On Dec 21, 2005, at 8:31 AM, Bert Shirey wrote:
> which leads me to
> think that the body shell was sprayed as a unit before the front
> fenders were
> attached. You figure out how that was done.
Bert,
All of the pieces came down separate assembly lines and were painted
what ever color they were doing that day or week. Then the parts
came together at the finial assembly line where they picked the
pieces with the matching color. On occasion this did not work
properly. At the time our cars were built production lines were,
shall we say, some what lax. So the number of fenders painted, for
instance, might exceed the number of cars being assembled and those
parts were held for another run. The paint standards were also lax
so there were a few cars made up with parts from several different
runs and on occasion with terrible results. i was in Pasadena in
1960 at a foreign car dealer who had a new white Jag Salon on which
no two parts of the car were the same shade of white. They sent the
car to a local paint shop for repainting. So much for the original
color :-)
Bob Kitterer
1960 Sprite (Mk IV in disguise)
1966 Sprite Mk III (Trevor, in boxes)
2000 Miata Special Edition
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