[DML] Re: New Speedometer Decal?

[WINGD2@xxxx]

Stian,

The 140 MPH speedo that I have is a version / copy of a 140MPH unit that 
the factory was getting ready to put into production for the "84" cars. 
Stephen Wynne is the guy who first showed this to me years ago. I was talking 
with Stephen at an event at the Kapac Warehouse and inquired about the 170 
speedo faces they were doing for the cars. Stephen directed me out back to 
take a look at the car he was driving at the time. It had one of the very 
rare ( we have been able to only locate a total of 3 factory units ) 140 MPH 
speedos in it. This was not a standard 240 KPH unit with the 140mph on the 
inside circle, but an original factory 140 MPH speedo unit. Stephen told me 
he felt this was probably the best and most realistic speedo unit for the 
cars. I asked Stephen if he had any plans on reproducing this face and he 
said no, at that time they had too many other projects going on. So what I 
have produced is the end result of me, like you, wanting something other then 
the original un-realistic 85mph unit .

The 140 MPH face I have is not an exact copy of the original factory face. 
I did this for two reasons. First, I did not want to do an exact copy of the 
very rare factory unit and detract from this very unique rarity, and secondly 
I felt the original factory 140 units have a very crowded / busy face with 
the inside KPH scale being shown every 20 KPH. It has so many numbers on it, 
it is almost hard to read. So when I produced my version of the 140 MPH face 
I eliminated a lot of the clutter and cleaned things up a little.

Some people like it, and others don't, and that's fine. This 140 face is 
something I did for my speedometer, in my car, and to please myself. This 
project was not originally done with the idea of producing and selling them 
on a commercial basis. Matter of fact, the matte black face was very hard to 
match to the original Delorean cluster and after about 37 different tries of 
different combinations we came as close as we did to the correct matte 
finish. We only printed one sheet of vinyl which produced about 100 faces of 
which over half of these are unusable because of the difficulty we 
encountered with the matte finish and / or other printing damage. Of these I 
only have a hand full left. I have offered this 140 MPH face on our club web 
site because other Delorean owners have seen the speedo in my car and asked 
if I could do the conversion for them, which I am happy to help out with. 
When the faces run out, I am not planning on reproducing more.
As far as this 140 range being un-realistic, I guess it all depends on 
where you happen to be. Around here ( St Louis) the normal flow of traffic 
is about 70 to 80 MPH. When I did a trip this past summer with some other 
Delorean friends, while driving out thru Wyoming and Montana we were cruising 
at 100 plus for long stretches of road. We have also had our cars on several 
race tracks and have seen the speedo up in the 120 plus range more then once. 
I think this 140 scale is very realistic of the cars actual performance 
capabilities, and it also seems re-calibration to this range seems to very 
accurate.
Anyway, that's the story and reasoning behind the 140 MPH faces.

Marty