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1997 Thunderbird & Cougar gauge faces. |
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Well, for reasons beyond the conception of normal people, Ford changed various interior pieces when it came to the 1997 model year. Some things were good, namely the addition of useable cup holders in the center console. Some other things weren't so good. These things are like the removal of such things as the courtesy lights in the bottom corner of each door (they're jsut red reflectors in the 1997's), removal of the lights under the hood and in the glove compartment, removal of the power fuel filler door and the installation of a gauge cluster borrowed from the Taurus/Sable. This instrument cluster incorporated most of the functions of the VMM plate that was mounted under the radio. That plate was removed and the ashtray was moved up there from the console which was redesigned with the aforementioned cupholders.
That means that the gauge faces designed for the up to 1996 models will not fit in the 1997 models. The 1997 models have an instrument cluster with 4 gauges instead of 6. Fuel level, coolant temp, Speedometer and tachometer were the only gauges included in this cluster. The oil pressure and volt meters were left out of these models. Besides, those aren't important things anyway. <-sarcasm high, there. |
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The above photos illustrates a set of black faced gauges for a 1997 Thunderbird LX with Bullitt style numbers and text and a 150 MPH speedometer from a 1996-1999 Taurus SHO. Factory and Large Text styles are available for these models. Also, flames are available with any style. See photo of flames below. |
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The picture above shows a set of 1997 Thunderbird gauge faces. The numbers look higher than normal because this setup is for a Canadian car, so the speedometer figures are in kilometers/hour. This set shows the daytime flames.
This particular set was modified when installed so that the factory areas to the left of the left hand gauges, to the right of the tach and on each side of the speedometer are visible. The top photo on this page shows these areas replaced with the white faces. The factory areas light up better due to the contrast against the black background and allows better visibility of the indicator lights, especially during the day. |
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The above animation showa the White faced Factory style gauge faces with flames. Please note the contrasting colors of the flames versus the numbers and tick marks. |
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The two above photos show the Black faced Bullitt style gauge faces. The night time photo shows the faces illuminated in red. |
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