At 08:21 PM 5/4/2010 -0600, Frank Schwartz in Hendersonville, TN wrote:
"The fan is black, but the back side of it showed some red. Picture on your site had a yellow fan. So what is the correct color, please? Red, Black or Yellow"?

Depending on car model and production date, the fan originally could have been black, red, or yellow. Some very early production 1500s may have had black fan. Otherwise the engine was painted in complete assembly including the fan, resulting in the fan being dark red. A lot of Twin Cams, especially 1500 body types, had black fan. There are reports of some early 1600s having either red or black fan. Sometime likely during 1959 production year, the fan was painted yellow to satisfy new safety standards, and all later cars should have yellow fan as original.

Being a safety feature, the yellow fan may supersede earlier colors. This means that whenever an earlier fan is replaced or repainted it would be intended or highly recommended that it should be repainted yellow. For concours show originality some car owners may prefer to retain the original factory color, which is legal (but not recommended). Being a recommended safety feature, painting the fan yellow should not result in any deduction of points in concours judging, so leaving it a different original color is strictly a matter of personal preference.