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MG TD TF 1500 - Non Silver Wheels on Early Cars?

We have been over this before but ...

While trying to dig into the green controversy I stumbled on a June 1952 ad in Autocar for a used 1950 TD. The car was listed as black with green interior and green wheels. Nothing in the ad indicated that anything was repainted and in fact it alluded to the car being well preserved in terms of finishes etc. The car was listed as having 7k miles on it and first registered in March 1950. The picture showed solid wheels and the car did have fender mirrors added.

Not a smoking gun but still interesting ...
Christopher Couper

Found another factory publicity photo with contrasting rims too. Maybe this was a very early thing quickly abandoned.
Christopher Couper

Or it was simply artistic license. I suspect many times the artists for these brochures just winged it based on what the works told them over the phone!
Kevin McLemore

These are pictures but I think the artistic comment could still apply.
Christopher Couper

Chris, I am thinking it may have been an early design attribute. The YT had their wheel rims painted the colour of the coachwork. I think the YT was one of the first model of MG to use steel disc wheel rims instead of Wires. I no doubt can be corrected on that point. It seems plausible that MG experimented with maybe colouring the wheels the same as the rad slats - interior.

Ultimately, I think going with Silver was the way to go for a factory that was trying to build as many cars as they could.

Just my idea .... maybe its close in rationell.

...CR
C.R. Tyrell

C.R. I think you are probably correct. A few early cars may have escaped that way but ultimately cost factors caught up with them. Making them all silver probably saved them money.
Christopher Couper

I also wonder if the ad team was responsible - adding a few accents to catch the eye ... Which are not available but easily added by the owner... Thus starting a trend?
Geoffrey M Baker

My TD is TD0260 9th car of the production line it has sIlver solid wheels. I done a lot of research on that first week of production all were RHD most were sent to either Australia , South Africa or New Zealand. I have not come upon any evidence of factory custom colored wheels. As we all know Nuffield distributors had license to dress up cars as saw fit and as suggested earlier in the post advertising agents had license to be creative
EH Floate

EH,
FWIW, If you are interested in early TD's, TD-0256 is still for sale over here !!

Steve
Steve Wincze

All post-1948 Nuffield cars from the humble Morris Minor all the way up to the Wolseley 6/80 and Riley RM's, had their wheels in body colour.
Riley RMC roadsters assembled at the Abingdon factory half a year before the introduction of the TD, not only shared the MG colour schemes but had their wheels painted either to match the body or the upholstery.
So it seems very tempting to state that early TD's shared this practice (with the wheels identical to the radiator slats ??). Some period b&w photos and a famous shot from a Nuffield publicity film seem to point out in this direction too. However I've never seen a survivor with other than silver solid wheels....

Nick (TD3232)
Nick Herwegh

This thread was discussed between 24/01/2015 and 26/01/2015

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