Paint or not paint

[Gary t]

I have been  on the fence about putting  black paint on the vertical strip under the doors  where the outer shell is riveted to the inner  shell. I have inherited a part can of black bed liner paint,  and now I need to decide.  All of the  fasteners are new and shiny and I have no easy  route for matching the existing body paint.

[EuropaTC]

Try it out in Photoshop ?  That's what I usually do but a practical way for that area would be to simply run a strip of black duck tape over the strip and see if you can live with it ?

I did mine in black simply because it doesn't show the dirt, mud or stone chips as much as yellow does....

Brian

[S2Zetec54]

It would be interesting to understand how they left the factory.

I did exactly as Brian suggested and taped up one side and left the other.. personally and with my colour I prefer the black….haven’t got around to actually painting it though. The tape then peeled off

For me, and, as I say my colour it highlighted the lovely shape as it flicks up to the rear

Would love to see your experiment with yours

[4129R]

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/174343652897

1972 sales brochure seems to show they were the same colour as the rest of the car.

But the sills will get a lot of stone chips, so painting them black would be far easier to touch up any stone chips.

[JR73]

It was painted black from the factory.

[4129R]

From that photo, it looks like Colin Chapman had run out of credit with the suppliers of the Elan wheels and tyres.

[jbcollier]

Black when new:

[Blitzen]

I wonder if it varied based on the color. All the pics in this thread show black rockers for yellow cars but body color for blue cars.  JR73’s picture best illustrates this as it has both a yellow and a blue car.

[JR73]

I think that’s just the darker colours not showing the black as obviously. All the original cars I’ve ever seen where painted with black material beneath the doors regardless of body colour. Black cars had that area painted in the black ‘stone chip’ type material too, it’s dull/Matt.
Inner wheel arches where also blacked.

[4129R]

Just to add to the confusion, I have had my fleet of 7 stripped back to bare fibreglass and painted by 2 ex-Lotus bodyshop workers, who work about 8 miles south of the Hethel factory. 

They painted the engine compartment and the area where the spare wheel goes, and all 4 wheel arches matt black.

They painted some of the door interiors gloss black.

They painted all of the sills the same colour as the rest of the body.

[JR73]

Mine was body colour underneath the black from the factory, so that’s not wrong tbh just not quite finished as per original. It is a little prone to stone damage too as has already been mentioned.

I’m fairly sure it was blacked out so that the original body lines of the S1 where retained (they don’t have the inner and outer shell joint like S2’s and TC’s) and the TC sill covers completely hide the joint.

[EuropaTC]

If you think about it the small vertical panel would be painted in body colour during the main paint process, they wouldn't bother masking that off. But I also doubt they would have prepared the area properly for paint,  so although coloured it probably looked lousy so it wouldn't surprise me if they'd gone over it with matt or satin black. 

I looked back over my photos and this is one I took on the way home after buying the car, which at that time hadn't had any paintwork done. A one owner car, the PO added the pinstripes but never had to touch the paint, in fact one of the selling points was that the bodywork was totally original, no accidents/repairs, not even gelcoat ones.

Which surprised me because I thought it was something I'd done, but obviously not.

[Bainford]

My 2 cents; I'd paint the area black. I find it hides a bit of lower body ugliness, provides a nice finished look, and visually slims the lines of the body.

[Gary t]

Thanks for all of the input. I put black tape on and have decided to paint. I'll do before and after photos when I am done.

[Gary t]

before during and after
Opinions??

I don't mind it at least the pop rivets and bolts are sort of hiding. I need to take it out and see from a few meters away.