These pictures show gusset plates on an early 65. With restorer’s guide books like Rinsey Mills – its featured 65 is ironically a very late one – some early 65s have lost these plates, perhaps as presumed unoriginal, to be restored to later Nippy specification. Chris Gould noticed that the early plate is not confirmed by the Autocar June 1933 roadtest’s slightly ambiguous cutaway drawing, shown here.
By the 179500s chassis numbers, the panel has changed:
Here is a later Nippy from the underside, with the hole for the wiring loom visible:
This early 65, marked body 15, clearly has lost its original plates but it still has its rear exit exhaust which also characterised early RHD cars.
If you have a 1933 65, please get in touch and let us know your body number, exhaust exit point and gusset design, so we can see if they changed at the same build point.