Quote:
Originally Posted by rsk289
For UK market leafspring cars, inner wings are bare alloy, gearbox tunnel and dash are bare alloy, but for cars I have examined the inside skin of bonnet, boot and doors are body colour. Inside of doors then covered with glued-on carpet.
As said, bonnet prop-rod was body colour.
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I speak to normal production cars, not prototypes, not factory show cars, and not chassis designated racers at the time of order from AC.
This applies to AC Cars.
Cobra chassis were nearly complete when painted by AC Cars. The chassis was masked everywhere body color was not supposed to be, tape and paper mostly. Masking was not perfect usually so primer and body color can usually be found in hidden places if you look or are taking an unrestored car apart. It is not unusual to find body color over spray on tops of fuel tanks, under the dash, and stray primer or color mist droplets on suspension parts. Painters walked around the car applying finishes but apparently didn’t kneel down to get complete coverage along the bottom edges; for example on my black car there was no primer or body color on the side rocker panels past the tangent of the aluminum wrapping around the lower birdcage tubing. Said another way there was no paint beyond the line of sight.
The undersides of boot and bonnet lids were painted body color. The interior of the boot compartment was painted silver except for the spare wheel well which was left in white gel coat after assembly (yes wires and all).
Inside the front and inner wings (fenders) were coated heavily with an undercoating near the end of AC Cars processes. This coating sealed around rivets, screws, provided sound deadening for sand and gravel thrown from tires, and in front reduced the tendency for rocks to ding tops of fenders and create stars in the paint. Light over spray from this process on the suspension was normal.
All other interior inner panels weren’t painted and that included the foot boxes.
Early cars used plated spring clips for bonnet prop rod storage while CSX2201 onward prop rod j hooks were painted chassis black by dipping in paint. Because they were installed before painting it is normal for body color paint to be on the attachment end that couldn’t be masked easily or well. Body color over spray on the rod, which is actually a thin wall tube, has been seen in new car factory images. Body color over spray on under dash wiring high up under the edge of the cowl has been seen also. Over spray on the fuel cap adapter is normal.
A standard practice for most chassis was to respray the entire chassis top side and underside of the partially assembled chassis with chassis black paint. Sometimes paint coverage was real good so the only “color” visible was black. Sometimes paint coverage was poor with the respray only in lines of sight from outside the car perimeter. Most of the time differentials were painted over with chassis black and sometimes just their exposed bottoms. Sometimes the sides of wooden floor shims were painted well and sometimes not. Naturally parts not included in the chassis yet didn’t get the black respray. Example: I salvaged the original tie rod ends from a Cobra. During the car’s rebuild it got new modern replacements. I wanted the originals. Unless somebody damaged them removing them tie rod ends were very durable except for the rubber dust boots. I can find new period dust boots and apply fresh grease. As I cleaned up the units I went through the layers of dirt and paint. The forging were painted gloss black by the maker before machining, over that was some specks of primer, over that lots of red over spray especially on the dust boots and spring retainer, over that gloss black which I take to be AC Cars chassis black, over that dirt, and over the dirt was over spray from the car’s repaint in the 1980s.
Final assembler works and selling dealers are a different set of stories. The term “original paint” means something different depending on your particular definition of “original”.
Original = as applied by AC Cars
Original = as applied whoever completed the chassis into running cars, Shelby, Hugus, and a couple of others. A very high percentage of chassis that AC Cars painted required something between small damage repairs to major body work after being shipped. A brand new Cobra being loaded up to shipment to a selling dealer would be perfectly normal with small touch ups to complete body color respray. In some cases cars were repainted different colors to fill and order for a car in a particular color. (See Registry)
Original = as applied by the selling dealer. Most Cobras were painted with nitrocellulose based lacquer at AC Cars; very late cars in acrylic lacquer. The nitrocellulose base paints were very fragile. Most chemicals would attack them, they chipped easily, and they were very easy to scratch. It was not rare for selling dealers to completely repaint cars in their inventory in a more durable paint of some type. In some cases they charged the work back to Shelby (see Registry).
In regards to repaints by final assemblers and dealers, masking was usually not very good. The very best one owner “original paint” cars now were ones repainted completely by somebody. Look closely and tape lines and over spray can be found everywhere on just about anything from rubber grommets for bumper supports to LIFT THE DOT® studs. Repainted cars with side wing vents almost always have body color over spray inside the engine bay from painters trying to get good coverage of vent vanes.
Now for the inconsistent black paint. We have no idea if it was final assemblers or dealers but many cars have considerable amounts of a black paint in varying levels of gloss inside the nacelle forward of the radiator. Sometimes everything is well covered and sometimes one side is well covered. I have pictures of a one owner car that looks like somebody stuck a spray gun nozzle in the gap between body and radiator in just one place and made one pull of the gun trigger as black paint is just in lines of sight from that one spot.
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