RHD rally kit oddity

Brains trust, my SWB rally kit car has been blasted and primered and we found something interesting. I always thought it was missing the rally kit dead pedal because it's RHD and the dead pedal was made for the left side.

What we found was that the dead pedal had been installed, and subsequently cut out again on the passenger side. The welds where it was installed look factory but who knows when it was removed.

My question is has anybody else seen a dead pedal install on the passenger side in a RHD vehicle? This could have been a mistake on the line or maybe installed for the benefit of the navigator.

andy

That's very interesting Andy. The idea that it was installed for a navigator sounds plausible - possibly after Durham's ownership? Do you know who it went to next and whether they might have rallied it? Best wishes, Robert

These were installed on the six RHD 74 3.0RS cars for no apparent reason......most likely the race shells were built in the first instance before certain vehicles being pulled from the line for conversion to satisfy RHD orders. Possibly always done that way....

.....3.0RS #9092....

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...da387864_b.jpg

Found a pic.

Attachment 566550

This example of welding from later in 1968 seems to be typical of factory welds, so perhaps on 8032 it was not factory welded, or they used a different technique.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Darren65

most likely the race shells were built in the first instance before certain vehicles being pulled from the line for conversion to satisfy RHD orders.

---

Nope. Impossible. Converting from LHD to RHD requires a new front clip and there's no way the factory would have done this.

The most likely scenario is the factory built the RHD race shells from scratch using the front inner fenders designated for LHD race cars, hence the footrest there and maybe some other reinforcements.

The welds are childlike, but so are the welds on the sway bar mounts so I believe they could be factory.

I guess they didn't have gas shielding or ran out of argon that day.

andy

I was thinking more along the lines of the 3 stitches rather than the continuous bead, but I do understand your comments about the quality since I have heard that before.