Dash trim on a real 1955 Speedster

Great work Gordon!

Thanks, Gordon. Many of us wondered about how that was handled!

Curiously, Gary Bloom's "dash guy" (they have those in South Africa, I guess) questioned some of the dimensions I provided for a Pre-A dash so I was over there confirming things and providing more detail.  Been over there enough that I'm due some "Frequent Looker" points or something.  I did not include dimensions for precise placement of the gauges, thinking they would use some creative license on their virgin dash, but they wanted to be precise so both gauges were measured up from the dash bottom lip.  You might notice (we didn't til I measured them both) that both big gauges are the same size, but the left gauge is located about 1/4" higher than the right one - From the factory - On a hand-built car - By a one eyed German fabricator.  That's how these cars were - Get over it.

Here's a dimensioned 356 Pre-A dash.  The eyebrow is a LOT different from a 356-A but you would have to have them side-by-side to notice it.   I now have precise placement dimensions for the three gauges shown and will add those to this view later on.  BTW, the eyebrow is 1/2" thick and tapers towards the driver, and I have reasonably precise dimensions for duplicating the eyebrow, too.  If anyone needs that, PM me as I have to convert from a Powerpoint/Layout format to JPEG.

You'll notice that the little gauge top center is NOT a clock.  It is a combination oil pressure and temp gauge like this:

I have seen these dash top center, lower dash way left, lower dash way right, etc - If you told them what you wanted when you ordered the car they would do whatever was asked for.

I already knew they were different but it is interesting to see that the early cars had a different eyebrow curvature than the later cars.

Same with people

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Center gauge is temp only.

Good, German numbers on the left; stupid American numbers on the right (Ach, du lieber!)

Remember who they were making Speedsters for in the first place.

Found some other early Speedster dash photos and they all seem to have the speedo and tach offset by the same amount - exactly the same amount. This was a German production car - everything was done for some reason.

Looking at the overall lines of the dash, everything is curved. Both the top and bottom edges slope downward toward the doors. Meanwhile, the plane of the dash curves gradually back towards the driver near the doors. The outer edge of the eyebrow is also lower than the end closer to the centerline.

So, this may have been an attempt to keep the gauges (sorta) level.

Or, maybe someone named Dieter just decided that this way was 'perfect' and that was that.

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There's a dude named Chip who shows at my regular C&C with various cars—a very nice '69 Z28; a Beck 904...and this legit original metal-bodied Porsche VIN'd Speedster he used to auto-x back in the day.

Today I happened to look closely at the dashboard, and...

Hmmm. Numbered dits on the oil temp gauge.

160 mph speedometer

7000 RPM tach.

Did not bump into him this time so I didn't get a chance to ask about them.

@Sacto Mitch posted:

Or, maybe someone named Dieter just decided that this way was 'perfect' and that was that.

Alternatively, my bet is that Dieter drank too much schnapps one night, came into work the next day, and mounted the gauges "wherever". Being German, he couldn't/wouldn't admit the mistake when he sobered up - so every successive car had a Marty Feldman dashboard. "It's perfect" was Dieters cover story from there on out.

Once P-cars became super-desirable collectors' items, somebody had to come up with some reason for the asymmetrical placement of the gauges. If this was an Italian car, everybody would cluck about the quaint and casual southern European approach to coach-building. As it was a GERMAN automobile, there had to be a reason for Dieter's drunken gauge placement, which centered on the curvature of the earth, and the distortion of time and space.   

I'm going with that.

The gauges being skewed is no more different than the hood handle on Pre-A cars being off to the right about 1/4"-ish on about 80% of the cars.  

Nobody knows why (and some people corrected it during a restoration), but I'll bet Dieter does........

It would be a hoot to off-set the handle on a Pre-A replica, just for chuckles....

I was at a local show yesterday with Model A Dave and saw someone very casually reach down and feel the inside lip of a wheel well on my car to decide if it was real or Memorex.  
In the words of Roberta from Rho-Dylan: "I guess he must be reel smot.

Dave got all excited over an Auburn Boat-Tailed Speedster - Which was also a replica.  Pretty well done older build, except for the "Ididit" steering column and lack of a clutch pedal.

Gordon, did you happen to get a measurement of the height of the dash pad at the eyebrow? It looks close to 2ins but I haven’t measured a real one. Thank you in advance.

