Chassis color

[British_Recovery]

Has anyone come across a Healey with a black chassis when the original color of the body was red? This is on a '54 BN1 (body 789) Original interior was black. Thanks, Bob

 

[Healey 100]

I read a Roger Moment article way back that some early BN1's may have had black chassis. A friend of mine had a very early ice blue healey and the shreds of paint remaining on the chassis and engine compartment were definitely black.

No doubt this black paint could have been added by a previous owner, but there was no trace of blue on the interior of this particular car.

My own BN1 is a later model and the chassis had little paint left on it when I got it. What was there was several colors, probably applied by various owners.....

 

[Bob_Spidell]

Has anyone come across a Healey with a black chassis when the original color of the body was red? This is on a '54 BN1 (body 789) Original interior was black. Thanks, Bob

Some of the 100s came with the engine compartment and at least part of the chassis painted black. The Concours Committee has confirmed this; I believe our BN2 100M was one of these cars but we painted the whole chassis white--it's a white/black car--before we knew better.

Haven't heard of any later cars--i.e. 6-cyls--having a black chassis--unless it was a black car--the conventional wisdom is all chassis, except for the exception above, were painted body color (or close to it).

 

[British_Recovery]

Thanks guys - that works for me and my detective work. Ordering a Heritage cert. for other information. Bob

 

[Bob_Spidell]

Has anyone come across a Healey with a black chassis when the original color of the body was red? This is on a '54 BN1 (body 789) Original interior was black. Thanks, Bob

Some of the 100s came with the engine compartment and at least part of the chassis painted black. The Concours Committee has confirmed this; I believe our BN2 100M was one of these cars but we painted the whole chassis white--it's a white/black car--before we knew better.

Haven't heard of any later cars--i.e. 6-cyls--having a black chassis--unless it was a black car--the conventional wisdom is all chassis, except for the exception above, were painted body color (or close to it).

Managed to dig this up:

https://www.foreverhealeys.com/M/Restoration/100Mrestoration3.html

 

[stevebn2bj7]

As far as I know they only did it to white cars. But not all of them, no rhyme or reason to it. I have a white over black BN2 that originally had a black engine compartment, have it all documented in photo's and restored it that way. I would sand through the paint to see if any red shows up then photo document it.

 

[vette]

-the conventional wisdom is all chassis, except for the exception above, were painted body color (or close to it).[/quote]

Hi Bob, the last 4 words in your post have caught my attention. Paraphrasing, 'chasis painted body colour or close to it." I'm curious about the reason or origins of the posibility that the chasis is painted close to the body colour and not exactly the same. I seem to have found this situation on my car. My colour is suppose to be Healey Blue. Most inner panels showed signs of Healey blue. But the chasis looked alittle darker, and greener. I was starting to believe if it might have some Florida Green on it. But I have never seen Florida Green so I am not sure what I was looking at. Could it be that the chasis was painted a different colour than the body?
Dave.

 

[Bob_Spidell]

I should have qualified this statement. All I've seen and read indicates the chassis was painted the same color as the body panels; however, there's always the caveat that the factory people 'made do' with whatever parts and materials they had on hand if necessary. Also, have heard there was variation in the shades of paint--the formulating possibly wasn't as precise as modern paints--so I was speculating the chassis could have been painted with one batch of paint and the body panels another, and there could have been variations in color due to blend, moisture, humidity, temperature, etc. It's possible--this is speculation too--that the painter who shot your chassis didn't bother to clean his paint gun too well after painting another chassis (maybe a BRG one?). If you have the BMIHT cert for your car and it confirms original color of Healey Blue then my theory may well be correct.

Note 'Healey Blue' seemed to have changed over the years; usually it's a silvery, semi-metallic blue, but I've seen a non-metallic almost turquoise blue called Healey Blue. Florida Green--I've only seen it in pictures--is a light, almost turquoise green

 

[vette]

I've also seen a Healey Blue that had alot more gray in it. Was darker than the blue metalic I'm familiar with. The owner swore that it was a replication of the original colour that was on the car. The blue that was on my car was, which I believe was original, was what I discribe as a clear sky blue. My certificate says the car was Healey Blue. Blue trim and Blue Hood.

 

[Csarneson]

I'm way late to the party but I am stripping original paint off my 57 100-6 and my engine compartment was black while the rest of the car was white. I also had the hand painted undercoating in the area around the rear axle under the factory white paint.

Chris

 

[Brinkerhoff]

Built in a time when they made the most of materials etc. black would've covered much easier than white and therefore been easier to spray especially if you only had enough white paint to spray two full cars and there were three to paint that day ! I'll bet it wasn't given a second thought.

 

[CraigC]

Glad to see this info. My 100-M falls into the range of the last several hundred built(233xxx) and was originally white over black. It, too has engine compartment and front half of frame painted black. Through the years, I've always seen chassis and engine compartments same as body color. Since I have the history of mine back to the original owner, I had often wondered if he had added the black paint. Nice to know it is original.