It's easy enough to find a $10k mile IROC and look at the undercarriage photos, but they never show the full thing in one shot and they seldom show the entire thing across multiple shots. It also seems this process varied throughout the years; my frame rails are plain black through and through, but I've seen unmolested low mile original cars that seem to have the frame rails sprayed body color too.

I'm curious to know what the factory did with the undercarriage, particularly the frames/floors/tunnel/trunk. I can't recall offhand but I believe my floors have a bit of body color paint on the underneath side (but not the trunk floor, it's silver), and I do know my frame rails are all black.

Any sources for COLOR factory file undercarriage shots?

I put this here because it's more related to restorations/history than body work.

 

I've personally have never seen black frame rails on any of my cars.

They are all grey with body color overspray, basically.

BTW, not shockingly, it's been asked before:

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/hist...ge-photos.html

 

The car is in primer and sent down the paint line. The sprayers shoot the color on the car as it passes down the line. To get full coverage on the lower edges of the body, the sprayers usually go lower than the bottom edge of the car allowing overspray to discolor the primered undercarriage. If you look at the pics of my undercarriage, you will see the overspray.

 

Thanks for the pics, perhaps my memory serves me wrong...my frame rails may also be gray with overspray; I know the floors have traces of blue left, maybe it's just been too dark in the garage. Been a good while since I've been under there.

I don't suppose you know the paint code for the original GM primer/sealer that they used under the car? I'm assuming that since a slight overspray job was enough for the bottom that the primer must be a little better than your normal primer you'd use on the top side of the car, almost like a paint itself and the overspray is just done for a little color/extra protection. I'd like to use the factory primer underneath, and then hit the car with full color someday.

 

Paint isn't my thing, so I don't actually know, but here's my answer. If you're trying to duplicate the factory look, just paint the bottom of the car with a paint that resembles the factory primer. Then when the you get the body painted, just make sure the guy overspays, just like the factory paint job. Of course all this needs to be done without the lines, exhaust, driveshaft, etc. on the car.

 

You might as well just undercoat the under carriage.

 

No way, I don't need it. Undercoating is nasty and unnecessary for a summer toy. She's getting paint underneath, even though she will still be a driver. I realize it won't stay show car flawless, but if I just take care of it and clean underneath the car a few times a year it will stay in plenty alright shape; basically it will be a super clean driver, much like many a muscle car with a painted undercarriage that still gets driven.