Tunnel Light ID?

Nicholas Studer

PCS Elected Director 2022-2025
Can anyone help me ID the make on this set of tunnel lights that showed up here recently? :confused:
 

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They look like they might be from a 1957 / 1958 Cadillac... Did you find those in the desert in Egypt??? :D One trick that I use is to look at the SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) number on the lens. The numbers on the lens can identify the make of car, as well as the year and model, within the make.... i.e. Cadillac / DeVille
 
the Guide R 56 makes me think the red lenses came out in 1956. Buick, Chevrolet? the chrome bezel looks like 58 Cadillac or possibly a late 50s Pontiac item.
 
The lenses could be 1956 Chevrolet, because they did use a lens like that. That is the lens in the roof lights on my 1962 C/B ambulance. See post #13 in this thread.. Click here
 
I'll dig one out tomorrow but I'm thinking that it not a 58 housing if it is they have sanded the back side flat. those are not 58 lenses. most likely the 56 as indicated. but that is a 58 reflector. the side lights on the top should be 53 Chevy with the back up removed and the red lens in it place.
 
Everything about it looks 58 Caddy to me, except the cap at the bottom. An actual tail light has something that looks more like a nose in place of it at the bottom. Other than that, the lenses and housings are 58 caddy. The guide number in the picture is even xx 58 (can't read the first part, but looks like R5). Sixty Special had two red lenses with a square back up light. Other models had a white lens and a red one.

More pictures would be helpful to see how they were fit to the body, but it looks like a housing was molded into the roof to follow the contour of the tail light housing.

Edit: here is an R5-58 GM 58 Cad tail light:

cad58bak800.jpg
 
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and here is the housing for the 58. as you can see if they used the right one they did some cut chop on it. but Eureka was noted for that kind of stuff.
 

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