VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND EARLIER 1929-1932 Rear wheel well treatment

This is a question that has always perplexed me. I have seen more than my fair share of early 30's Chevrolets, and other makes as well. I have seen rear wheel well body depression colors showing through in different ways. My question is this, what should be showing? The body color or the body molding color, and to make things more interesting. Should it be like the photo attached. This looks like undercoating to me on this Roadster.
What is correct?

That is not undercoating showing in the photo. The photo is not all that great but most likely it is black paint in the wheel well depression. Different factories tended to do different things regarding the rear wheel well area. For example, I have a 1930 Sport Coupe that was made in Kansas City. I noticed that the rear wheel well was painted black. When I removed the rear fenders I found that the black was painted over the body color of the car and that right below the top of the wheel well had been neatly masked off and the black painted over the body color. I carefully removed the black paint and sure enough, the original body color was underneath. This was definitely done by the factory. I can't imagine the factory taking the time to do this but they did. At any rate, I have seen original cars with the rear wheel well depression both ways........painted black and also painted body color.

Well, I read on Bill Barkers www.1931Chevrolet.com website that "Flat" paint wasn't invented at the time. This background is definitely "Flat", so I figured it has to be undercoating of some sort then.
As for your further findings...this is interesting. I would think that from a practicality standpoint, painting all of the body the body color first then masking off and painting the body moldings their contrasting color afterward would make sense. So the body color would be under the body molding color. This would also make one surmise that the depressions would and should be painted the body molding color for practicality purposes. I have always thought that the body color should never show through in the back wheel opening. Only the contrasting body molding color should because it is always the darker color. It is fascinating that your black paint discovery when you removed your fenders yielded an added step to mask off for black. I wouldn't think this would be done since this takes time.

Anyone else have anymore to add? I am quite interested to hear what other people have discovered in there restorations.

If the first image is from GM Photographic it is possible they did special treatments for a better picture. My 31 Cabriolet wheel wells look like body color but it could be faded molding color.

Dave

You can be assured that GM Photographic did what ever they could to make any vehicle as photogenic as possible. That included selecting or having a vehicle specially built to present a better image. Much like wedding photos today.

Wow, and heer I thought all brides were beautiful! Talk about fake news.