1971 Series III - Should the inside of the transmission tunnel be the same color as body? If so, how far down the tunnel should the body color extend? Currently it looks as though there is some type of non-metal material immediately to the rear of the bulkhead that was painted the same color as the body (old English white) but it is hard to tell where this ended due to build up of grease/dirt/etc.
In Porters book Jaguar Etype The Definitive History, pg. 165, is this picture of a bodyshell on a Tip Trolley. While this can only be an educated guess on my part, it would appear that the transmission tunnel would have been accesible for painting. Primer (red?) at a minimum and most likely body color. Since that area would rarely be seen by customers, I would imagine that any effort to get it painted would be minimal. Also, these photos were of S1 cars. Who knows how the process might have changed by S3?