VDO Guage Style on '70's 911's

[zioo]

I've seen three style 911 Speedometer and tachometer gauges from VDO on standard 911's: 1) Red needles with a silver cap; 2) Red needles bisecting a black cap; and, 3) Red needles with a black cap. The first type seems to part of the earlier 911's. The second one appears to be part of the move to eliminate anything bright or chrome from the dash. I've only seen two of the latter type, one of them is mine. How prolific are the VDO Speedo and tach needles with black caps? - zioo

[Wil Ferch]

Pretty common for SC/Carrera era.....black caps.

[zioo]

Will F. Thank you for your response. I appreciate it. I've personally developed my own nomenclature for these Porsche VDO Gauges: Type I - Silver caps; Type II - Black caps; Type III - Red needles bisecting black caps. The Type III are the regular gauges for 1974 on-ward. I looked up within the Authenticity Series by Haab the 1974-1989 paperback and the book is good as far as it goes. The definitive statements are not completely accurate and are only a guide as to generally what happened in Stuttgart. For example, regarding the Tachometer, he relates, "The light beam markings faced left, opposite from pre-1974 versions." Haab fails to mention that many of the pre-1974 Tachometers in the Porsche had no icons of a light beam at all. I've observed Type II gauges with black caps on 1973-1976 cars and now have heard about them here on the site in SC Chassis. There needs to be more photo evidence done. -- zioo

[zioo]

One further post. I have a 1974 G-Program Base 911, which came with what appeared to be a complete and original car and a COA verified that it is a numbers matching car. The VIN shows it to be the 159th 911 off the line in Stuttgart. The color was a special order called Emerald Green Metallic. What makes the dash gauge cluster very rare, is not just that it has more than one type of Porsche VDO gauge installed off the line in Stuttgart, but that it has three different styles of Types of Porsche VDO gauges installed on the build line at Zuffenhausen/Weissach. Changes were frequent in the front office in the early to mid-1970 and this apparently influenced everything including gauge aesthetics. Car #159 has all three types of design of the Porsche VDO gauges. To find all thee types in one factory car is in deed unusual. Any comments? -- zioo