Occasionally things on this car just strike me as funny. Today I found another one.
All Mark V saloons have slots in the center pillars between the doors for trafficators.
If the car was built for the USA as mine was, it did not get trafficators, it got flashing turn signals, and different window frames without the slots.
It also got little C.2694 cover panels for the unused slots. They are of course listed, not in the Body Section with the pillars, but in the Electrical Section with the trafficators, where anybody would think to look for them.
Anyway I dug mine out to strip them and discovered that they were painted Gunmetal on one side and Lavender Grey on the other side.
I thought that was funny.
I guess since it would not be known when the body was painted whether it was to be built with or without the cover panels, the line workers kept them separate somewhere on the assembly line and put them in as needed instead of trafficators. They might not have attempted to predict the number needed in each color, so to reduce the supply required, they did two colors on each.
Talking about trafficators I find it equally amusing that on the DHC’s they cut slots for the trafficators onto the body panel on both sides right behind the hinge pillar. But of course only on those cars (UK and Continental Europe) where trafficators were needed and fitted. Most DHC’s went to America, so they had the directional indicators built into the sidelights (dual filament bulbs). So at some point on the assembly line they had to know where the car was heading and whether the slots should be cut or not.
Yes, that’s a curious discrepancy in assembly line practice between saloons and DHCs.
I wonder, is there any chance they could have cut the slots in the DHC bodies as needed AFTER they were painted? Seems unlikely, but possible.
Otherwise it would indeed require them to follow the method of what they called Card Numbers, which were probably build sheets or work orders for each car.
Allan Crouch says 932 cars went to the USA, but does not specify how many were DHCs.
Total production was about 9500 saloons and 997 DHCs.
There is also the question of Canada. Crouch says 299 cars went there. The parts book seems to indicate that they had flashers, but the Canadian owners I hear from all seem to have trafficators.
