Also Shane, just a little bit of trivial detail.

The Holden/Aaltonen also had three red circles on the roof, across the front, and another directly behind the middle circle, so four on the roof. See pic on page 55 of Issue 4 of TME.

Cheer again, Watto.

ahhh i can see them now on the pic. Thought they were a smudge mark on the page, but can notice them now.
Cheers watto

FYI my 850 is Cedar Green, which you can see in this photo is significantly lighter than BRG, but also much darker than the Castrol Green of the later lightweights etc.



In other photos it looks so dark that you would think it is BRG. (the roof is a nissan cream colour so ignore that). Don't forget monitor differences affect the photos as well. Perhaps the '66 cars were Cedar Green, and given the name Castrol Green to keep the sponsors happy as suggested.




michael

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the world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page
66 Mini Minor sponsored by http://www.lifeonthehedge.com.au/ The Dog Harness Specialists
It was a pleasure ausmini. I'll miss all you misfits and reprobates

Michael...can you please take another picture of the car out from under the pergola....that will show us closer to the real colour

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"Show me the Mini!"

See if can find a copy of Racing Car News November 1966. It has full colour front cover showing the winning car 13 in Castrol green (appears even lighter than the PMS samples). Also note the white roof has 3 red dots above the windscreen with 2 more going backward in the middle of the roof.

One other small point.... This car was prepared by Bob Holdon.

Regards,

Chris

This is a pic of Don Hollands lightweight in 67, please convince me through miracles of technology, photography shading/exposure or other means that it is now the same colour after it's restoration! One of my closest friends is a very experienced spray painter and he believes you could have 10 castrol cars painted/ commissioned by different people side by side and none would be exactly the same colour.

_________________
1962 850

Mick,
I second the need for a better photo, but that top photo is the colour much closer to what I remember my brother's car to be than any other.

Unfortunately he lives in the states now, but I might email him and see if he remembers the name of the colour and other details.
KB

out of the pergola is easy - i don't live there any more.

i'll give it a wash first (i hope some time today) and then take some pics in the afternoon light. if not today then next week.......

_________________
the world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page
66 Mini Minor sponsored by http://www.lifeonthehedge.com.au/ The Dog Harness Specialists
It was a pleasure ausmini. I'll miss all you misfits and reprobates

Minimic, that photo is actually Bob Holden in the works lightweight. We had that photo in Issue 2 of TME (page 51) and it is clearly Bob at the wheel. However, being the factory-built car it was painted Castrol Green. It does appear from the colour pic that it is a fairly different shade from the BMC-entered cars at Bathurst. The Broadspeed on the preceding page appears lighter again, yet still not as light as the car is today.

As for the photos of the Cedar Green Cooper S, yes, the top pic appears very close to Cedar Green as I have it on my colour chart.

A couple of points though. When photographing cars the colour of the car alters dramatically according to many factors. These include, but are not limited to, the time of day, the time of year, the weather (cloudy/sunny), the exposure, the brand of film, the age of the film, the processing of the film, the printing, the light in which the final print is viewed, the scanner and the computer screen on which the final image is viewed.

There are also many reasons for difficulties in matching paint colours, and we will be having a series of articles on this subject in coming issues of TME, written by the technical manager of Glasurit paints - an expert in the field.

As for the cover of Racing Car News from November '66, forget that as a reference. This is simply a cartoon illustration, and is representative of the cars that won each class, and is not an accurate reflection of the colour at all.

Cheers, Watto.

Regarding the RCN cover pics, the artist used to get a black and white photo and then draw the cover picture. He was guessing the colours from what he was told or what he saw. Sometimes he was close but on a couple of occasions he was way out! Sometimes it was a completely different colour altogether.
Regardless they were still great covers.

I just spoke to my brother in the states and got the facts on his car straight from the horses mouth....

His car was actually a '67 race car not a '66. It was run at Bathurst that year by Paddy Hopkirk and was definately painted at the factory in Castrol Green, not a factory spec colour of the era. He had to mix some paint to have the bonnet resprayed at one stage in his ownership and had the paint mixed as per the Castrol Green formula at the time. He also built up and ran a rally car in cooper S spec and had it painted in the same formula Castrol Green.

After his car was decommissioned as a factory race car it was sold to an unknown factory employee who had it for about 12 months. He then sold it to another BMC employee by the name of Paul Merry. Paul had it for a couple of years before selling it to my brother in '71 or early '72 according to Lindsay. Lindsay drove it as his every day car and ran it in some supersprints and the like during his time with it. My brother sold it to finance the build up of the rally car (he was an apprentice electrician with the DMR at the time). Lindsay sold it to a guy called Chris Hannan who destroyed it in an accident not long afterwards. Not sure if this was road or motorsport related - My vague recollection was that it was in a road accident.

But his was definately Castrol Green and that colour at the time was darker (closer to Cedar Green) than the other castrol cars discussed.
KB

hey thanks for making the classic "that's a cooper s" gaff about my 850 Watto!!! Goes to show even the most knowledgable can fall into that trap (i know it was late, you were busy trying to get the magazine out...). i can assure you its not a cooper s, but a humble 64 850.

thanks also for agreeing with me re the way colours can look depending on all sorts of factors Watto (including memory of the human kind). i actually took all three photos at the same time on the same day with the same camera. just slightly different angles that resulted in slightly different exposures and thus rendering of colour. i threw them up here as an example on how different the same colour can look in different circumstances

i also used to mix paints at work and there was one rule - follow the formula to match the paint. there used to be some boffins who reckoned they could mix paint and match it by eye, but they always started with a known formula that was close to the sample and then adjusted it. now they have computers that do the same thing. unlike our monitors at home, these things are calibrated using special samples and equipment. some graphic designers and magazine editors no doubt have calibrated monitors to ensure that the colours on the monitor are representative of what gets printed.

most of the colours on race cars these days are carefully mixed to ensure that they come out the correct way when viewed on a television monitor. how they look in the flesh is largely irrelevant to the sponsors.

so anyway, if we can find out the exact formula of the pigment coours and base used, we can find the right colour. any other way is an estimate with varying degrees of calculation......

michael

_________________
the world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page
66 Mini Minor sponsored by http://www.lifeonthehedge.com.au/ The Dog Harness Specialists
It was a pleasure ausmini. I'll miss all you misfits and reprobates