I was going to re-chrome the moldings on my 56, I noticed that the ones on driver side and passenger side doors are stainless steel and the rest on the front fenders and the rear quarter panels are steel of course the stainless ones are in a good shape and needs just polish but the rest are all faded.Can anyone tell me if this is how it came from the factory or mine could have been replaced with the incorrect parts at some point?
Hi,
My car is the same, as are other ones I've seen, so I would have to say it is factory. I can not answer why they would have done this though, sorry.
Armond,
I am not sure but I believe the side moulding were all stainless.
The stainless was flash chromed, chrome over the stainless (no copper or nickel), so when polishing be carefull if you go through the chrome you hit the stainless which looks different.
The side verticles on the back were not stainless and perhaps the vedrticle behind the doors, but the other parts were, I believe, stainless with flash chrome.
56 Coupe Deville owned for over 30 years.
And, on 54-55, the fender moldings are stainless, if my memory [shot] does not fail me. I think they fit on 56 but won't need rechroming.
Thanks for the responses. They were very helpful in my restoration project.
The side moldings for the front fenders are chromed sheet metal. The side moldings on doors are stainless steel, flash chromed. The moldings on rear doors or rear quarter are chromed pot metal. Quite a variety of materials!