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Hi there,

Price is £75 Sterling not Euros which works out around $132 Dollars US. Please bear in mind that these were produced wholly at my expense without a guarantee of any sales. If I knew the market would yield several hundred sales, then the price would be probably less than $100. If I could sell a thousand, then I'd get them made by injection moulding and they'd probably be less than $50.

My lenses are an exact copy of the originals, so you can't get any more 'factory' than that. Also this is not a hobby anymore - it's what I do full time.............and you have to sell a lot of lenses to make a living if you live in the U.K !

In the meantime, I'll speak to some guys over here about the side markers. I have a feeling the lens may be glued/welded to the backings, which means separating them from the backings will be a lot harder. Again an item like this would be better made by an industrial process, as the labour/material cost to do it the way I do, would make them too expensive to be able to sell.

Laterz

oops

This post has been edited by Cody: Jan 18, 2006 - 3:28 PM

Your Celica lenses look very good, wolfie308. I'm tempted to order some from you.
However, is it possible to make the lens clear as to match projector headlights? I would certainly order those!

Another question: would it make a difference if I set up a little something with the Celica owners club here in the Netherlands?
I figure I could get an order for ten pair if you could drop the price a little.

This post has been edited by SveNRG: Jan 31, 2006 - 6:41 PM

hey wolfie,

have you sold enough to drop the price a lil yet? ... its soo expensive for my canadian dollar..lol

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Hi Sven,

Sorry I specialise in replicating the original look in as close to OEM quality as I can. Creating a new lens design from scratch I have to admit, is not viable for me. Regardless, they will definitely clean up the look of your car.

Kash,

Have to admit sales have been slow although all feedback has been excellent. Will consider lowering price in coming months, really dependent on volume of work on other projects.

Richard
www.protocast.co.uk - Clearer by Design

droped price = more sales = better income

~snap

lol .. thats what i learned in business class

add me to the proyect, I want my turn signal clear, look for a mexican company, is a lot less expensive jeje.

Those clear inidicators look unbelievable! Excellent work!

I would love to get a pair but the price in $AUD is just not justifiable at this point in time...

Mailed Richard about clear corners some time ago. Heard nothing else since then. Could he be on a vacation?

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Sorry Sven,

Wasn't expecting you to come back to me so soon and thought all had gone rather quiet on 6gc.
I'll P.M you in the morning re our discussions and current delivery time scale

Been hidden a away in my laboratory working onother world exclusive.......possibly not of great interest here but just in case, they're clear rears for the ' 90 - ' 95 Lotus Elan which(and not a lot of people know this) -; are taken from the Renault Alpine A610 and Turbo from the mid 80's and also a car with something of a cult following. Many thanks to PaulN for painstakingly dismantling his rear clusters to provide the master

I have a pair of clear indicators that wolfie produces for the GT4 and have to say the attention to detail in fit and quality are second to none and rival any OEM lenses.
They ARE worth the money

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Or how about this slightly more advanced business model.........

Desirability= high )
Quality = high )
Customer satisfaction = v.high )

Production capacity = Strictly limited )
Competition = none )

Result...............exclusivity = high and price = high

And before anybody says - production volume cannot be raised by much and costs cannot be reduced when the product is individually made by hand.

Here's another real life lens example.......2 years ago I bought clear fronts for my Porsche 944 S.2 for £90 secondhand !! there was only one company selling them then for £130/pair. Now they are being mass produced in the Far East and you can buy them from several places on eBay (UK) for around £30/pair

And there ends today's lesson in lens marketing...............ROFLMAO

Just ordered 8 sets of lenses for the Dutch Toyota Celica owners club from Richard.
When installed, we'll definately post some pictures of the results on the Celica's!

hi ive only owned st205 for a week now and spent loads of time tryin to find clear turn lights im interested put me on ya list

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thats not even close to an advanced business model ..lol .. nice try (missing fixed and variable costs -- not to mention all internal and external factors)

but just a question ... how is production capacity so limited .... is the turnover time like a month per light?

Hi Kash,

It was a 'tongue in cheek' without it meaning to sound a sacastic response......and I did say "slightly" advanced.

Surely wouldn't have been appropriate for me to have given you all my marketing plan complete with SWOT analysis ?

Joking apart, the reality is much simpler. The moulds aren't cheap to make, they only make a limited number of casts before they start to break down and have to be made again. I have one mould for each model, and each lens has to be individually cast and hand finished. The mould has to be baked each time in the oven for 2 hrs. Then leave 1 hour to cool before splitting and trimming. After polishing and packing, I reckon it takes me 2+ hrs in all per pair plus the oven time.

I do other one off jobs and complete light cluster conversions as well, which are even more time consuming, so hopefully you can see why I can only produce a relatively very low volume of any one item. Remember, I am a not a Celica owner - much of my effort and time is also spent on lenses for cars of my chosen ride, the Porsche 944. I was going to post a pic of mine with clear indicators fitted yesterday, but can't resize the pic........must try harder !

P.S.....I've been asked about producing clear fronts for the Corolla E10 pre facelift model. Do any of you guys know whether these are like the Celica GT's or whether they are bonded together ?

Hope we're friends again

Hi Richard,

I don't know about the Corolla E10 pre facelift model, but maybe it's an idea to change the 'Celica GT' description to 'Celica GT & ST' on your site.
The lenses for those two models are identical, should people wonder.

Cheers, Sven

This post has been edited by SveNRG: Feb 21, 2006 - 7:45 AM

Some friends of mine from the Dutch Celica owners club.
These lenses rock! Check it out!

OMG!!..those are sexy!!!

[quote name='SveNRG' date='Mar 1, 2006 - 9:45 PM' post='401449']
Some friends of mine from the Dutch Celica owners club.
These lenses rock! Check it out!

Hi Sven,

See they arrived okay then Thanks very much for the pics, they give a great idea of how they look in different light conditions. The problem trying to get a true representation is of course that they DO look different in daylight compared to with flash and from what angle and distance the pics are taken, and whether the car is wet or dry, whether you respray the interior of the housing, and and and........

Might be worth knowing, a couple of guys have mailed me to say they successfully used a hairdryer to soften the housings to remove the amber lenses. Just in case you don't have an oven handy or are a bit nervous about melting them.

Thanks a lot for the tip about the lenses being the same for the GT and the ST202. Not being a Celica owner I'd missed that. Apparently the Corolla E10 units are separable in the same way, so I'm still trying to decide if it's worth adding these to my Toyota range.

Cheers

Richard
www.protocast.co.uk - Clearer by Design

Another one!

thought i posted my pics here but i guess i didnt. i also have richards clear turns. amazing quality and they look great.

I WANT ONE!!!!!!!

I agree we have ot to get some more of these floating around.Maybe we could start a GB with the guy who makes these and sells them on the protocast web site.I`m sure we could get 20-30 people to et these! Would anybody be interested in organizing a GB?Come on guys lets do this.
I was going to mod in a set of 5th gen clears ,now I`m thinking twice.

How much can we actually save in a GB tho?
The asking price is $75 Sterling.. which is ~ times 2.09 according to TD.. = $156.75 Cdn for the set.. quality yes, but ouch on the pricetag.

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......but I'm sure you'd rather have a pair. Mailed you direct but got no reply

yea i do want a pair of those babies...but i jus stick with 96+ lights cuz they go with my blitz front....i made some but its ugggggggggggggggly!!!!!...

id be interested in these as well but yeah.. ouchies on the price

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