355 Euro headlights

The "parking lights" are 4W bulbs whose sockets are in the Euro headlight assembly. They're sometimes called "running lights" or "city lights." They're wired in such a way as to light up along with the front side lights, side markers and rear tail lights. As the F355 headlights are retracted when Position 1 is selected on the light stalk, the "parking lights" are superfluous.

This is what these lights would look like on a Mercedes Benz 380 SL...


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Aka "city lights". They are little light bulbs that don't really provide forward facing light for the driver but illuminate the inside of the housing to be seen as in driving in "the city".

The parking lights to which you refer are different. My US market Audi S4 Avant has those (haven't tried my euro 348 to be honest.)

Here is an example pic of city lights. Notice the headlight clusters are slightly illuminated but the main headlight beams are not on. Also notice in this picture it looks like he has the stalk set for the left parking lights to be on. Which is odd because if one were to use them, they'd turn on the side opposite the curb I believe. Anyway.

I would think since the 348/355 has retractible headlights, that they would not have city lights installed, those lights would be in the front bumper light clusters. Like my 348 pic below.

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Yes, my 944 turbo does that. If I have to leave it on the side of the road for any reason, I would use the directional stalk to select which side the front and rear parking lights and side markers I want to stay illuminated after I shut the engine down and remove the key.

 

Right, Brian. What I did with my F355 Challenge was to be able to switch my fog/flasher lights on and off independent of the light stalk controls so I can use them as "running lights" when on the track. As the power door locks were removed, I replaced one of the momentary door lock switches on the console with an ON/OFF fog light switch to manage the running lights. The wiring was done in such a way as to preserve the flasher function with the light stalk...


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I'd be curious how European market 355s handle this. My guess is that they would not be in the fog light circles but in what are the "turn signal" housings in US cars. I'd love to know for sure. Anyone own a euro 355 and want to comment on that?

 

Brian, FWIW, the Euro wiring diagrams show no circuits for additional lights. The 355 simply uses the normal side lights as parking lights.

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Gotcha. So what is marked as E the "side light" would be the section acting as running lights/city lights. And the circles would be the flash to pass that double as fog lights then.

Like this....
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Correct. The USA/Canada cars have "front fog/daytime flasher" circular lights. My Australian 355 is similar to the Euro car with no (optional?) front fog function. My car only has rear fogs (one of the red ring semicircles).

 

Interesting. My euro 348 has front and rear fogs. US cars only got front fogs, while Canadian 348s got neither front or rear fogs....I wonder if the Australian market did away with fogs for the same reasons? If this is true I am surprised the euro 355 (and the Oz 355) has no front fog lights.