"This so called Teal blue colour was introduced in early 1956 on the Austin Healey Hundred, series BN2. In fact in early January 1956 they seemed to introduce a number of new colours as a bit of an experiment, to see what the public's reaction might be. For example with exterior colours, Spruce Green was dropped and Florida Green was introduced. Carmine Red was dropped and Reno Red was introduced."

"Teal" Blue Interior _____________________________________________________

A friend has an example of a rear lift out squab panel from an early BN4, and I have saved an original piece of armacord, removing the vinyl edge binding to get a true example of how bright it was to further prove this out. I had at one time the dark blue parcel tray carpet. Most original examples of all these teal materials have been exposed to light, etc. and really fade away to more of a pale washed out version of what it once was. If you look carefully at the first introductory colour brochure of the all new 100/Six with the two tone Healey Blue/ Ivory paintwork, you will notice this Teal colour on the top of the rear seat squab."

"Teal" Blue was not the official factory name for the colour, which was actually called Blue It is now being used by the Concours Committee to differentiate this colour from the dark Blue, whose official name is also Blue

These "Teal" cars had the following components coloured as follows: - leather seats and armrest facings Teal blue with no contrasting piping - all vinyl trim panels and vinyl portions of seat backs, rear seats, rear squab panel, armrest sides        matching Teal blue - carpets dark Navy blue with Teal binding where appropriate - armacord  approx. matching Teal blue with Teal vinyl binding - top, tonneau cover, etc. dark Navy blue - door furflex strips Grey - door shut piping a shade of blue/grey vinyl to approx. match the Healey Blue paint

Thanks to Rich Chrysler  for providing the detailed history of "Teal" Blue and also for the photographs of his beautifully restored 1956 BN2 LeMans which won a Gold Concours award at the 1992 Conclave in Colorado. The car now resides in Yokohama, Japan.

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Meanwhile similar things were tried with some interior colours. The dark green trim was dropped entirely. Likewise the orangey colour we have called Persimmon (again our own description - the works simply called the combination, red) which went along with the red carpets and armacord binding was dropped, and a new shade of rich crimson red was introduced without any contrasting piping. It seems as far as we can determine that for a while, navy blue trim with grey piping was dropped and this Teal shade was introduced, again without any contrasting piping. Now to zero in on the so called Teal colour and details:

If you own a very early Longbridge BN4 and you want to be both correct and different, then you should consider the Teal Blue Interior. This is the correct interior for cars painted Healey Blue or Healey Blue and Ivory White produced up to late 1956. Rich Chrysler explains the background to this interesting and rare interior colour.

100-Six

I had a BN2 built May 16/56 in which scraps of Teal blue still remained. In searching much further, there are many other BN2's and a handful of the earliest BN4's that had been trimmed in this colour. In fact, I have not been able to find and determine positively a BN2 or a BN4 built between January and early October 1956 that did not have Teal instead of Navy blue trim when the main paint colour was Healey Blue. As with a number of the colours they tried, the Teal shade was soon dropped. Interestingly, the dark Navy blue trim returned, however for the first time, instead of a contrasting Grey piping as was on the Hundreds, they came up with more of a contrasting splash, using an ivory white piping to accent the new car's interior.

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