I recently picked up a 1970 XR7 convertible, November, 1969 Dearborn build. The speedo needle is white and the tach needle is red/orange. The faces of the dials match. I have noticed photos on the web of other cars with the mismatched colored needles. Is this considered production variance or is one color “correct” and the other “not”. If the latter, where would the red/orange needle tach have come from? Thanks in advance for any insight.
Regards, Jeff
I suspect the needles are bleached with 50 years of sun,
get a little bottle of fluro red paint fron wcc and redo them and will look like br@nd new again 
I have owned a lot of 1070 CR-7s, I do not recall seeing Orange needles before, here are pictures of ones I have/had.
Above is my White 70 XR-7.
Above is the Blue 70 XR-7 convertible I sold recently.
This is not proof that maybe some did or that mine were never Orange. But I would think the restored clocks that both have wout have had Orange needles if that was the case. We will see what other 69 and 70 XR-7 owners come up with.
I’m pretty sure that the white needles (including all the secondary gauges and the minute/hour hands of the clock) are not faded red/orange. Just wondering if the tach is a transplant from another year/model or ??
I’ve owned 3 69 XR-7’s and an Eliminator, none of them had a red tach needle.
Let’s see a picture of it.
I just went down to my basement and looked at the gauge sets i have,
The base model set i have has faded orange/fluro needles on all gauges.
The XR dash has white needles on all gauges except the tacho which has faded orange,
I have photos of all white XR gauges, but that may be faded orange/fluro for the tacho.
Just my 2c …
I was out to m y shop today. I have 2 more XR-7 clusters. Both the tachs were a rusty Whitish brown. And that was due to surface rust.
My 70 XR7 convertible, Dearborn built on March 9th 1970, has white needles on both speedo and tach. I am the original owner and nothing has been done to change those gauges in 50 years.
Just checked my 70 XR7 convt and my 70 Eliminator have a white spedo and off white or yellowed tach needle. Exactly the same shade in both so I doubt any sun bleaching.
I always found it curious that there is a redline on the speedometers but none on the tach.
The tach needles should have been white from the factory. However…
The Faria built tachs like Randy’s have a plastic pointer and these tend to get an orange tint as they age.
I have had some XR7 tachs and even speedometers show up with unmolested orange pointers. The Mustangs all used orange pointers and the internal movements are identical for Mustangs and Cougars. I suspect that there were occasions where a Mustang movement got mated to a Cougar dial and case.
Here are pictures of the two I posted about earlier, The coloring may not be rust, but looks like it to me.
This one above came out of my Standard 70 CJ, totally wrong for the car. It doesn’t even have XR-7(Eliminator) wiring in it.
This one is an extra I have had for a long time.
Maybe some did come with Orange pointers on the Tach.
From the color of those needles I’d bet those are Faria tachs - especially since they are in a 70.
Look at the back - the cases are plastic, not metal. Along the bottom of the back they say ‘Faria Corp’.
They started out with white plastic pointers but didn’t age well.
The only orange pointers I have come across were painted and on 67-69 Bendix built units (metal case, metal needles).
Thanks for sharing the community’s common wisdom. The photos posted above showing what appears to be a faded orange tach needle is exactly what I have in my '70. Replacing the fogged up instrument bezel lenses and generally refreshing the cluster is on my short list. Bringing the tach needle back to white has been added to that list.