Tom

@Gotno356

I don't understand your question, Tom, but maybe one of these will help (see attachments).  If not, re-phrase the question and I may have what you need.

----Edit!----

If what you are asking is how high is the dash bumper pad, it is very close to 2" high. Not precise, but that may be the difference between English and Metric so I would just say 2" high.  

This is the pad where the dash cover meets the lower, painted dash.

Thank you Gordon, I think you nailed it.
Tom

whoot whoot. Thanks again for all of this Gord. I have a full write up planned for everything that we're currently doing, but have vowed to my guy that I won't show too much of half finished stuff as he prides himself on the finished product and doesn't want to put people off.

I think that you have an idea of how bad we want to get this car of mine right. It's been 14 years in the making and we're finally at the stage where we're finishing off the small details.

By the way, I have been researching the 55 model specifically for about 7 years now and found out that the gauges were put at different heights as the dash is curved and also lower on the sides than it is in the middle, it's supposed to visually off-set that.

The Pre-A cars have a lot of little things that are different than the newer ones and as it was also a changeover year, many cars came out with parts-bin stuff and that's what I've gone for too...........:-)

Project GO-RICH ..... FTW!!!!!!

I took apart the dash pad on my original '57 when I was making changes to our interior several years ago.  The factory original was thin metal with studs welded in and it was upholstered with padding and a piece of leatherette that was laced on the back side.  The curve came from the tightening of the cover as it smashed the edges where it wraps to the back side.  It all lines up with the door top caps, which have a 7mm aluminum tube pulled over what looks like fender beading to trim it off.  I couldn't finish of the ends of our dash exactly the same since we have a modern door seal and sealing lip, but its very close...

Thanks, Carey.

Gary is absolutely right, too, in that there are a LOT of differences between the Pre-A car and a 356 A - Like two or three pages worth and it's a lot of little things.  It's way more than 2 gauges to three and Bee Hives to Teardrops.   The rocker panels are different, headlight lenses are different, dash knobs are different, hood handle is centered and consistent on the A and on and on.

I park next to Rich's car often and at first glance they're similar (of course, my flared fenders look out of place) but when you look closely they're really different and it's all in the details.  They're probably more similar when you get underneath (the Pre-A used mostly VW Beetle suspension), but few people ever see that unless they're up on lifts next to each other.

Still, it's fun to research this stuff (as have a number of other people in the past) and Rich gets a big kick out of how his tiny little car (that he bought used as a sad, tired, neglected mess for $500) is being copied all over the world.  

Absolutely correct Gordon.  For the sake of simple replication we just swap beehives, gauges and license lights, but there are a TON more differences aesthetically and even more underneath.  Even the wheel well arch is slightly different. And that doesn't account for the transitional cars either.  My '57 was a very early one and still had a lot of the pre-A steering and suspension bits factory installed, with the VW part numbers and logos to boot...

A friend has a transition car down in New Bedford, MA.  I haven't confirmed this, but have heard that there were 42 cars made in the transition from Pre-A to A and they had 3-gauge dash and Bee Hives among a lot of other things.   It appears that Porsche had a bunch of Pre-A parts in the factory bins and they used them up on those cars so few of those cars are the same - They all had little differences, often un-noticed.

I'll look for a few photos of his car, if I have them and post them.  It is a 100-point car complete with a matching, custom set of Porsche luggage.

Yes Gordon, the transition to teardrop lights was mid 57 (some say as early as March, while some say as late as  June).  You can really go down a rabbit hole with this stuff.  Speedster 83201 is the earliest known teardrop car but there are reportedly later numbers with beehives also.  Sometime in '56 they did a mix of beehives and the 3 gauges, so that "should" be common for this years.

Stuff like this goes on and on, and includes everything down ot to the oil temp scale on the combination gauge (83498 and lower has numbered scale, 83532 and up has non-numbered scale and between these is said to be unknown for sure).

FWIW, my '56 1600 Normal A Coupe had a lot of parts (principally suspension) embossed with VW.

... and it had beehives!!

Full disclosure: not all of the beehive lenses were original, perhaps none were, rather they were Pep Boys specials cut down to fit.  They did not match.  Further, that was not me, I bought it that way.