Holden FC 215 - Ascot Grey

[NosFEratu]

and for what it's worth.... my FE also had a red horn button with a gold shield and lion! 

Sorry to hi-jack your thread Steve - hope you're still enjoying your car.

[sunnytim]

The bulletin is H150G from Oct 59 and refers to the change of the clear back up lamp to orange - this coincided with the change to orange indicators - nothing to do with orange brake lights.
I have never seen an orange brake lens other than those that have faded from red. There is no documentation that I have seen supporting their existence and logically I cannot see why GMH would do 2 different colours

Ken

Sure Ken I know where you are coming from and I appreciate that you have a vast experience with FE-FCs.  From my perspective I'll see if I can find the Service Bulletin or similar that I recall (10+ years ago since I last saw it).  I have every Holden SB from H1-G thru to the late 60's, plus all the other non general ones also.

I am 1000% sure that the FB amber lenses exist and are simply not just a faded or faulty lense, and were fitted to all Holdens from Jan to around April 60.  I have owned more than 250 FB-EK's (but only 5 or so early nitro FBs) and these have been my main model of interest over the years, and my thoughts are that if GMH were producing amber lenses in ALL production FB Holdens in Jan 1960, which would include commercials with FE-FC tailights - it is at least PLAUSIBLE that very late 59 FC's had amber lenses also.  However, it could also be naturally that this was implemented (and subsequently rescinded) only on the FB for the short time I have observed.

Interestingly, my sister in law owns a very early nitro FB (bought in '91 from the original owner with 36K miles) fitted with red stop lenses, but a set of amber lenses were in the boot.  When naeively mentioning that the lenses were faded and could be thrown away we were told that these were the lenses the vehicle was fitted with when new and were subsequently changed when the vehicle was almost new.  The only cars I have ever seen with amber lenses fitted have been early nitro vehicles apart from one or two people in the FB-EK scene who have retro fitted them as they are believed to be 'rare' without understanding that their application is incorrect to a post May '60 acrylic FB.

One last thought - It is simply possible in the absence of documentary evidence that these items are just faulty and were produced in Amber by the supplier in the initial batch and then subsequently corrected (which makes sense with the stories I have been told on a few occassions that GMH replaced the lenses with red ones when the cars were serviced)  This would also explain why an amber lense has never been seen on an FC.

My only point is have a really good look at any amber lenses - as you say it is easy to tell if they are faded or not.  unfortunately my mates FC from the early 90s is not known to me anymore otherwise I would do the same and be proven right or wrong once and for all 

Not many FB-EK enthusiast know about the amber lense application.  As stated before many lenses I have were in the rubbish bin practically, and replaced as they were thought to need replacing 

[fe 215]

hi there guys its my first post just noticed the pics of steves 215 fc and he said he remembers a similar car in armidale that would be mine,its a 215 fe ascot grey riff red trim very early build no2075.nearing completion after full rotisserie resto,will upload sum pics when i work it out,cheers craig.

[fink fc]

After the overwhelming response to the AscotGrey,which seems to have created alot of attention, i have come to realize that my Hair doesn't look that bad after all, Gaz!

[Dave Lakin (Davo Lako)]

Hey Gaz ... what are your views on red , amber and clear lenses ??   I have 3 sets and all are different ...red/amber , amber/clear and red/clear

Dave .

[Dave Lakin (Davo Lako)]

....But the amber brakelight lenses do look to be faded red ... and I see that Rares only stock red stops , clear reverse and amber indicators ... think I'm with Ken ... why would GMH do amber stops   Aren't all brakelights red???

[fcwrangler]

I've just looked at a set and the inner leses have faded to orange, but you can still see some of the red around the edges. I also agree with Ken the only orange ones I've seen are faded red lenses.
Jim

[fink fc]

Hey Gaz ... what are your views on red , amber and clear lenses ??   I have 3 sets and all are different ...red/amber , amber/clear and red/clear

Dave .

Hey Davo,my van has the red/brake-amber/ind-red/prk and amb/rev,i think this combo is HORN,but each to their own.The clear lense looks a bit bland to me.My lenses are orig and show no signs of fading,you can always tell the orig's they're darker.Ken has once again made a fair comment,as have the others,here's look'n atya Davo

[Johns]

I have followed this thread and others on this topic with some interest.

When I purchased Nev he came with faded orange lenses, I still have them. As a car tragic born in the mid 50s I also noticed both orange FE/FC lenses and the "orange" FB lenses. I completely agree with Ken on this.

From my observations in the 60s FE/FCs left in the sun would suffer faded lenses and as these were a rego issue they were replaced with new ones.

As to the alleged "Nitro" FB lenses, the connection between the paint used on the cars and the taillight lenses completely escapes me. With the exception of the 48/215 lenses which were pink when lit ALL Holden taillight lenses were red, at least until VP Commodores when they faded to white fairly quickly.

However,.....I clearly remember the faded FB lenses, they were more opaque than than the later lenses. My recollection is that the early lenses faded rapidly and they were mostly replaced through the sixties, I also remember them being faded nearly to white, just like the FE/FC ones in some cases.

In short unless there is some GMH documentation that states that amber lenses were fitted to FBs as opposed to a change of spec that better resisted fading, I am of the view that early FB lenses were defective.

I cannot remember a single car released in Australia in the late 50s/ early sixties with amber tailights, why would Australia's largest car manufacturer take it upon themselves to do this particularly as amber blinkers had been made compulsory the year before?

Great story though to enhance the mystique of early FB Holdens

John

[sunnytim]

Well, how do you explain this 
New amber lense in the box, not faded, no red edges (I have 6 of these)
I don't claim to be an expert on FE-FC's, but when it comes to FB-EKs I probably am - have owned 250+ and been into stock FB-EKs for longer than I care to remember.
The only comment I would make to the last post is that I have seen a range of things GMH wise that aren't documented from this era i.e. that aren't in an accelerator magazine, Service Bulletin or Master Parts Manual, but are still 'genuine' - these lenses  are considered to be the real deal when it comes to early FB's from my persepective and others that I know and respect their views.
The reason for my original question was to see if they had also crept back to the late FC but obviously not, cheers
Tim

[fasteddyfc]

wow sunny tim 250+ fb/ek's??? Thats amazing i would love to see the photo album

[mcl1959]

I don't know anything about early FB stuff - so I am quite happy to accept that there were some early cars with orange lenses if evidence says so.  I do not believe there were any FE's or FC's with orange brake lenses.


However I can explain NOS amber lenses in boxes. I worked in the plastics industry for 19 years (before Hoppers Stoppers) and I can tell you that sunlight is not all that changes the colour of plastic. Age does.
Poor quality pigment or poor mixing or wrong ratios of components will cause colour loss with or without sunlight.

Ken