Ulster colours

[Tony Betts]

Hi all,

Can anyone advise on what the original colour blue for a 1931 Ulster would be.

A pic would be nice.

Tony.

[bob46320]

A late '32 RN was "Nile Blue"

[Charles P]

Hi all,

Can anyone advise on what the original colour blue for a 1931 Ulster would be.

A pic would be nice.

Tony.

Tony

I thought that Ulsters only came in cream, red or black, but that you could have one in any colour you like without extra charge. So if someone chose blue it could be any blue, although in the absence of a sample to match, I guess that Longbridge would use other factory colours.


Charles

[Ruairidh Dunford]

Any “reasonable” colour you wanted Tony.

   

[Mike Costigan]

As Charles suggests, the standard catalogued colours were cream with green wings, red with black wings, and black with red wings. But Ulsters left the factory in a wide range of colours, some of them apparently not even standard Austin colours, so your blue car could be anything you choose from pale sky blue through turquoise to dark midnight blue!

Just a quick look through the Ulster build ledgers shows the following:

Black & Red with Black trim
Silver Grey with Silver Grey wings and Green trim
Black with Red trim
Black & White
Maroon & Black
Black with Red wings & Red trim
Cream & Green
Yellow with Green wings & Trim
Blue with Blue wings and Red trim
Blue with Black trim
Yellow & Black
Cream & Green with Black trim
Black with Green trim
Cream & Green with Cream trim & wheels
Primrose & Green with Black trim & wheels
All Black with Red trim
Yellow & Black with Black trim
Cream with Black wings & Trim
Green & Black with Black trim
Green & Black with Green trim
Black with Green wings & trim

... and so on!

[Tony Betts]

Thanks so far guys,

Obviously I'm looking at colours for JJ 5855.

As its a B4 car, the original ledgers were lost. ( not at gaydon ).

So I don't know its original factory colour? However all the history we have is only showing the car to ever be BLUE. It was one of the first cars to go on the Ulster register, and I beleive its stated as blue there as well.

I'v started the axle rebuilds etc, and should hopefully have the chance to get the car in paint latter in the year.

So we are looking at PAINT COLOURS. 

Do I keep the car in blue?

The black with red upaulstry, and red wings is very very interesting. (A black cherry coloured wings would look good ).

Does anyone have a picture of the shade of red, light or dark. For the wings.

Help is always apreciated.

Tony.

[Adam Brown]

One thing I would strongly suggest is to stay away from modern British Standard or RAL shades if you can help it. Though they do make it a lot lot easier for touching it up down the line.

From my experience though its hard to explain they tend to be too 'strong' in colour. Shades from the pre-war era didn't have perhaps pureness is the wrong word but something along those lines. They tended towards subtlety.

If it looks 'right' it generally is 'right' with colour, but I've seen some Austins (and others) that just scream 'wrong'. That said we are all a mixed bunch, I doubt the man who paints his car luminous flamingo pink would do so if he didn't like it......

[Mike Costigan]

Tony, the Ulster I owned back in the seventies was originally black with red wings; from the traces of colour available I decided that Triumph Signal Red was a very close match - the Triumph colour code was 32.

[Tony Betts]

Hi Adam,

I totally agree with what you are saying on colours.

And with already having a maclaren Orange chummy for the misses, I don't always worry about originality.

Hi mike, what did you think of the looks of the car. With a body colour on the wings.

In my mind at the moment it looks uncomfortable for the age of car. The risk is, others will think this would have never been done originally? And not get the point of the colour?

Thanks Tony.

[Mike Costigan]

Tony,

Unfortunately I had to sell my car before it got to the painting stage, but I was really looking forward to it - I'm sure it would have looked period-correct. I know it's hard to interpret a black and white photo, but this is a black car with red wings, upholstery and wheels:


  1930 Ulster.jpg (Size: 252.23 KB / Downloads: 407)