It has been stated the early Gen 1 Brats

(circa 78) when in the GL guise..

 

came equiped with a tachometer.

 

I am asking if this is true as my 78

has the quad head lamps and the 4WD grill badge

but no tach

 

what's the build date on your brat Skip? the one I sold to Syrinx had a 9/77 date. GL (quad headlights), but no tach as well....

My 78 4wd has a tach in the dash, honeycomb grill w/quad headlights, but I'm 98% sure it's not the original dash, when I gutted the interior to fix rust and replace the heater core the tach had an aftermarket wire to the coil, instead of using the factory yellow connector on the harness. In mudrats backyard there are a few other 78 brats, niether of the others have tachs (tapps head??) so it might be a 79-80' deal like you suspect... Anyway with the 1600 you don't even need a tach, just wrapp it out until the valves float then shift.

Skip, those were all options for the GL where the GL came stock with all of them but had the option of not having them. My '78 Brat has quad headlights, 4wd, but no tach. My '79 wagon is 4wd, quad headlights, deluxe interior, but no tach as well. The GLs came with everything but you could choose to have the single round headlights on it instead of the quads.

Looking throu old manuals and from the ones I've seen, I don't think the Gen 1 BRATs ever came with a tach dash. I think the tach dash ws only availible in the hard top or coupe.

My '80 GL brat has a tach and quad headlights.

Yes they did come with a tach and quad headlights. I almost scored a '79 GL Brat with the tach and quads but it also had a unique stripe pattern on it that I've never seen before on any other gen 1 Brat. Too bad he got rid of it before I could get some pics of it:rolleyes:

The early '78s were pretty basic, quad lights, no tach. They were only available here in white/multicolor stripes, blue interior.

 

About half-way through '78 they offered some options, and different colors, the dealers here called them '78 1/2.

 

Whether it was unique to this area is unknown, it's a real possibility that it was a sales tactic.

Mary, congrats on the new Brat

Good luck with the mods and paint

hope it turns into the M...mobile you want.

 

Paul, Todd and Mick have all mentioned this split

personality that the 78 Brats had.

 

Does anyone know the month that the production

semantics changed?

My '78 brat has the quad lights, and has a tach. It looks to be original. BUT it has never worked. At one time I tryed hooking it up, but it wanted to kill the engine. I just figured I didn't know what I was doing and forgot about it.

Eyesore (a GL WAGON) has a build date of 2/78 & has the quads & a tach.

I have a 80' and a 81' both have quad's and tach's