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My recently purchased late 55 Speedster has the following gauges. Also when was the 1600 introduced to the Pre A speedster? It seems this car is caught between the pre A and A with changeover pieces.

wow cool. That is a 160mph carrera speedo. You have a 1600S tach for a BT6 or later car (green turn signal wasnt 'green' until 1962MY). Judging by the 2 large instruments I believe you should have pre A VDO gauges.

I have some to trade if you want to get rid of that awful 160mph speedo

Seems like you are missing a steering wheel and column too??

Hi Rusty, those are not standard pre-A instruments. You can figure out if they're replacements by removing them and looking at the date stamps on the back of each instrument.

Looks like someone added a fuel gauge too. Normally the indicator lights are vertical below the oil temp gauge.

What is the chassis number of your late-'55 Speedster?

The steering wheel and column are there.
The vin is 81213. Kardex shows an engine S/n to be a 1600.
I’ll pull the gauges and check dates, etc.
Thanks guys,

Rusty Ferrell wrote: Also when was the 1600 introduced to the Pre A speedster? It seems this car is caught between the pre A and A with changeover pieces.

Rusty

Your car is one of the last two dozen pre-A Speedsters manufactured at the end of December 1955.
1600N and S engines superseded the 1500N/S engines in the Speedster line a couple months before your car was built.

Does your car still have its original metal battery cover with wooden blocks?

Hi Rusty
This is a picture of the instruments from my car, slightly earlier than yours 80863.

Thanks Rob

Rob DuBerry wrote:Hi Rusty
This is a picture of the instruments from my car, slightly earlier than yours 80863.

Thanks Rob

and a MotoMeter temp gauge, too
Cool!

Pulled the Speedo, 1/56 date stamp on the back.
This Speedster was shipped on jan4, 1956.
Gotta do a bit of metal patch work on the bottom to improve the integrity a bit.. she’s in the que to go to Dave Miller for full Monte, but that will be a while.. this is my 3rd Speedster but first Pre A car of any kind

I doubt the speedo is original to your car, Rusty. It's an early carrera speedo. A very rare item. If it was installed at the factory as an option it would show on the kardex/coa. The tach is for a Bt6 Super or a C. Any more pics? Is the body A or pre A?

Jules, a couple of pics

Hi Rusty,
Why do you want to restore your car, looks great to me!
I'm keeping mine as a survivor, there are to many restored speedsters out there,

Thanks Rob