Strange things on an original 71 Barracuda

[JeffAARy]

I went to look at a 71 Barracuda today that has been in the same family since new.  It had two interesting quirks with the dash.  First, it has the 1970 style embossed Barracuda on the dash instead of the 1971 style Barracuda plaque glued into the rectangular depression.  Second, it has the large spedometer with the font that according to a previous thread was only available on 1970 Challengers.  It does not look like the font on either my 70 Gran coupe or my 71 Cuda.

The owner swears the dash is original and has never been changed.  This is an early build date car - October 1970.  I'm guessing they just used up the left-over 70 dashes and whatever speedos they had lying around.  Any comments?

[TreeFrog]

sounds like a solid theory.
was my first guess...

[Super Blue 72]

Sounds reasonable to me.  Often times you'll get left over previous year stuff in a current year vehicle.

My '72 Challenger has a '71 Rallye gauge set up with the 8K tach (not the 7K one) and it's the original dash set up.

[1970hemicuda]

   My engine block has a casting date of 11/68 ~

[GoodysGotaCuda]

Ive seen a unmolested 70 hemi/auto 'cuda have a 'reverse' light in the dash for a 4gear.  been there since day one per original owner

[Topcat]

Just to let you know, My car was built on Oct 70. It had the 71 plaque on it originally.

[Chryco Psycho]

I would think the dash pad has been changed ,an early build car would be August , by Oct they are a 1/4 of the way through the production year , your car should have a serial # of at Least 145xxx possibly as high as 170xxx , if you look at the back of the dash where the vin tag is the rivits should tell the story assuming you vin tag matches the body stampings