An iconic tram car built in 1901 has been restored back in to its original livery thanks to the help of HMG Paints’ color matching expertise and professional painting team, Heritage Painting.

Martin Bryan, from the Heaton Park Tramway in Manchester, came to HMG with the hope of restoring the 114-year-old Hull 96 Tram to its original white and maroon livery. Over time the colors used in repaints have differed significantly from the tram’s original iconic color scheme, but by using original panels as reference, HMG’s color experts were able to achieve the perfect color match, which was supplied in HMG’s Coach Enamel, a traditional, ultrahigh-quality, high-build, long oil synthetic enamel.

"I am very grateful I made contact with HMG Paints” said Martin, “as their knowledge, experience support and service has been fantastic, not just in matching the paint required but also helping me out with other queries. I guarantee I will be contacting them again soon for other projects."

Heaton Park, Manchester is one of the largest municipal parks in Europe and is situated in the gardens of 18th Century Grade 1 listed Heaton Hall. The tramway is run by the Manchester Transport Museum Society (MTMS), and the park is home to around 20 tram cars in an array of models. The tram line, now at 1 km in length, runs through the park and is operated by volunteers.

The Hull 96, built in 1901 by Hurst Nelson for the Hull Corporation, was originally an open-top, double-deck car, but by 1930 had a fully enclosed roof, much to the delight of the passengers riding the tram in the famous British weather. Hull 96 has now been running at Heaton Park since 1988, being of great use as a works car during the three track extensions the park has seen. By 2008 the car was in need of some attention and received body, truck and motor restoration and coated in an all-grey colour.

In June of 2015 Martin came to HMG after struggling to find somewhere able to help him color match the 114-year-old original maroon color. After visiting the website and learning of HMG’s color matching services, Martin contacted Steve Hutton, HMG’s Color and Quality Manager, who eagerly stepped in to help. “With the help of our color computer, some polish, and our versatile tinting systems, we were able to match the original maroon color” Steve said. “It was an interesting project and we look forward to working with them again in the future.”

HMG Paints can produce paints in various color ranges including; agricultural, decorative, industrial, commercial vehicle, pantone, NCS dimensions, RAL and British standard, and maintains an unrivalled color library of more than 200,000 colors.

Our team of highly trained color experts provides over 300 custom matches every month for a vast range of distributors and customers. There is no minimum order volume for the HMG color matching service, and the final color can be used across a majority of HMG bases.