Actually, the Series 3 side badges were a Burgandyish Maroon colour. I have
owned several Series 3's (one with 10,000 original miles) and I have even had
new old stock badges still in the Rootes bags. They were all painted with a
Maroon field and had chrome series and number 3. The horizontal lines were not
chromed. I have never seen one with the upper part painted blue. Those types of
badges were used on several types of British cars, Lotus Elan pops into my mind
and I'm sure there were others including other Rootes models. Perhaps the ones
you have with the blue top were from a different car??? - Ian
Fred Levit wrote:
> On my series 3 the incised lettering is aluminized (or chromed). The upper
> part, with the word `SERIES', is blue.
> The incised stripes in the lower part are aluminized (or chromed) as is
> the numeral 3. The background is red.
>
> Restoring the badges is not easy. The problem is getting the paint out of
> the incised lettering. Sandpaper on a wooden block will remove the
> background paint. I could find no solvent that would remove the paint (or
> aluminum or chrome) from the letters without destroying the acrylic. So I
> used a tooth pick in a drill press with abrasive paste and spent hours
> removing the paint and polishing the inside of the lettering. A small dowel
> with abrasive paste was used on the numeral 3.
>
> Then I made a mistake. I should have had the backs aluminized, but I used
> chrome spray paint from a hobby shop. That comes out looking not too bad,
> but the aluminum would have been better.
>
> Next, sand the aluminum off the back and polish the plastic, finally spray
> painting it with the blue and the red. Finally, use an acrylic polish on
> the face and finish with an acrylic cleaner.
>
> Mine came out looking much, much better than they did before I started and
> I was pretty much satisfied with the result.
>
> FL
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