MG-Cars.net

Welcome to our resource for MG Car Information.

Recommendations

Parts

MG parts spares and accessories are available for MG T Series (TA, MG TB, MG TC, MG TD, MG TF), Magnette, MGA, Twin cam, MGB, MGBGT, MGC, MGC GT, MG Midget, Sprite and other MG models from British car spares company LBCarCo.

MG TD TF 1500 - Silver Streak TD

Last year I became the proud owner of an ex-Connecticut 1952 MG TD, which has to be completely restored. Now I'm still busy with the restoration of my 1963 midget so in the meantime I'm doing a bit of research before I start on the TD. There are a few things wich puzzle me on this car: First of all the exact colour of the TD. It's now brush painted black but behind the chassis and body ID-plates I found what I think is the original factory colour of light metallic grey (Silver Streak Grey ???) However this grey has a very light green shade and I wonder if this is what Silver Streak really is. I never saw a photo of a TD in this colour neither one in real so it must be a very rare colour to begin with.
Furthermore, the wheels on my car are painted bright red (as by the way are the radiator slats and the upholstery (still original !!)) which, I think is a nice combination with grey bodywork. According to Clausager in his book Original MG T-types, all TD's had grey wheels ??!! In some old American roadtests I saw photo's of TD's with differently coloured wheels (other than grey that is)and I wonder if this maybe was a dealer option or an option installed at Abingdon but only intended for the American market because I never saw a European TD with other than grey wheels.
I intend to restore the car to it's original specification because I think it would be a nice change to all red and green TD's which are about.
Can someone shed some light on this coloured question??? The VIN code for my car is TD 19009 which should be a late August 1952 car.
Thanks, Nick.
Nick

Nick,

I think that the 'green' comes from what was so long on top of it, yeah, corrosion, just a guess. Congrats. Are you really a non-member? Mine was probably build about two days ahead of yours.

John
John Redman

Nick-
Check out the "Original MG TD" site shown below. It has sample of the silver streak grey and some of the paint suppliers' codes that may match. There is also a sketch of one of the earlier advertisements with the car.

http://www.british-cars.org.uk/kimber/mgtd/mgtd_finishes.htm
R. Challberg

My 53TD is in fact Silver Streak Gray which was an original color. My car was restored by the previous owner and well-known MG collector Geoff Wheatley last year who assured me the color was true to what left Abingdon some-50 odd years ago. The wheels are gray as well and the slats are red to match the interior. If you send me an email I can send you an image of the car.

Steve
Steve Hess

Are the Red wheels disk or wire ????



Steve Wincze

Silver Streak Grey was a legitimate factory colour, albeit quite rare.

This and other T'-Series colours were discussed in an excellent feature article in the June 1996 TSO by Hal Kramer #3094. The ariticle has colour swatches but unfortunately, are poorly reproduced in the article.

However as I indicated, it is an authentic factory colour to PPG code 33676.

Gord Clark
Rockburn, Qué.
Gordon A. Clark

Nick,lets have your email, I have painted my TD in a similar colour and am very proud of it. I didnt like the original silver streak grey so made my own.They are very rare here in Aus so who is to argue.
Gordon Wright

Nick - The red wheels were probably paint that way by on of the previous owners. Particularly in the 50s, people did all sorts of things with color combinations. One of the favorite was to paint the underside of the wings a contrasing color, so painting the wheels would not have been uncommon. Cheers - Dave
David DuBois

Nick,

I am going to be controversial but why not leave the car brush painted black with the coloured wheels? When I bought my TD it was painted bright yellow and had black PVC upholstery. It had been a display car in the back of a local car dealers for over twnety years and I vistited it many times.. It was running well and my intention was to give it a good service and then use it. Within two days it was in pieces and I since then there have been no holidays and no socialising - just hours in the workshop and hugh bills. The car is now all back together with a superb black paint job, enormously expensive chrome and wonderful green leather - but I still look nostagically at the photos of the car when it was down at heel and yellow. I must admit that at recent shows the battle scarred cars were of more interest than the pristine ones. I have a couple of pre war MG M Types and have started to rebuild one of them. I have a number of the coreect type of headlamps and have picked the best bits from my collection to build up two good lamps. There will be no new plating or powder coating just honest to goodness age patination


Jan T
J Targosz

Nick, original Silver Streak Gray did indeed have a tinge of almost a metallic green to it. A couple of years ago I had occassion to acquire a '52TD that had sat in a garage for about 40 years. The original color still showed in a number of the usual locations and had a definite tinge of green.
Bud Krueger

Thank you all for your help !! This time I'm back as a member John ! I think you are probably right about the paint corrosion. I removed the rubber sealing strip on the edge of the scuttle today and here the grey paint is indeed not so green-ish as it is in the engine compartment. Fifty years of high temperatures, oil and petrol vapours plus another layer of paint may indeed have damaged the original colour. Steve H. and Gordon W. I have both send you an email. Thanks very much for your offer I'm indeed curious how Silver Streak looks in real.
Now about the wheels: they are standard ventilated discs but I may be tempted to install wire's although I don't like centre-lock's (too small for the TD). I was thinking more along the bolt-on item... Anyway: I'm still not convinced about silver-grey being the only wheel colour available. I have this BMIHT video tape with the MG-advertising film "Safety Fast", were famous rally driver Ian Appleyard takes a new TD to the French ski resort Val d'Isere. On his way he passes a lorry loaded with four TD's "...ready for export abroad" as the commentary says. Of those four, at least three have different coloured wheels (hard to see ofcourse on a black&white movie but you can see it's not light grey). A colour which is a match with the radiator slats!!?? Well, maybe this is going to remain a TD-mystery...
Nick, 63 Midget/52 TD.
D.G.J. Herwegh

Nick
It took several tries but I think my email went through. If you did not get the images let me know
Steve
Steve Hess

Steve, Gordon, got your mail AND photo's !!!! I'm amazed at the high quality of both your TD's they're beautiful. Sent you both an email back but have problems with my server/computer or other (sometimes think that old Joe Lucas went into the computer business) So hope you received it. Again thanks a lot.
Nick, 63 Midget/ 52 TD.
D.G.J. Herwegh

Glad you got it, that is probably why my mail failed to go through for quite some time.

Just received a catalog from Holden in the U.K. They have tons of good stuff for your project. www.holden.co.uk

Steve
Steve Hess

The silver color was used on the sedans . Bought 2
fenders from O'Conner for mine which were original, taken apart my then to restone many years ago and they were that color.
Ellis
Ellis Carlton

This thread was discussed between 27/01/2005 and 30/01/2005

MG TD TF 1500 index

This thread is from the archive. The Live MG TD TF 1500 BBS is active now.