When Clyde Engineering were delivering the last of the R class in 1935, it was decided to modify the final five to a design with a reduced drop-centre, eight more seats, no internal partitions, and one less door each side.

During construction the order was reduced to 100, with the last delivered to North Sydney depot on 17 September 1953.

[1] The original five tramcars modified in 1935 (numbers 1933 to 1937) could be distinguished from later production runs by their side windows (which indicated the original door spacing for the R class) and the underframe which was built to accommodate a larger drop-centre.

[1] When the Sydney tramway system closed, some of the class were disposed of by burning at Randwick Workshops, despite some being less than 8 years old at time of being burnt.

Ten have been preserved: Media related to Sydney R1-Class Tram at Wikimedia Commons