Just to put this one to rest again for awhile:
The Anderson/Moment book is wrong on this point, reflecting the lack
of information about Longbridge cars when the book was written. The
story that I now believe is that when the 100-Six was first
introduced, Healeys were still being assembled at Longbridge, but the
new six-cylinder engines were sourced from the Morris plant at
Coventry, instead of being built at the Austin engine works in
Longbridge. Consequently when production first begun, they were
painted the same color as other engines from that plant, i.e. Morris
Green.
At some point after that several independent decisions were made: To
respond to complaints about the lack of power on the 1C (gallery head)
engine, the heads were reworked into 26C form to match the rally
engines, with separate intake manifolds. A two-seat body style for the
Healey was reintroduced--the BN6--which would require temporary
suspension of BN4 production at Jensen. BMC decided to consolidate all
sports car assembly at Abingdon, so Healey assembly was moved from
Longbridge to Abingdon. The color of the Healey engine was changed
from Morris Green to Healey (light metallic) green, perhaps to
distinguish it from other Coventry engine plant engines for shipping
to Abingdon. Several changes were made in the BN4 interior trim,
probably as cost-saving measures.
It took about six months to implement all of these decisions, during
the period from October 1957 to April 1958. The BN6 body style wasn't
ready when the decision was made to change the assembly location and
it took a few months for Jensen to implement the new BN6 body
style. For example, BN4s already in the pipeline at Jensen's were
diverted to Abingdon from Longbridge at the point of assembly
change-over. During that period all sorts of apparent anomalies
occured in production as components already in the pipeline were used
up, and other components were introduced. Based on observation of
specific unrestored cars, as Derek notes, I now believe the following:
All 1C engines were painted Morris green. The 1C engine was never used
in Abingdon-manufactured cars. Very early 26C engines were also
painted Morris green, but within a month or two of production, the
color was changed to Healey Engine Green. Some of the first cars
assembled at Abingdon were BN4s with the early (integral top frame)
style interior but with 26C engines. All BN4s assembled after the
body style was put back into production in Sept. 1958 had the later
interior trim style more consistent with the BN6s, and all were
assembled at Abingdon. If a BN4 was assembled between November 1957
and March 1958, care should be taken before restoration to determine
its original manufactured condition, because its combination of engine
color, engine type, and interior details may not match Healeys built
before or after those dates.
Cheers and Happy New Year
Gary Anderson
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