Rear bumper mod....

[HealeyPassion]

Have you ever thought... I think they could have done a better job with the rear bumper? Well that's been on my mind for many years. So, I collected some old bumpers, had them stripped of chrome, and went to work. Yes, I kept the original bumper, bumper guards and bumper irons as original … no animals harmed. Pictured is the original (with some blue tape that served as measurements for what was to come) and the results of my fiddling. The inspiration was Jaguars, and a few others, that have done a beautiful job of splitting rear bumpers on their cars even back in the day. What I did... took the ends off one of the originals I got from Ebay and graphed them on to a left and right sections of another... made bumper irons that located the split bumpers closer to the body... fabricated a new license plate holder that raises the license between the split sections... added a Jag. XK140 Lucas license plate light to that (these have a backup light built in)… I will rewire the backup light to be a 3rd brake light (I'll use a red LED so the lens will still be white)… the small bumper guards are actually two original bottoms blended together (again, Ebay junk). It's all "repurposed" AH bumper stuff. I haven't drilled the holes for the new small bumper guards yet, so they may move a bit before I'm done. Of course, it will all be rechromed when I'm done. By the way the car is going through a complete restoration so you can disregard everything else you see on the back end i.e. paint, luggage rack, GB sticker, etc.



Steve

 

[Jack T]

I really like it! A very subtle tweak to a great design.

 

[HealeyPassion]

Thanks Jack. The goal/intention was to have it look like it could have been "factory".

 

[tahoe healey]

Although it looks great, I had the only year they made a split bumper on my MGB-GT (1970). The reason they stopped it was the excessive damage to body if rear ended compared to the full bumper.

 

[HealeyPassion]

With all due respect... if I get rear ended in my Healey I imagine the damage to the rear shroud will be the least of my worries.

 

[Jack T]

I agree. With the limited protection provided by the bumpers on 60s British cars, I would guess that the cost of having two parts to assemble rather than one was the reason split bumpers weren't used.