[Jerry H.]

Steve, you are correct. Most of todays restorers use 'detail gray or gray phosphate plating on parts and pieces that were originally natural metal simply to perserve the metal where it will not rerust. In the early days before this color became available, we we sandblast or glass bead these parts to get down to the bare metal and spray it with clear. Some would even just rub these pieces every so often with WD 40. Others would rub them down with vaseline or a cosmoline type crap. Talk about maintance and a mess! Even the clear paint would eventually show rust back through.

The frames were shipped in from 2 or 3 different suppliers. They were coated (and I used that term loosely) in a semi flat coating, the gloss differed between vendors. It was NOT the same as the inner fenders, radiator cradle, etc. Then as the front and rear suspension and brakes were assembled on the line, it was 'supposed' to get something of a pass by a spray guy. You will find notations in some assembly manuals telling how they sprayed around the brake drums to keep from effecting the braking on the car.

As far a 'factory correct', there is no definitive or correct answer. Most cars when they were sitting on a dealers lot already had a rusty sway bar and steering linkage. Are you going to leave you concours car rusty? I don't think so! I think a 'natural' color paint or plating would be considered correct on parts or pieces that would have been bare metal when new. I don't think it should be painted black. Same for natural aluminum pieces. They should be refinished to be naturual (they will not rust), not painted with aluminum paint. As posted before, Dan Jansen is a respected and long time Pontiac enthusiast and restorer and his reference would be a good one. Also, Scott Tieman at Supercar Specialties has specialized in Pontiacs for almost 20 years and is very knowledgable.
I would refer to these two before I would follow the recent in HMM as gospel.