Speedometer Advice Needed

[Pedr]

Firstly, I'd like to thank Bob for this thread. Once again a serious thread that one can sink one's teeth into. It has lead to some serious research in the past couple of days.

With regard to the speedometer face.

I have gone away and looked in my original wartime production photodatabase. All photos were taken in SAR Islington. ( Down the end of my street ). All photos were taken 20/6/1941. This album is manufacture and assembly of carriers at SAR. They are early number hulls (i.e. around hull number 1500. They show a number of component sub assemblies, one being the complete instrument panel.

This photo shows that the gear change quadrants have been blanked out. It appears that they have been covered with a black ( or some other dark colour, darker than the brown colour of the face ) semi circle that has had a rectangular shape removed for the odometer.

This lead me to wonder how common this was, as I have chosen an early face speedometer ( brown / maroon with inverted triangular numerals, as opposed to the grey one with square numerals ), mine too has the gear speed quadrants marked on the face. So now is this correct or not?

I visited the Carn collection and looked at some of the original carrier instrument panels on the shelf and those in carriers. Apart from stirring up a different hornet's nests for us, Darian and I found a face that these quadrants had quite visibly been painted out. Darian ( not me with my eyesight ) could still read the screen printed numbers under the black paint. The broken glass on the instrument cluster meant that we were definately able to clearly see the gauge face.

....continued next post