I was shopping for some gauges and the silver button issue came up. "Early" cars have the silver button and "Late" car gauges do not. What years are in the early category?

I have a 73 and the left and tach gauges have the silver button but the speedo does not. I like the look of the silver button gauges but if I'm going to do it right...

Silver dot up to about '73. May be some '73s without them. Non silver dot started in '74 approximately. Early silver dot speedos were 120 MPH. 150 MPH silver dot came in the '73 2.0L as far as I know.

Thanks Ron your right. I just found this is cool site also.

http://www.p914.com/p914_gauges_cluster-73.htm

Look at the threads on the different gauges in the Parts Vault of this very web site

Yup - yours should be all 3 silver button gauges (but center consoles were all black if you have one). I went to confirm your VIN here to answer your question, but you haven't listed it yet - hint, hint!

Black centers started in the 74 MY according to the p914.com info which you found, but there may have been a few early 74's built in July/Aug. 73 with silver, or visa versa for lat 73's built in June/July. If you look at the Sahara Beige in the O&H Fourm's nailed topics - "The few, the rare..." you'll see it has silver & it was a fairly late 73 (my 73 2L was an Aug 72 build - so has silver).

Just added it. Thanks. VIN# 4732921210