Re: Jeff's 48 Custom 8 Victoria Project

Posted by bigmoparjeff On 2013/10/6 20:42:41

Hi Dell,

I had a feeling that the engine should be gray, but the owner wanted green. I like the green better so it didn't bother me to paint it green. I figured that the engine was painted with all the brackets and things attached, which is why I didn't find any paint hidden underneath where they bolted to the engine. I did read the recent green vs. gray discussion, and this car was probably built too late to be one of the green engine cars. Though one guy said that he had seen green 356's in 22nd cars with the old style patent plate, and that's what this car has.

It's interesting that it was important to make engines look so beautiful in the 20's and 30's, but by the late 40's they assembled the whole drivetrain sans carb, distributor and generator, then sprayed on about a half of a coat of the cheapest engine paint they could get.

By the way, I did figure out what the mystery holes in the cowl were for. They line up with the upper mounting holes in the firewall insulation pad. Since the steel hydraulic lines were installed before the pad, the pad sits away from the cowl. It appears that the pins were omitted by the factory since they were too short to reach the holes, and they filled the holes with small blobs of sealer. I think they may have stopped punching these holes in the cowl later in production, as I looked at pictures of a light colored car for sale on ebay and it didn't appear to have the holes.


Jeff