Tadek,
Do you have other/better photos of brackets - only photo I can see in your links showing brackets, impossible to say whether black or body colour. Even the tyre that we know is Black and the Jack that we know is red, has the same grey coloring as what I can see of the bumper brackets, such is the joy of period black and white photos
I had noted on this page that 677033 [OHP503] had body colored bumper mounts to certainly the rear but being a road test car it may have been specially
prepared
more to this than you would like !
and ruining my own theory
set of 6 or so period 1956 pics from Scotland clearly show body color front and rear!
back ones red! as are the brake drums
I thinks it’s pretty well established Originality Research 101, that you can’t accept factory pre-production/ marketing photos, and indeed Motor Show (especially USA) photos, as reliable evidence of production car originality. Next thing we will be debating is the authenticity of GOLD plated XK140 Roadsters and Mark 2 Saloons… 
Thanks for the clarification, Roger. Authenticity is also more important to me than JCNA judging standards, although I hope there will be a close correspondence.
Cant some of these not simply be dealer / owner painted according to their tastes?
There are more, however as you note, it may have been a prepped car.
However, the MVV671 OTS on BaT was a very original barn find.
So were mine, on my Dec '53 car. The car was taken off the road in '68, however did have a repaint at some point. Nonetheless, the brackets were still black when I bought the car.
Tadek
Chassis number, Tadek? Cheers, Chris.
674460, Dec 14th. '53
A barn find can also have had dealer preps? Please correct me, but I think Hornburg offered all sorts of dealer options. These are certainly not factory, but i am quite sure than in case a customer wanted a 54 with body colour painted brackets, it would have been done.
Many thanks, Tadek!
Chris
Well Louis,
There are people here with much more knowledge than I have.
However, my humble opinion is, that unless specially done by the factory (show cars) or by the dealer (dealer option) the brackets were black.
If they were body colour painted by the factory as a standard, then they would need to actually paint them with the body at some stage, number them possibly, or otherwise identify them with the particular car.
Please note that the brackets are mounted at the very end of the assembly line, as the chassis and the body have to be assembled prior. This would mean that these bracket would have to be somewhere attached to the car throughout the majority of the assembly line.
Tadek
This is the point, it’s a logistics problem, not only with body colored brackets, but also body colored spats, disc wheels and the painted hub caps that went with them. I believe the spats were pre-fitted before painting, and then numbered, and thus would have to stay with the numbered body shell, as Mark V sunroofs were. But brackets, wheels and hub caps are not necessary to keep to a specific car, and thus, yes, could be stashed at the end of the production line, and in 12 stashes according to color.
They would have painted a large batch of each part in each color, perhaps according to what color was being used that day on bodies.
Bumper brackets were only painted body color because they were visible on the showroom floor. Similar brackets on Mark V were not visible and thus were always black.
It seems a logical guess, and without printed evidence still only a guess, that at some point they decided that black looks ok on a 120 with all colors, and to eliminate a logistical headache and make them all black. Similarly at some point they decided to eliminate color on hub caps. The demarcation point may be simply when they ran out of each stashed color after the decision was made, presumably by Lyons.
