Good day fellow Listers,
This one is for all the Healey Historians in the bunch - particularly those
familiar with the Healey assembly lines. The shop doing the work on my car is
also begun a ground up restoration on a widow's husbands MKII BT7. The shop
has completely disassembled the car and had the frame / tub bead blasted. The
result is OK - not as good as they had expected. So they have decided to have
the frame dipped.
When they got the car back from the blaster, they found two initials "GP" in 4
to 5 inch block letters stenciled on the inside right rear fender wall - not
the fender / panel but the inner fender wall attached to the tub. The letters
appear to the left of the wheel well on the flat surface roughly centered from
top to bottom. I can provide photos if interested. The letters themselves
were not painted on (otherwise they would have come off during the blasting).
It appears as though it's metal on metal application (but smooth to the touch).
There have been threads in the past regarding markings put on the cars from
assembly line workers. The car is believed to have been "untouched" and in
original - although well aged - state prior to the disassembly. The shop has
asked me to reach out to this knowledgeable group to see if anyone can shed
some light on this. Some of the questions they have are:
What do the initials GP represent? Any context would be helpful.
Do they have anything to do with people working the line assembling these cars?
How were the initials applied to the frame?
If the initials are meaningful, any suggestions on how to protect the initials
from the dipping process?
Has anyone else come across markings of this type during your restoration
processes?
Thanks in advance for your help.
Cheers,
Carlos Cruz
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