Talbot mirror question

[NOPDK]

Trying to educate myself on Talbot options for 73 hotrod. From what I can piece together the senior or larger size works better for the 911? Does anybody have experience in installing these? Does the talbot with the U mounting bracket use the stock holes from the oem flag mirror? do new holes need to be drilled? trying to figure out if installing this a simple take the OEM flag off and Bolt on the new Talbot? Or if this is a more involved process that in that case I would likely skip and stay with what I have. Any guidance would be appreciated.
Best,
Noah

[John Z Goriup]

Noah,

May I strongly suggest that long before you worry about installation details, you should think long and hard about WHY you want to mount Talbots, and be perfectly clear in your mind about this.

If looks alone are your primary concern / desire and nothing else matters, well that's one thing, do what you want. If however you're not impervious to objective, even negative input, and if function, effectiveness as mirrors and safety are of serious concern, you'll leave the flag(s), or replace it / them with similar new, pristine units if there's something wrong with your present mirror(s) and let it go at that.

I had the large, aluminum Senior Talbots on my car when I first built and "launched" it, on both sides no less, the driver's side in the stock holes ( check with Aardvark, who make & sell new Talbots, for the correct "coined" brackets, if you must have Talbots ) and correctly located on the passenger side door and I can positively assure you from hard-earned, scary empirical experience that you won't be able too see anywhere near enough to navigate safely through traffic. They may look cool in some people's eyes, but isn't it far more important to be able to see where you've been and what's alongside and to the rear of your car than to look the part. They're not large enough to offer an adequate field of view, and their design prevents them from being angled correctly to view what needs to be seen in traffic to be safe. The only way Talbots work on a 911 is to mount them on the front fenders, a choice precious few owners so far have been willing to make, due to extremely unorthodox appearance, and having to drill new holes and fill old ones.

The large Durants are not much better, especially if you choose to mount an additional one on the passenger door. The mounting of right-door mirrors has been covered several times ( used the search function ) but they too suffer from not being able to be indexed to the position you need / want.

As a final point, permit me to point out that flag mirrors were standard on '73 MY 911s, because they were found to perform far better than previous offerings by Porsche, and that correctly installed flag mirrors are as good as it gets in equipping a 911 with adequate, comfortable, safe rearward vision.

…………just my two cents.

JZG

For your perusal I am attaching a random series of photos ( only the 1st shot of the orange car is mine of my car - the rest are not mine ) showing various mirror installations, including an overhead shot of the light-blue 911 with Talbots on both sides…imagine yourself in the drivers seat trying to see what's behind you.

[NOPDK]

John,
Wise words. Thank you for the thoughtful response. I will give this more thought before doing anything.
Best,
Noah

Noah,

May I strongly suggest that long before you worry about installation details, you should think long and hard about WHY you want to mount Talbots, and be perfectly clear in your mind about this.

If looks alone are your primary concern / desire and nothing else matters, well that's one thing, do what you want. If however you're not impervious to objective, even negative input, and if function, effectiveness as mirrors and safety are of serious concern, you'll leave the flag(s), or replace it / them with similar new, pristine units if there's something wrong with your present mirror(s) and let it go at that.

I had the large, aluminum Senior Talbots on my car when I first built and "launched" it, on both sides no less, the driver's side in the stock holes ( check with Aardvark, who make & sell new Talbots, for the correct "coined" brackets, if you must have Talbots ) and correctly located on the passenger side door and I can positively assure you from hard-earned, scary empirical experience that you won't be able too see anywhere near enough to navigate safely through traffic. They may look cool in some people's eyes, but isn't it far more important to be able to see where you've been and what's alongside and to the rear of your car than to look the part. They're not large enough to offer an adequate field of view, and their design prevents them from being angled correctly to view what needs to be seen in traffic to be safe. The only way Talbots work on a 911 is to mount them on the front fenders, a choice precious few owners so far have been willing to make, due to extremely unorthodox appearance, and having to drill new holes and fill old ones.

The large Durants are not much better, especially if you choose to mount an additional one on the passenger door. The mounting of right-door mirrors has been covered several times ( used the search function ) but they too suffer from not being able to be indexed to the position you need / want.

As a final point, permit me to point out that flag mirrors were standard on '73 MY 911s, because they were found to perform far better than previous offerings by Porsche, and that correctly installed flag mirrors are as good as it gets in equipping a 911 with adequate, comfortable, safe rearward vision.

…………just my two cents.

JZG

For your perusal I am attaching a random series of photos ( only the 1st shot of the orange car is mine of my car - the rest are not mine ) showing various mirror installations, including an overhead shot of the light-blue 911 with Talbots on both sides…imagine yourself in the drivers seat trying to see what's behind you.

[gsjohnson]

I have never thought that Talbots look appropriate on the 911.

[merbesfield]

I will add my opinion here, flags are the way to go, esp. for a 72-73 car. I have a 73 and the flag and it works well. I also have a 66, which had an ugly Italian mirror so I replaced it with a Talbot rep. The mirror clearly looks nicer, but it is worthless. Now I have to decide do I add the second worthless mirror to the right side so the car looks the way I want ti to look, even though the function is crap, or leave it off? Decisions! For you it is easy, go with pair of Flags, for me not so.

[Xavier PJB]

Noah,

May I strongly suggest that long before you worry about installation details, you should think long and hard about WHY you want to mount Talbots, and be perfectly clear in your mind about this.

If looks alone are your primary concern / desire and nothing else matters, well that's one thing, do what you want. If however you're not impervious to objective, even negative input, and if function, effectiveness as mirrors and safety are of serious concern, you'll leave the flag(s), or replace it / them with similar new, pristine units if there's something wrong with your present mirror(s) and let it go at that.

I had the large, aluminum Senior Talbots on my ../..
../..imagine yourself in the drivers seat trying to see what's behind you.

+1 I had the exact same experience. I am still convinced Talbot are cool, especially as I do many track days thought it would improve may max speed - one more thing I drive my car on road to go to the track
After a short while, I decided to replace the Talbot by stock Vitaloni California which are much wider and farer from the door. This improved a lot my retro-vision and kept safe the other drivers.

[NOPDK]

Thank you for the advice. I'll keep my flag mirror on drivers door and keep the passenger door without mirror. At this point I might just be looking for projects.

I will add my opinion here, flags are the way to go, esp. for a 72-73 car. I have a 73 and the flag and it works well. I also have a 66, which had an ugly Italian mirror so I replaced it with a Talbot rep. The mirror clearly looks nicer, but it is worthless. Now I have to decide do I add the second worthless mirror to the right side so the car looks the way I want ti to look, even though the function is crap, or leave it off? Decisions! For you it is easy, go with pair of Flags, for me not so.

[NOPDK]

Great looking car!

+1 I had the exact same experience. I am still convinced Talbot are cool, especially as I do many track days thought it would improve may max speed - one more thing I drive my car on road to go to the track
After a short while, I decided to replace the Talbot by stock Vitaloni California which are much wider and farer from the door. This improved a lot my retro-vision and kept safe the other drivers.

[H-viken]

+1 I had the exact same experience. I am still convinced Talbot are cool, especially as I do many track days thought it would improve may max speed - one more thing I drive my car on road to go to the track
After a short while, I decided to replace the Talbot by stock Vitaloni California which are much wider and farer from the door. This improved a lot my retro-vision and kept safe the other drivers.

Xavier, do you still have this mirror / car? Do you happen to know the distance between the mounting holes?

[Xavier PJB]

Greetings, I do not have the car anymore, but still have the mirror I'll dig into my garage, will find it and measure.

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