The authors present a small sample of luminous cluster spirals that have high neutral hydrogen content and yet very red integrated colors. The mean 20% H I velocity width of these galaxies is ≅490 ± 20 km s⁻¹. Therefore, rotational velocities in the disk are generally high. In the most puzzling cases, some of these spirals have integrated colors that are indistinguishable from those for elliptical and S0 galaxies despite having ≅ 1×10¹⁰ solar masses of H I. These characteristics suggest that star formation in luminous disk galaxies may not always be a continuous process.
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Schommer et al. (1983) studied this question.