Posted On:February 2015 - Amilcar Australia

Rare French tail light surfaces in France – MYTH BUSTED!

For years there has been a mysterious tail light fitted to mainly Australian Amilcars. A neat small square light with a nice round lens, once was thought to be an Australian trade item. Many disagreed with this “theory” (which was insisted upon by the UK Amilcarists – and they couldn’t be more further from the truth!). However, it was brought to the attention that the threads for the globe were in fact metric a few years ago which certainly went to dis-prove the theory that this light was an Australian trade item – Australia was thoroughly involved in the imperial system and only went to metric in the late 60’s.

A few weeks ago a bombshell dropped like no other in the history of Australian Amilcars. I happened to be on ebay France, when a suggested item popped up in front of me. I nearly fell off my chair (as you could imagine) when I saw what looked to be an Amilcar tail light in a lot of new old stock lights. A bidding frenzy followed and after keeping it close to my chest for three days – it was mine. It arrived a week later and confirmed that this light is the same as fitted to our CGSs and in fact was new old stock and had never been fitted to a car!

So the myth is now busted – this small no name tail light (most likely a trade item) is in fact French and was most likely made for many years after the Amilcar factory ceased. I consider it a complete fluke that I stumbled across this, but it goes to show, you never know what you might find!