1930 Hood Front Shutters

[Steve Braverman]

I am trying to find any documentation regarding the painting of 1930 Hood Front shutters. Any factory drawing that might contain the information seems to be missing.

I have been told by some knowledgeable and respected experts that they were painted fender color, while others have said they were all painted black except maybe on custom cars. Of course many, if not most cars have black fenders. Mine has green fenders. My shutters have been sloppily painted a non-matching green. Maybe when I take it apart I will find some evidence of the original paint.

[PFitz]

Steve.

 

This question has already been answered over in the "Franklin Series 145 and 147 price" thread.  See the Factory service bulletin #566. 

 

Paul

[Steve Braverman]

5 minutes ago, PFitz said:

Steve.

 

This question has already been answered over in the "Franklin Series 145 and 147 price" thread.  See the Factory service bulletin #566. 

 

Paul

Bulletin #566 says nothing regarding the color of the shutters. In fact, it doesn't even say to paint he center bar black. It does reference "General Letter No. 518." Are "General Letters" available anywhere? I don't see them on the HHFC site.

[Walt G]

There may be some mention in the Dealer's Bulletins about this when the cars /series first appeared as well. I have many of those but just do not have the time to get involved in making an effort to go through them - nothing was indexed at all for them . Have you checked ( or do you have access to ) the salesman's data book for the series 14? May be something there as well. Just need to know where to look and if something exists or existed that would note the answer to the questions nearly a century later.

[Steve Braverman]

I've looked through the Dealer's Bulletins that are available on the web site, and I didn't find anything indicating what color the shutters were. I do not have access to the salesman's data book, but it sounds interesting.

 

One interesting note was a mention of "painted fenders" (meaning painted a color other than black) were being introduced, as improvements in paint allowed for color matching in the field. Was 1930 the first year this was available on a regular production model? I know painted fenders were available earlier, but not common.

 

So far all I've learned is that all the shutters were painted black except for the ones that weren't.

[PFitz]

Steve. there would be no need to mention a color if black was the standard.

 

As with many other examples of factory parts, the exceptions to assuming black as the standard color was when another color was needed other than black. You see many examples of the factory doing that in the parts books and service bulletins for ordering exterior parts.

 

One other point. Take a look at the pictures of Hubbard's '30 Pirate Phaeton posted in Walt's 145 and 147 price thread. When I was restoring Balderson's '30 Pirate Phaeton I spoke with Tom a lot about his. He told me he liked the car's original color, so he painted the car midnight green that it had when he got it from England.  Despite what some have said that Tom told them about shutter colors, notice he painted the shutters black.

 

Paul

Edited March 20 by PFitz (see edit history)

[hook]

On 3/20/2024 at 6:06 AM, Steve Braverman said:

I am trying to find any documentation regarding the painting of 1930 Hood Front shutters. Any factory drawing that might contain the information seems to be missing.

I have been told by some knowledgeable and respected experts that they were painted fender color, while others have said they were all painted black except maybe on custom cars. Of course many, if not most cars have black fenders. Mine has green fenders. My shutters have been sloppily painted a non-matching green. Maybe when I take it apart I will find some evidence of the original paint.

Steve, I haven't got a nickel in this one way or the other and don't know the answer. However, here's a photo of an ad I have from the Saturday Evening Post showing a 1930 Pirate with an obviously green front. I know it's an artists rendering but, never the less, I would think it had to be approved by Franklin before it went to the printers.