Engine bay colour

[revo]

Morning chaps

Just a quick question you may be able to help me with.
My US 1972TE goes in for painting next week with a bit of luck. The car is aubergine which is original colour and will be repainted the same. However the car has been re sprayed at some time in its past and the engine bay is aubergine but looks as though there is black paint below the re spray. I have looked at hundreds of pictures on line and it seems some cars mostly US have black engine bays.
Can anyone shed some light on this as to what is the correct colour.

Many thanks
Revo

[Nick Moss]

A 72 911 should be black in the engine bay.

[revo]

Cheers Nick

Thanks for that, that should make life a little easier

Revo

[viper]

I had this debate with a well known Porsche expert recently and I was sure that at one time engine bays were black...he didn't agree saying they were always body colour

Nick, What was the first year they introduced body colour t the engine bay...73?

Also does the same go for under the bonnet?

[Darren65]

Have your 'expert' take a look at these 1971 (72MY) photos...http://www.early911sregistry.org/forums ... ember-1971

F series (73MY) were the first with body colour under arches and engine bay.

Cheers,

[Nick Moss]

I had this debate with a well known Porsche expert recently and I was sure that at one time engine bays were black...he didn't agree saying they were always body colour

Nick, What was the first year they introduced body colour t the engine bay...73?

Also does the same go for under the bonnet?

Black under bonnet up to and including 71MY
Black in engine bay up to and including 72MY, although it's quite possible that the very last 72MY cars were body coloured here. Verification needed as Wikipedia would say.

[Darren65]

Black under bonnet up to and including 71MY

Nick,

Are you sure about that?……I'm not certain regarding timescales for black under the bonnet although the reference photos of the 700 miles 1970 2.2S taken by Dave Conklin suggest (overspray) body colour?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/80724421@N ... 169538658/

Cheers,

[Nick Moss]

I have owned a couple of 70 and 71 cars that retained the black paint under the bonnet.

[stretch]

Interesting Debate. I am with Darren on this one ! I am fairly certain 2.2 cars are body colour under the bonnet.
My 70T is a very original car, laid up for 30 years with original paint.

[Nick Moss]

I have gone through most of my pictures of 911s of this era and I have 1970, 71 and 72 cars with black luggage areas and an equal number of cars with body colour. I give up

[Darren65]

As you say Nick, very difficult..…..I've been researching paint finish for a little while now (I blame Richard Murphy ) and there's so much written and so many opinions expressed that I tend to ignore these and go by period photos or photos of unrestored original cars only.

Another factor I take a guess at is how the factory production line worked and when/why/how it made sense to change things…..for example when they changed to body colour under the bonnet it would have made no sense to go back to black to then go back to body colour again.

I'm pretty certain that from at least 1970 cars had overspray body colour under the bonnet however this is only 'my opinion' from what I've seen so happy to be proved wrong

Cheers,

[kitesurfer2]

My 72 engine bay has body colour, with light coat of black, so you can see body colour showing through.

[Nick Moss]

I'm pretty certain that from at least 1970 cars had overspray body colour under the bonnet however this is only 'my opinion' from what I've seen so happy to be proved wrong

Cheers,

I cannot disagree. But it does seem odd that they were body colour in 70, but some were black definitely black in 71. My 72 MY 911T Sporto (build no. 0001) was black, perhaps the only 72 model like that, but then it was built in March 71, and had a 1971 MY shell.

[Lightweight_911]

Don't forget that there were Porsche-built & Karmann-built 911 variants up to & including '71 models which may explain inconsistencies ...

[210bhp]

I'm agreeing with kite surfer. I think 72MY were black over body colour in the engine bay.

Regards
Mike