History Sun 'Football' Tach Production

I've done a search and read an excellent thread started by Ryan on vintage tachs...I had always heard that Sun's 'football' tachs were in production beginning around 1957 or 1958 and many posts on Ryan's thread seemed to point to that same general timeframe.

I was looking through some photos the other day and spotted this;

Yup, that's Lee Petty's 1954 Dodge and what looks to be a Sun RC series 'football' tach!



I should note that Lee last raced his 1954 Dodge on June 27, 1954 at Williams Grove Speedway near Mechanicsburg, PA. He switched to Chryslers for the remainder of the season, so this photo pre-dates the commonly cited production date for the football tach by 3-4 years.

SO...does anybody know exactly when Sun began producing the 'football' tach?

 

Sorry to hijack your thread but whats up with the clearance light on top of the car ?

 

Very interesting! Thanks for posting this info.

Another claim that I've read (on chevytalk.org) about the Sun RC football tachs is that they were no longer made for public sale after March, 1960. After that date, they were contracted exclusively to Chevrolet. I'm not so sure that I believe that, though.