Chaddilac,
I too wanted the old style light fixtures for my project. I researched books of old gas stations and garages where I found most often the simple style of fixtures that are what we now call the "Chinese Hat" type of reflector.
My project is intended to take on the look of an old carriage house converted into a modern garage so I went with a modern fixture that has the period look. I have attached a few pics to show the results.
All of my fixtures came from a company out of Florida called Luraline. They are quality commercial grade fixtures with tons of options. You can get any type of lamp source including incandescent, CFL, or HID. Their finished are either painted or powdercoat. Exterior fixtures offer an optional clear coat over the powedercoat for extra durability. I had them match the interior powdercoat color to the powdercoating I had applied to all my overhead door hardware and the results were outstanding.
My suggestions (or concerns) for making a choice on lamp source is based upon your particular application. Keep in mind that what the fixture looks like is purely aesthetic and the real purpose of the fixture is to provide a source of illumination to meet the task.
Incandescent are low efficiency with instant on and easily dimmable but may be limited on foot-candles due to power rating of fixture.
CFL's offer instant on with great efficiancy but are difficult to dim and again have limitations on foot-candles for high ceilings or large areas.
HID will be very efficient and offer all the foot-candles required but take time to reach full brightness and are very difficult to dim. Hid also have issues with UV's they produce and over time will fade colors on anything they illuminate.
I wanted high light levels with the ability to dim all the fixtures so I went with incandescent which allowed me to avoid the UV issues. The large fixtures in my workshop area are 250W each and give great lighting to perform detailed work. The fixtures outside are a metallic copper finish that come pretty close to matching the copper trim work I applied. And yes the cupolas have lights in them also that are on a photocell for control. I am very happy with the way the lights turned out.
Hope this helps,
JP
