72 hood and fender trim

[Gumby]

Was it always painted body color from the factory? Seems weird that the front trim would be body color, while the trim on the trunk lid and rear quarters was bright anodized?  Anybody have pics of front trim bright anodized? Thanks.

[Super Blue 72]

 Not sure what bright anodized looks like (I assume bright bare metal or chromey looking?) but the '72 Challenger alwys had body colored hood trim as far as I know.  The trunk lid as always been bare metal or what ever its called...

[Gumby]

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Aluminum trim painted body color on the front, and bright anodized on the back. I thought the people that restored mine just did it that way because the trim was messed up in front or something. Wow, why didn't Mopar just leave it bright all the way around? lol. That just looks whacky to me. Anybody redo there car and leave it all bright front and back? I might buy replacement trim just to see what it would look like all bright up front. For some reason it bugs me. lol. Thanks, Super Blue!

[dodj]

Well you could put a chrome hood trim piece on but the header panel is fibreglass. You would have to paint it silver or use a type of bare metal foil. (I use it on models, not sure if it would work on something that goes outdoors). As you can see from my avatar, my trim is not body colour cuz I like the contrast. 

[Super Blue 72]

Well you could put a chrome hood trim piece on but the header panel is fibreglass. You would have to paint it silver or use a type of bare metal foil. (I use it on models, not sure if it would work on something that goes outdoors). As you can see from my avatar, my trim is not body colour cuz I like the contrast. 

    Exactly, he header panel is fiberglass and from a manufacturing standpoint it was probably more cost effective to incoporate the side nose trim into the header panel design than to use separate aluminum pieces.

Some '72-'74 cars have had the the side/hood trim painted silver or added chrome.  Not sure if I'm used to it or not.  The bare metal foil is not a bad idea but I'm not sure how it'll hold up to the elements due to how thin it is.



This one just has the chrome hood trim, looks unfinished/mismatched, IMO...

[TreeFrog]

This one just has the chrome hood trim, looks unfinished/mismatched, IMO...
 

[Gumby]

Hey Super Blue - that red and black Challenger was what I was talking about! That looks good! Didn't realize that the header and fender were seperate like that. Just the hood having the bright trim looks bad. The whole wraparound look, looks good. Thanks.

[burdar]

70 and 71 used separate headlight mouldings.  The 72-74 header panel is all one piece and incorperates the fender trim.  The added chrome pieces on the 72-74 look out of place IMO.  Body color works since the entire header panel is body color anyway.  70-71 had black or argent grills, that's why the anodised trim looks nice on those.

If you wanted to add the anodised trim to a 72-74, you'd probably have to cut those pieces off the header panel and graft on some used 70-71 headlight mouldings.