Hi all,
And this was first going to be in the Series 3 originality question thread, but as this is a Series 1 car (or you can see two cars) in the paint shop at the Browns Lane plant in June 1966 (almost certainly the same photo shoot as the assembly line pic taken on June 22nd 1966, this one: XKE Data - 1E50188 - Jaguar E-Type (XKE) information, articles, photos and register) there are a few questions and observations that would be good to discuss, IMHO.
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The car closer to the camera is an OTS, parts of the body seem to be dark and parts of it are of a light tone and some areas covered by some protection, paper?
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Further down the line looks like there are some hoses and what appears to be a booth for spraying paint.
So some of the questions that pop up in my head are:
What’s happening here? (What is that guy closest to the camera supposed to do? Paint pre-prep? Or post-paint protection for the final assembly?)
Why is the rear of the car body dark, but the scuttle, the area behind the dash that always on finished cars appears to have been sprayed with body colour, is light? Is it because that dark tone is just primer and this car has not yet been painted?
What is the thing on top of that dark surface? Paper?
And no questions, just a few observations many of us have done while restoring or going through unrestored cars.
a) The very early E-types had the body number stamped on the support brackets in the rear part of the bonnet. A common procedure for many car makers of the era. But Jaguar stopped doing that and instead of it, the panels that were taken off the car, after it had been painted at the paint shop (doors, lids, bonnet, etc.) would have some worker mark them with crayon on the inside with the body number. Also many interior panels etc would get similar markings. This was also an old habbit, even my MKV DHC from 1950 has the body number (1356) written with a crayon on the backside of the instrument panel)
b) When a car body entered the paint shop, it had been decided which colour it was going to receive. Also the body had been given a number and a number plate on both the front (scuttle) of the body and another one in the rear (the rear reg.plate panel) of the body, so it could be identified also after painting.
c) It (the car body) also had a paint name tag hanging on in somewhere (I have no idea where, I have never seen a photo with one, nor have I seen any evidence of where it might have been hanging) and these plates have been seen (and for sale) at the Stoneleigh Spares day. I would have bought some if I only would have been able to find “my” colours, the “Opalescent Dark Green” of my ex. #1E76372BW or the “Cream” or “Old English White” of my current #1S20183, but no such luck, yet! I think those metal plates were then removed after the paint had cured and the body went to the assembly line to meet it’s powertrain. (In that 1966 colour photo you can see far in the background the painted bodies coming to the assembly line from a higher level, very much like it still was for the X308 and X350 assembly line when I visited the place in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s.)
And in case ANYONE has more shots of cars (preferably E-types, I have later photos of XJ’s) being painted at Browns Lane, please post them here if you can I am sure we can all find interesting things about the process. (And the process was very different at the earlier Foleshill (Swallow Road) plant, I have some pics from there but they belong to the Pre-XK and XK forums. Some great ones in the Barry Price “Rise of Jaguar” book.)
Cheers!
