Early cars are shown in the handbooks with the levers on the steering colunm with the gas at the top and ignition at the bottom,later cars have the ignition on the left and gas on right,when did they change over.I can understand why because they are easier to use at the sides.

I suspect very early on, maybe from as early as 1923, for the reason you mentioned. It sometimes took the Drawing Office a long time to catch up with reality! Take the example of the early handbooks which showed completely the wrong magneto arrangement and advance & retard adjustments which were correct for a magneto mounted on the nearside of the engine. Also the error in the early series/parallel lighting wiring diagram.

David

A well-known racer of Ulsters, Rileys etc in Oz before & after WW2(who co-incidentally only died recently at a very old age) told me his first job as an apprentice at our Austin Distributors was to alter the levers to horizontal from vertical "as they were more convenient to the customer". Perhaps the most dramatic error in Handbooks was in the 1923 version? Where it told you to fill your gearbox with the correct oil, it said the quantity required was 2 to 3 pints, when it should have said two-thirds of a pint. Imagine the popularity of the drivers when their wife's stockings were drenched with hot oil before the error was discovered. Cheers, Bill in Oz