Custom lights and LED strips have been a staple for car upgrades since the Fast & Furious days. Whether it’s a strip of blue, green or red lights in the footwells or a complete custom amp rack or center console, lighting can add personality, style and flair to your vehicle. Let’s look at some options for adding lights to your car, truck or motorcycle.
A Subtle Approach to Lighting
Sometimes all it takes is a small strip of lighting behind a switch panel or around an amplifier to make a relatively simple upgrade look fantastic. Integrating lighting into your vehicle isn’t as simple as running some wires. The locations for the lights and how their output will be diffused to provide a smooth look is part of the design and construction process. The end results are typically worth the effort.
Lighting in Audio System Components
The most common place where lighting is added to cars and trucks is when a custom amp rack or subwoofer enclosure is being built. Highlighting the equipment or adding a little style to the install with RGB LED lighting is a great way to make the vehicle stand out.
Exterior and Under-Vehicle Lighting
Thankfully, the days of real high-voltage neon tubes under cars and trucks are long behind us. Compact LED light pods and RGB strip lighting can be fit into tight spaces, and their compact size helps to protect them from damage. In terms of durability, LED lighting is solid-state. There are no glass bulbs or lenses to worry about. LED lighting also runs cool, so there’s no risk of heat damage.
Shopping for Lighting Upgrades
It should come as no surprise that lighting upgrades vary in cost by the complexity of the project. A strip of solid-color lighting under a dash or seat is a lot less work than cutting acrylic with a laser and integrating a housing for a light strip in a custom console. If these amazing photos have motivated you to add lighting to your vehicle, drop by your local specialty mobile enhancement retailer and ask them about your project.
Thanks to Adam Coffman from Tampa Autobody and Audio in Tampa, Florida, for the photo of the custom Slingshot we used as the header image.
