I just met with these guys for some stuff I am working on unrelated to cars, but MAN! if you need some tail lights I would highly suggest you look at these. Much brighter than an incandescent bulb and less power draw. Plus they look nice. Simple plug and play too.

Top quality stuff

Grady

http://www.litezupp.com/

for 50-60 dollars a 'bulb' I can tollerate the current draw of regular bulbs.

yes, they look very nice, but not quite $50-$60 per bulb nice.
and the pics only show 4 leds per bulb...some of the others I have seen have 10-12 or more led per bulb

since my current '75 build will be a daily driver I have considered LED bulbs for all the rear lights, running, turn, brake...
It would be worth trying some of the cheap ones at ~$5 per bulb before popping for the $50 bulbs.

Could be a good idea for motorcycles... anything that increases visibility is a good thing. Both of the motorcycle bulb applications are listed as NOT YET AVAILABLE though.

look here.

www.superbrightleds.com

I'm not affiliated just showing you a better price. They have LED bulbs for motorcycles.

EDIT: Look under 12 volt car bulbs for the motorcycle bulbs.

oft the LED lights are brighter than factory lights, however they also tend to be very directional, you have to be looking right at them to get the full brightness, look off to teh side a bit and the brightness goes way down. maybe ok in some applications maybe not in others. Maybe good for brake lights where your main concern is alerting the driver right behind you, but for turn signals you want that to be seen bright in the lane next to you.

Yeah I know all those arguments. These are not even in the same league as the superbright leds. These are the real deal. Also as far as side visibility they are protected by only a slight rim of aluminum so you get pelnty of side visibility about 130 degrees. I know the price is a bit steep, but if you want the best you pay for the best. Cheap compared to body work.

The reason they only have 4 is that these are 3w phillips Rebel LED's they put out about 50 lumens per bulb or a total of 200 lumens for the tail light. Double that when breaking.

As for turn signals the lens normaly takes care of enough dispersion from a properly designed LED that it doesn't matter.

I am not saying that these are for everyone, but if you are in the market they deserve serious consideration.

I work with LED's and was going to build my own as a one off until I met these guys.

Pia LED's are 12 bucks a set. They come in yellow, white and red.

I am not saying that there aren't other options out there, but so far you guys have been comparing 914's to Yugo's

Grady - be sure to post a pic of how nice and bright they are
I have considered DIY LEDs, using the big flat red circles like the truckers do.

with "you get what you pay for". These may be superior to any others but until I see how much better I can't see me spending $300.00 on 6 bulbs. I will admit that they do look nice and I'm all for the lifted 4x4 trucks (majority of cars) in my town seeing me but I also don't need to be pulled over cause my taillights are to bright.

Here's another perspective on LEDs on crs - paticularly classics like our 914s - as someone who once considered being an auto designer back in my youth (during the stone ages), I look at the LEDs & see groups, rings or strings of tiny lights in the cars with LED lights (they're directional, so the wider reflectors in the housings on older cars don't do squat) -

... rather than a light in the shape which defines the rear end of the car the way the original designers envisioned it. In the case of our 914s - they have wide rectangular taillights which "define" the wide & low look of our 914s - which the dots do not do at all!

As to paying $12 or $50+ for LED bulb sets in a car set up to run the incandescent voltages/amps, I have to ask why!!??

... I mean really - it's not like you're being "green" & saving energy, because that alternator is running with the engine all the time anyway, & if operating properly it isn't suffering from overdraw!
... okay, so if yours is an EV-914 use them, or that one time where your alternator fails on the road, then the LEDs may extend the battery life a few minutes - but the spark is the main draw then anyway by a long shot!

They're really not that much more effective in lighting than our OE taillights with the proper bulbs & reflectors in good shape - esp. past 70-90 degrees - since 130 degrees is your cut off & that's reduced significantly from dead on up to 60-70 degrees, when it falls off progressively from there.

LEDs make some sense in building & roadway applications drawing on the power grid, but won't even make sense there until they get far more reasonable in price IMHO - which is why they're still early adopter stage overpriced items even there.

So I have to say why do it on homes & offices today - let alone cars!!??

If you read the ad they are priced per pair for 1157's
so 25 bucks each is not too bad.

I did put superbrite LED's for my panel bulbs. They do help on the gauges. I've been looking at LED replacement bulbs for our worklights on the older machine tools at work. They seem to produce a lot less heat, so the coolant splashes don't burn to the bulb.

I missed that. At $25 bucks each, doesn't quite sting as much.

Here is a side by side comparison with another LED light on a motorcycle forum. Evidentely they are working on the comparison shots now, but don't have them yet.

http://burgmanusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=436107#p436107

At least it is some pictures.