BMC C-series engine colours

The C-series is the BMC six: 2639cc and then 2912cc, in the Austin Westminster and its Wolseley, Riley and Vanden Plas relatives, in the Austin-Healey 100-6 and 3000, and finally in the MGC. Colour research on it is lopsided. The sports cars are argued over constantly and the saloons are barely discussed at all, so this page has two records and one large gap. Both records are graded C. The sources agree on the broad colour, and none of them is a factory document.

What the factory did

The six-cylinder Healey engine was a pale metallic grey-green. That much is common ground across every source here: British Car Forum members restoring BJ8s describe a pale green with a hint of metallic olive, the trade sells it as Healey engine green, as steel dust grey and as AH grey metal, and a UK Healey specialist writing up an early car's restoration confirms steel dust grey as the colour of the later cars. Limora sells it as "metallic green (steel dust grey)" and lists it for BN1 through BJ8.

The MGC engine was a pale green too. MGOC Spares, the trading arm of the MG Owners' Club, says the MGC engine is finished in "the distinctive MGC Green, a pale silver-grey-green continuing the Austin-Healey tradition that is distinctly lighter than BMC Green", and it sells that colour as a metallic engine enamel. British Car Forum members put it more simply and call the correct MGC colour a variation of Healey green.

What the factory did to the saloon engines is not established. That covers the A99 and A110 Westminster, the Wolseley 6/99 and 6/110, the Vanden Plas Princess 3-Litre and the Austin 3-Litre. We have found no club page, forum thread or product listing that states a colour for them. If you own one with original paint, we would like to hear from you.

What changed, and when

Less than you would expect, and less than can be shown. The six-cylinder Healey ran from 1956 to 1968 and the MGC from October 1967 to August 1969, and no source we have found documents a colour change within either span. Owners do report differences: British Car Forum members say later BJ8 engines are a different shade from earlier ones, and there is a persistent question among Healey owners about whether early Longbridge-built 100-6 engines differed from the later Abingdon cars. Nothing we have found answers it.

Limora's listing is the one source that puts a date range on the colour, and it starts in 1953, before the six existed. Bill Rawles Classic Cars contradicts it for the early cars, saying those had light blue engines and that steel dust grey came later. Both cannot be right about 1953, which is a useful reminder that a supplier's application list records what they stock and tells you little about history.

Common mistakes

Painting an MGC block maroon or red. That sequence belongs to the B-series MGB. A rebuilder who does not know the difference will hand the engine back in the wrong colour. It happens often enough that British Car Forum members recognise it on sight.

Buying "Healey green" on the name alone. Members restoring BJ8s report at least two versions in circulation, one yellower and one bluer-grey, and one reports that a well-known product sold as Healey green is actually the darker Morris green used on Austin saloon engines. The name on the tin tells you what the seller calls it and nothing more.

Treating the blue you find under the green as a lost original colour. It turns up under the green on unrestored engines often enough to have been discussed at length, and the settled view among Healey restorers is that it is primer. That view comes from stripped engines and not from a document, and it is still the better explanation.

What to buy

The pale metallic grey-green is the hardest engine colour on this site to buy with confidence, and it is better to say so than to point at a tin.

One paint is on general sale under the Healey name: POR-15's Austin Healey Green, a brush-on enamel rated to 150°C, listed on the record above. Read the dispute before you order it. Restorers on the British Car Forum say that product is the darker Morris green used on Austin saloon engines, and that it lacks the pale metallic look of a Healey six. Nobody has measured it against an original, so that is their judgement and not a finding. It may still be the right choice for a driver's car, where a good-looking green engine is the aim. For a car that will be judged, it probably isn't.

The shades that restorers do accept come from marque specialists and from American suppliers, and they disagree with each other: one is yellower and one is bluer and greyer. If you are restoring to concours standard, buy the Austin-Healey Club's concours guidelines first and the paint second.

For the MGC, the club's own MGC Green is the reference product. Whatever you choose, it is a one-pack engine enamel for the block, head and covers. Engine enamel explains the ratings, and the preparation guide covers the work that makes it last.

What is disputed

Four things.

The first is which grey-green. Two shades are sold, restorers can tell them apart, and no factory reference has been found for either.

The second is what to call it. Steel dust grey, Healey engine green and AH grey metal all describe the same intent. Only one of those names is attributed to a book, and only at second hand.

The third is whether MGC green is Healey green. MGOC Spares sells them as different products and calls the MGC colour distinctive. British Car Forum members treat it as a variant of the Healey colour. Nobody has put the two side by side.

The fourth is how far back the colour goes. One supplier's listing starts it in 1953. A specialist's account has light blue on the earliest cars.

The Austin-Healey concours guidelines would probably settle several of these. They are sold as a printed book and are not published online, so nothing on this page has a judging standard behind it yet.

Finding original paint on your own engine

Look where the heat and the spanners didn't reach: under the dynamo bracket, behind the engine mounting feet, around the rear face of the block, and inside the flange of the rocker cover. Degrease first. A metallic grey-green under oil reads as brown, and half the arguments about this colour are arguments about dirt.

Then look at the layers, because on these engines the layers are the story. Blue under green is expected and is probably primer. Green over green means someone has been there before you. A single thin coat with overspray on fastener heads is the pattern of a factory finish.

Nothing on this page has been measured. For a colour whose whole difficulty is a metallic flake and a fraction of grey, a spectrophotometer reading from an unfaded original is worth more than every description above, and an unrestored MGC engine is rare enough to be worth recording properly when one turns up.