So I’ve been full of a lot of questions as of late. Probably because I have gotten to work on my car almost daily for several hours a day since about Christmas. Want to drive it come spring. So my next question…Been looking at my dash a lot (and under it) trying to route wires properly for a/c, speaker pod wiring, vac lines for a/c etc. Also had to fix a wire that pulled out of the light switch socket that powers up glove box and trunk light. Also put new insulation on under side of dash metal under cowl. Lots of time on my back lately 
Few wiring things to clean up yet and then a/c back in when heater core comes.
Anyway…question about dash face pads. So my car is early production with sched build date of Oct 66. A/C. So on my dash face pad that I had redyed and is installed, I notice it is now missing the high beam light window. Must have come un-taped and fell. My face pad don’t have the little trim bezels around the openings. From what I have researched on Don’s parts pages they used the bezels later in 67/68, not early. I personally like them and may add them.
Curious thing though as now I am going to have to pull my face pad off and find the little blue window, the flattened vinyl area around the high beam area is wide like the area around the wiper switch. Only has a small hole though. Another curious thing, I have an extra dash face pad here from a 67 parts car. If I recall it was a very late in production year car. Non A/C has the bezels but the flat area around the high beam hole doesn’t exist. Normal size hole with bezel trim with blue window.
So my A/C dash face pad looks kinda funny with the normal size hole in the middle of that flat area. I have some of the wide bezels like a 68 dash face pad has around the wiper and high beam area. They would fit perfect in that flat spot on my early 67 A/C dash face pad, so I could rig one up with a blue window rather than the red that I am reading 68 had. Why the difference though and wondering what others have?
I can snap some pictures if all my wording is making the topic clear as mud 
David
Pictures always help. You are correct about early 67’s not having the bezel. The indicator lens was taped in place.
Steven
So here are some pics. Sorry the one isn’t better. So first 2 pics are of my non a/c dash pad from parts car. This parts car was a late production year model. The pad has the bezels around the windows. Note the small flat spot where the high beam indicator window goes. I took the window and bezel out, that’s why it’s not there. The third picture is of my a/c pad in my car. I didn’t take a picture of the other windows, but they don’t have bezels around them, they are just the plastic windows attached to the back of pad, but note how broad the flat spot is around the high beam window almost like a 68 style pad. I considered the possibility is this a 68 pad, but didn’t 68 pads also have a bezel around the wiper switch opening? Where as this pad has just the rubber flashing or what ever you want to call it glued to the back side. I also thought 68 pads had a stitched accent area around the “Cougar” inlay on the pass side. This pad in question is smooth all in that area and just says “Cougar”
So I did some research today, and found that at least the early production 67 Cougars without the bezels around the dash pad openings, did indeed have a wide flat spot by the high beam indicator. http://wwwcdn.oldcarsweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/1967-Cougar-8.jpg shows a link of an early Cougar (no back seat arm rests) that has no bezels and a wide flat spot.
Question answered. Now to bezel, or not to bezel 
Hopefully when I pull my pad off I can find my little blue window that fell off.
Another curious question comes up for me though. This car is basically unmolested, and it has a round base antenna. Have found it both ways, seeing plenty of cars with round base antennas, and reading that a rectangle base if correct. Which is it, or is that another early or later trait?
David
Round base was original.
We have those indicators documented here.
https://secure.cougarpartscatalog.com/store/Search.aspx?SearchTerms=C7W%20lens%20indicator
What it does not document though, and what the thread is about is the wider flattened area in the vinyl pad that is existence when the bezels are not used (apparently on early production models) vrs a flattened area that basically just fits the bezels later on. Link shows and early cougar without back arm rests according to documentation on your site about rear interior panels.
Thanks for the link though because I hadn’t found just those lenses on your site before. Now I know where to get the high beam one if I can’t find mine
Bill,
Thanks for the clarification on the antenna. I missed that you posted it.
So I thought I nailed this one on the dash face pad, and am now questioning that. I was spending my time at lunch today reading and looking at pics of Cougar 1. Cougar 1 has a dash face pad with bezels, and a narrow flat area around the high beam indicator. So I did some reading of the articles, in particular the restoration one. Was hoping it would talk about what they saved and didn’t save, which indeed it did. Sounds like by reading, the dash face pad was saved and redyed. But… Cougar 1 was not an AC car so is it plausible that who ever was stamping out the early AC pads was making them different than the non AC ones? Question for me would still be why if they indeed were. Like I mention I have a non AC pad as well, that has the bezels and the narrow flat area around high beam vrs the no bezels and wide flat area on my AC pad.
Some other things came up for me though as well. As I read a different article about the first 8 “show” cougars I read how they would have done unique things like fully weld and smooth lap joints, and paint in a more controlled environment to not have the orange peel paint etc. But yet in the restoration article it talks about how they smoothed out the lap joints so it was above normal quality. Wouldn’t this have been done when Cougar 1 was built according to Jim P and Kevin M’s article and not needing to be done when restored?
Another question that comes up for me is the mention of no bucktags on early Cougars at Dearborn. My car does not have a bucktag. Didn’t have one when I bought it. I always assumed it was because of perhaps some damage at some point in the right front as there is evidence of it on the fender behind the extension. My car is unit number 16306 build date 10-28-66 (3days before my b-day). Is it possible it didn’t have a bucktag? When did they start using them?
Something else I noticed, and maybe can guess…why if Cougar one is a non-GT Cougar, sporting the 6.5 fender badges does it have Chrome valve covers, and a chrome lid on an air cleaner that has the non-GT snorkel? My guess would be they wanted to dress up the show cars. But it leads to another question on my car. My non-GT car had a chrome air cleaner lid with it with a snorkel type air cleaner. (Won’t tell you how stupid I was 20years ago and cut the snorkel off the base to make it resemble a GT style base ) Anyway Don R states under his parts descriptions that that snorkel type air cleaner on a not GT car would have had a painted lid. Not to say that someone didn’t want to dress up my car, and got a chrome lid and slapped it on there.
So thanks for reading all this! Let me know what you got. And please some of you guys that have been around, and really have the answers to the questions please chime it. Maybe Jim will even say something.
PS No I have never got a Marti on my car. Have been to cheap to do so
David