the boxes and saw them looking like pretty pieces of car jewelry I was pretty excited.

This is a deep link to gallery pics on their site of the car they did that came up when I did google image searches for "tinted panamera tail lights". Richard was the person I mainly dealt with (think he's the owner or manager) and cost was $200 a side. He said for an extra $100 per light they'd refinish my current ones but said the tinting process accentuates, rather than hides, any flaws so I just went with a new set. He had said there was generally about a 10 day turnaround time but ended up being about 7 business days between them getting the lights and shipping them back out to me.

If you look through the gallery they have pictures of a 911 with the medium tint and I think something else with the dark as well.

And, like I said, they pass really close scrutiny. If you run your hand across them from the tinted to non-tinted surface all you can feel is the little seam that is already there from the way the lights are assembled. Think this closeup shows that.



I've just been trying to do little things that accentuate the curves on the car. Here's a picture I took when I was at a friend's shop that I already posted elsewhere showing the black headlights on the car. I've since found a set that also had the LED ring around the projectors so returned the ones you see here and installed those. I think the black frame and darker interior pieces tends to visually extend the fender down into the light making it more pronounced.



Only just installed the tail lights yesterday so don't have any good shots of them on the car but you can see in this closeup that when you're looking at them with your line of site perpendicular to a surface they have that ruby red look but the top surfaces look almost gloss black (when viewed from the side) which (I think) brings that fender line down in kind of the same way.

 

Checked a picture I took of the back of one when un-boxing then new set and it has the non-serviceable "hatch" and so do the original ones I removed from the car. Since my car is a pretty early model not sure when or why that changed. Maybe sealing issues with the removable hatch but, more likely I would guess, it was just cheaper to make them fully sealed.

 

Congratulations! Great looking taillights.

I had my 2013 taillights smoked and then had clear film placed over them to give a glossy look.
Smoking the reverse portion plus the tint on the rear window made it tough to see out the back at night.
Couldn't change out the reverse bulb because I had the sealed hatch.

Will post an alternative I just tried in another post.

 

Looks good.

If there had been the option of taking the clear portions just a touch darker I might have considered it but the pics they had of ones fully tinted, even with the light tint like mine, it took the clear portions darker than I wanted. And apparently the process they use doesn't give them any easy way to vary the tint from the basic light/medium/dark they offer.

Until I have some decent pics of the actual tail lights on the car this is what I sent them to show what I wanted with the doctored version on top and original on the bottom. Final product looks pretty darn close.

 

I just tinted mine with film for $ 90.00.

 

Those look great sir!

 

Those look fantastic
Like RDS993 I tinted mine with a film, I believe it was the lightest one they made, very happy with the way it turned out.

 

Thanks. I definitely considered doing a film but wasn't sure I could get the red parts as dark as I wanted while leaving the clear parts as ... clear as I wanted ... without basically cutting out the file over the clear sections. And I wasn't sure how a film would look if you just cut out those sections.

Plus, I really needed the surface of the lens to look as glossy as the paint to get the particular effect I wanted and haven't seen that with films. There may be ways to do it but I just hadn't found any pictures that showed it. The pictures I found of that white Panamera the shop had previously done were pretty much dead on and had a good feeling about them after talking to Richard so figured it was worth a little extra $$$ to go that route.

I've been redoing the wrap on my window trim from a not completely perfect job I did on it when a buddy that owns a body shop was repainting the car (long story) and that's proving to be more of a pain in the a** than I expected. But when I'm done with that I'll post some pictures of the completed project with the tail lights.

 

Pity that these tail lights aren't available dark OEM as they are for Panny 971 ....

 

Perfect. I'm sure many here are interested in the procedure. I'm thankful my window trim came already painted.