1932 Instrument panel?

[Tony Griffiths]

Thge van has a 4 speed sports crash box with the speedo re calibrated. It is 5,625 sports back axle as fitted to vans to help with the load. They are both the original items in the van.

...so that's why my knackered van used to climb the steep Greystones Road easily in third, but Anne's Ruby would not.

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Later vans are different - the panel at the start of the thread is fitted to Vans like Charlie's - with the older style gauges and the RN type petrol tank - plus a few other earlier items.

I really do think they were using up leftover parts and then moved to the later stuff when those ran out - I appreciate that you may disagree but I cannot see why they would intentionally continue to use older (i.e. items not in general production line use) parts, then switch to the modified tanks and newer instrumentation for any other reason?

This is a real puzzle, for Austin obviously operated a spares service with items drawn from what must have been a very large parts store. That being the case, if a number of items were kept back to build vans, how did they decide what to keep - or did they wander round to the parts department and ask the brown-coated, bad-tempered, clipboard-toting parts guys what they'd like to "disappear"? Would it not have been easier to use regular, up-to-the-minute production items, rather than muck about trying to cobble together something old and new? There must have been some logic to this farrago - but what, I cannot, for a moment, imagine.
As an aside, I wonder for how long parts were available; for example, in 1935, could a garage order the wings and radiator cowl for a car built during 1925?

Replying to my own reply: "Ernie, wot gauges you got sitt'in around?"
"Got these pre-31 oil. Never asked for one in three years. 'Ere, take the lot."
"Any front axles?"
"Yup. A couple them racing types. Low, y'know. Prototype magnesium finned brakes drums they reckon. Van owner'd never notice. Now, bugger off, it's tea break."