Vintage Zelmot Lamps?

[theastronaut]

I ran across a local guy that had a few interesting vintage lamps and bulb sets for sale, and among the ones I bought were a pair of NOS 5.75" Zelmot H1 housings, and an identical used pair in like-new condition. They look to be well made, and the dust boot design seals very well. I did a search here and didn't come up with anything... any info out there on these? I haven't plugged one in to check the beam pattern yet. I stuck one in a Grote housing I had, thought about using them on my '63 VW Convertible or '89 Festiva as driving lamps depending on the beam pattern.

 

[-Virgil-]

Those are old Polish Zelmot copies of a very old ('50s-'60s) high beam lamp design originally made by Carello (Italy) and also by Siem (Spain). See this Ebay auction for a Carello unit, with tungsten (pre-halogen) bulb. They're reasonably good lamps, especially if you got them for a good price, and respond well to today's improved H1 bulbs. They will work well as driving lamps. J.C. Whitney sold tons of Zelmot lamps back in the day; that's probably where yours were originally sold.

Zelmot morphed into Wesem. The stuff they make now is generally not up to the quality and performance levels of the major makers, though here and there in their product line there's a relatively good lamp. They supply most of the junk Delta sells in this country.

 

[theastronaut]

I'll give them a try then, thanks for the info!

My first venture into "upgraded" H4's were Delta/Wesem 7" "Classic Convex" housings from Classic Industries... didn't know they were overpriced garbage at the time, and the low beams were way worse than the sealed beams they replaced. Found out about Cibie H4's after that dissapointment and tracked down a set of Z-Beams.