Originally Posted by Govert

From September 1979 all models got vacuum adjustment. Before that vacuum adjustment was either an option or not available. There was a manual adjustment knob at the lights when you opened the bonnet for driving with a heavy load.

From September 1982 all models got the square headlights. Before that only the higher end models and the coupes (the 300D did not get square headlights until Sept. 1982).

Two brands were used: Hella or Bosch. So Euro headlights are:
- round or square
- with or without vacuum adjustment
- Bosch or Hella
Parts are not interchangeable.

There might be some very early models without halogen lights, but I'm not sure.

The city or parking lights were always in the headlight itself.

Front lights on French cars had to be yellow at the time. For the main headlights that was achieved with yellow light bulbs, but those were probably not available for the fogs, so a yellow reflector was used; these were only used on cars that were delivered to France.



And if you cannot decide, you can always mix:

Originally Posted by MBeige

I'm curious about Govert's post on earlier W123's having non-halogen lights.

Originally Posted by MBeige

In case anybody is wondering how much adjustment there is on the Euro lights equipped with vacuum adjustment capability, here's a short video I made. Please ignore the sound (turn it off ), I forgot to turn off the radio...

W123 Euro headlights | Flickr - Photo Sharing!