Opinion on adding USA emissions plate? And how is it fastened?

So I noticed that my car (US GTS 04122, July 1972 build) does not have a US emissions plate.

I dutifully started down the path of having one made… and decided to refresh the formed black metal rain guard that it will be mounted on with fresh paint.

Upon disassembly, I noticed that there are no holes for where it will mount. I typically don’t like to drill the original parts if I can avoid it, so this gave me pause. One might conjecture that my metal rain guard is not original, but it actually had a smudge of the original blue paint that my Dino was born with…

So this leaves me with the conundrum of whether I should continue with this plate project.. if it were only visible in the engine compartment, that would be one thing. But to attach it, I am thinking I would use aluminum semi-hollow rivets to try to best match the ring on the inside.. but I realized the rivet heads will be visible from the exterior through the engine cooling holes. Here is how those rivets work:

So my questions are,

1) opinions on whether to add the plate? Does anyone know if US cars were able to be sold without it and maybe my car never had one?

2) if I do put in the plate, does anyone have images of what it looks like from the outside with the engine cover closed? I assume there are rivet heads? Are they painted black?

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Does anyone have or can take a photo of what the rivets that hold the plate on look like on the reverse side of the plate mounting surface? (ie from the exterior of car, looking down into the cooling slats, looking at the engine cover rain gutter panel onto which the emissions plate is mounted)?


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