1970 Challenger grill

[Stu]

Ay up.

Help needed from aficionados, please!

About to pull the front end off my car for repainting and have a query on the colours. It’s a standard dash, pretty base level car, not an R/T etc, so pretty comfortable that dark argent (which I have paint for) is correct for the main grill panels and the filler panel.

Am I right in saying that the egg crate part was just polished ali? Don’t think that is argent too, or can anyone confirm either way?

Last one is the headlamp bezels. I’m getting conflicting info on colour there, some people say they were black on all models, others say they matched the argent variants where necessary.

Any help gratefully appreciated!

[Pete]

Hi Stu, I am not sure on the answer.

I suppose I would start on a Fender Tag decode for any guidance, as you say I have seen Matt painted elements as well as Bright versions, and I do not think they were tied to whether it was and R/T, S/E, or R/T/S/E at all.

Failing that, do what you think looks good!

[Stu]

‘Appen you’re right about there not being any correlation between them.

To be honest, I’m not arsed about it being original, as it’s not an all original car. The main reason is, my light bezels and the spares I have are going to be difficult to save, so I had looked into getting replacements, but looks like they only come black and would need respraying anyway if I go dark argent, which would kind of bely the point of getting spangly repops. If it turns out that they did come black on argent grill cars, I could get away with just banging repops on.

It’s just with a lot to do in a short space of time, it would save a lot of hours with tiny hammers and wet and dry that potentially would look shart anyway.

[Pete]

Here is the front of mine pre Re-Paint...

[Stu]

It’s a bit hard to tell from there.

[Blue]

This might help…

https://board.moparts.org/ubbthreads/ub ... hread.html

[Mark B]

Argent silver lamp bezel and surround on the base models. 318 2v, 340 4v, 383 2v. Black on the R/T and T/A.
There was a base model 383 4v with argent too. 5 bhp less than the R/T.

[Pete]

Thanks for the clarification, Mark.

[Pete]

,, and to back that up, here is a Picture of my old T/A....

[Pete]

... and a very bad photo of my old '70 R/T...

[Stu]

Cheers All.

Mark, was the bezel definitely the argent as well? I know the grille surround was, but several sources say the bezels were still black. I still think that sounds wrong, though.

Yes, agree the T/A &R/T definitely all black.

Blue, that thread is interesting, I’ve found several others that clearly quote bits of that one!

[Mark B]

Cheers All.

Mark, was the bezel definitely the argent as well? I know the grille surround was, but several sources say the bezels were still black. I still think that sounds wrong, though.

Hi Stu,

Yes the bezel was argent too. Lots of people have resprayed them black, including me.
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A66.jpg (138.35 KiB) Viewed 5216 times

318.jpg (149.13 KiB) Viewed 5216 times

[Blue]

Looks so much better in Argent IMO, black hides all the detail.

[MattH]

To quote Paul Herd, Barracuda and Challenger restoration guide.
Page 132-133 .

"In 1970, Dodge introduced the Challenger, and its grille design was a single piece design with a small cross-hatch pattern that was painted flat black. On the base Challenger, the frame was painted dark gray and on the R/T and T/A models, the frame was painted flat black"

There is no mention of the bezels but I would take this quote as the frame would include the bezels, as Stu says, it would look wrong with black bezels and silver grille surround.

[Stu]

Cheers Mark

Have you been photoshopping again, or is that someone else who’s got the oddball colour combo?

Looks like I’ll be respraying anyway and with limited paint, can’t do two lots, so just need to decide on repops or hours of work to maybe save what I’ve got. The latter certainly suits the budget better.

Blue, yes, I like them both, but lean towards the dark argent as it’s a bit different too, most people seem to go black respray. I also think that the argent accentuates the wave design, which I like about the 70.

Mine is currently black, painted with a stick by the looks of it and a carefully placed coffee cup ring it’s acquired somewhere along the way before I got it…

Cheers for the info, Matt, that’s a good snip.