Just a thought from someone with little A7 Knowledge , is there a black pear shaped A50/65 equivalent
Black, light blue , dark blue , green, ivory , cream-pale yellow , and red.
The only colours shown in the UK & General export catalogues was red for all models and black on the A7,
However these are all paintings not photos.
According to the factory catalogues the green 4" badges shown in the previous two photos did not exist either.
I think Mike Riley still has some NOS green ones left.
The 1960 and 1961 accessory catalogues have black & white photos of a real US dealer showroom and it is clear that the tank badges are different colours and some quite light.
It needs to be remembered that the catalogues were printed a full year before the bikes were made and the closest likeness to what the factory produced was the 2nd or 3rd edition if there were 3.
The perfect example is the ivory framed B50's.
Every catalogue shows them, none were made except the 2 used for the photo shoots.
The cover of the USA West Coast 1955 catalogue is the same image as the A10- Bantam one used on the cover of Bacon's Book however it shows the A 10 in Princess Grey with a red tank, again another colour scheme that never went into production and from memory no plunger Bantams were maroon.
You can not trust catalogues.
If you read the article written by Stephen Mettan ( BSA Stylist then contract stylist ) he spells this out very clearly about how all the photo shoots were bodged up and how the "board" ruined sales by messing with his colour schemes.
The most accurate descriptions of the colours BSA used are the period road tests and by prefference the later season road tests as these in the USA & Australia were done using actual production bikes borrowed from the distributor or a dealer where as the pre season road tests are the pre production proto types supplied by the factory for the purpose of getting good press and unfavourable reactions caused hasty changes to production bikes, hence the black framed B50's.
The 71 A 50 / A 65's left the factory with ivory frames but the West Coast ones got a hasty change to black frames for which the dealers were supposed to be paid by means of credits on new bikes according the the dealer newsletters but according to dealers a the time the promised credits never eventuated.
