Author Topic: Shelby Painted Mirrors  (Read 862 times)

Offline ninedrvr

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Shelby Painted Mirrors
« on: December 01, 2022, 09:08:48 AM »
Body of the car was painted at the factory the mirrors were painted by the supplier (arrived at the plant pained body color) from our understanding. This is why special order paint Mach I's would normally not get the painted racing mirrors but instead the chrome remote mirror on the drivers side.  Gasket and retaining screws would not have been on the car at the time it was painted at the factory

I grabbed this quote from the 69 Mustang area. I saw a picture online showing the 69 Shelby before and after A.O.Smith completed the car. The interesting thing about the picture is the white sport mirrors on a grabber orange car. From the picture it looks like the car was shipped with white mirrors as grabber orange was a special order color in 69. That would mean that A.O.Smith painted the mirrors which leads to my question. The painted mirror housings I have seen look like they were painted prior to the assembly of the mirrors. Since these white mirrors were already assembled when the car was shipped to A.O.Smith, I am thinking that they simply masked off the mirror panes and painted the mirror assemblies without disassembling them?


 
1969 GT500 Convertible Recreation

Offline Coralsnake

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Re: Shelby Painted Mirrors
« Reply #1 on: December 01, 2022, 06:24:18 PM »
Sounds quite logical, I doubt they would have taken the time to disassemble them

Offline J_Speegle

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Re: Shelby Painted Mirrors
« Reply #2 on: December 02, 2022, 06:55:20 PM »
The special order paint Shelby's are different from the special order paint Mustangs and Mach's that the Shelby was based on. Since the mirrors were painted by the suppliers the Mustang's order with special paint didn't have painted mirrors but they were substituted with a single drivers side chrome remote mirror. This suggest that IMHO the mirrors were painted at AO Smith for the Shelby's

Of course it's always risky IMHO to use promotional, advertisements or prototype pictures as a single source for facts.

Don't know that I've ever disassembled a special order paint 69-70 Shelby. Anyone for overspray on the control mechanism, cables and or back side of the mirror to support this possibility?
Jeff Speegle

Anything worth doing is worth doing concours ;)