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Coronet Cream

Joe_Healey

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How many are left? Who out there owns one besides myself? I know the color was offered for only 2 months-Dec '53 and Jan '54. There were approximately 330 with blue interiors and 330 with red.

Joe
BN1 #923 Coronet Cream
BN2 100M
BJ8 aka Blue Baby per wife and kid
 

Fury5

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Mine was originally coronet cream with a red interior. It was repainted in black many, many years ago. Needs repainting again. I'm thinking of going back to the original color.
 

Lambdaman

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My car is coronet cream with red trim built 7th Jan 1954. Key features two piece dash and aluminium bonnet and boot lid.
Remnants of original paint found behind door hinges indicate a shade whiter than the one in link provided. Car is currently red but I am too on the next rebuild going back to original as that combination looks very period and correct
regards
David
 

CanberraBJ8

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Its a great colour. I've been lusting after the car featured in McLavin & Tipping's book for years...:love-struck:
 

pan

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My 100 is Healey Blue and that is the original colour according to my Heritage Certificate, but when I had the frame mounted on a 'rotiserie' during the restortion a few years ago I found that part of the chassis was painted in Coronet Cream. The area I refer to is very difficult to access unless the car is on a hoist. As my car had never been restored before I became the owner in 1968 I believe that the colour must have been applied during its original manufacture. The funny thing is though, my car was built in July 1954, some months after the colour was listed. Coronet Cream was of course offered to celebrate the start of the reign of our current monarch, Queen Elizabeth II.
 

Editor_Reid

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Coronet Cream was of course offered to celebrate the start of the reign of our current monarch, Queen Elizabeth II.

Reference?

pan, you are always so erudite in your postings here that I hesitate to call "foul" on this statement, but my understanding is that the connection between the Coronet Cream Healeys and Queen Elizabeth II's coronation is nothing but a long-standing myth. (And note that the color is coronet cream, not coronation cream - a coronet being "a small or relatively simple crown, esp. as worn by lesser royalty and peers or peeresses" and therefore not something appropriate for HRM The Queen.)

So please, any reference(s) for a connection?

Respectfully,
 

CanberraBJ8

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Reid, the book I mentioned above states that it was named after the coronation...
 
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Joe_Healey

Joe_Healey

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This is #923. The underside and wheel weeks still carry original paint. It is a late Nov. '53 build. I appreciate the replies and hope others post their cars.






2mqw2z8.jpg
 

simon1966

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That really is a great color for the 100! Very classic and classy. My MGB was once Old English White, which has a slight off white cream color, but not nearly as rich a looking color as the Coronet cream
 

pan

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Reid,
thank you for the compliment, I am flattered. And thanks CanberraBJ8 for the support. McLavin & Tippings book is not known to me (and I thought I had all the books published about the Austin-Healey!) but I knew I had read it somewhere.
I did and it is in Anderson & Moments' Restoration Guide! Page 41, near the end of the "Paint Colours & Trim Combinations" paragraph.
If it isn't true then I stand corrected.
Perhaps they didn't call it "Coronation Cream" because that sounds too much like "Carnation Cream", a popular canned milk product.
 
Last edited:

HealeyRick

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I don't have any definitive proof of the origin of Coronet Cream, but the connection to the coronation of the Queen makes sense given the timing of the release of the color and limited number of cars produced. It seems logical to me that it was a "special edition" much like Golden Metallic Beige was a "special edition" to commemorate the end of production. And what else would "coronet" refer to? They probably didn't want to call it "Crown Cream" and they couldn't be talking about the trumpet-like brass instrument. Despite all my internet sleuthing, I can't find any reference to Queen Elizabeth being gifted with a Healey upon her coronation, but I do have a hazy recollection of a story of Bic Healey bringing a car to Prince Charles to test drive.
 

RandyHicks

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To answer the very first question, in the AHCA 100 Registry I show 31 Coronet Cream cars recorded. 17 with blue trim, 11 with red trim and 3 unknown.

The first "Fawn" car was body #215, built mis Sept. '53, although I have body #121, built mid August '53 recorded as a Coronet Cream car. The last Coronet Cream car recorded is body #2344, built March 1, 1954.

Traveling right now and don't have my reference books with me but this is what the AHCA 100 Registry shows.

Randy
 

pan

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HealeyRick,
Sorry to appear a pedant, but the "trumpet-like brass instrument" that you refer to is a cornet.
Bic would not have taken a 100 for Prince Charles to test drive, HRH would have been only seven years of age when production of that model ceased!
Alwyn
 

HealeyRick

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HealeyRick,
Sorry to appear a pedant, but the "trumpet-like brass instrument" that you refer to is a cornet.
Bic would not have taken a 100 for Prince Charles to test drive, HRH would have been only seven years of age when production of that model ceased!
Alwyn

Thanks, Alwyn. I really do know the difference between a cornet and a coronet. Momentary brain cramp. IIRC, the Bic Healey story was told in one of the club magazines and I didn't mean to suggest the private showing was at the time of the coronation. As I remember it, Bic had to give the car a wash on the street before presenting it to Charles. Seems like the Queen gave Charles an Aston-Martin on his 21st birthday in 1969, so maybe I'm getting that story wrong as well. Maybe I've been watching too many old movies with Healeys in them.
 

pan

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Hi Rick,
I was just giving you a hard time about the cornet. Sorry, mate.
I have also heard about the impromptu car wash on the way to Buckingham Palace.
The Aston-Martin is still owned by Prince Charles, I believe it was used by Prince William for his honeymoon.
 

Editor_Reid

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.
Rick, perhaps what you are remembering is this, which I reprinted in the club magazine several years ago:

0953TheAustinMagazine.jpg

This is from the September 1953 edition of The Austin Magazine and Advocate, the house organ (company magazine) of The Austin Motor Company.

With regard to the color Coronet Cream and its alleged connection to the coronation of HRH Queen Elizabeth II, I am researching. I have found a couple of books with references to it, and a registrar who swears to it, but so far no primary sources. (Just because the statement appears in a photo caption in the 1992 McLavin and Tipping book, or in the 2000 Anderson and Moment book, does not establish it as fact; they are not primary sources. Likewise, hearsay is not a primary source. So far, only folklore.)

Incidentally, there is no mention of any special car colors commemorating the Queen's coronation in any of the June-December 1953 editions of The Austin Magazine. Pity. That would be a primary source. (The coronation was in June 1953.)

In any case, I'll post a follow up report here when I've followed my leads to their conclusions.
 

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