I am fairly new to the site and have received some helpful advice from others. I continue to work on my 72 Cutlass. Recently put some new wheels and tires on. The hood louvers have been painted over. Just wanting to get some feedback about what others thought of rechroming the louvers. The car is all original and has 87,000 actual miles. When I purchased car I was able to get most of the paperwork from original owner which includes original dealer invoice; build sheets. Original color was green and was repainted red in 2001(which I have invoice for).

Any thoughts ?

Thanks

 

Very sharp Cutlass! Love the post cars! Really clean looking and what a bonus to have all that original paperwork. Nice score!!

As for the louvers, I think the factory did paint them body color so what you have is probably the way they were originally. However, I always preferred to paint them satin black and leave the chrome edges exposed. It's a lot of taping but the end result is worth it.

I would strip the paint off of them and see what the chrome is like. If you're going to repaint them black anyway, probably not worth re-chroming unless you intend to leave them all chrome.

Let us know how they turn out.

 

Thought I saw some on eBay the other day. don't remember if they were chromed.

 

Welcome to the site, very nice car.

 

The faux hood louvers were in fact color keyed to the body color. I'd leave them as is, especially if the rest of the car is as original. The only ones that were satin black were the W29 442 IIRC.