Rear tail panel drop down

[cob428]

Is the rear panel drop down from the taillight panel suppose to be body color or undercarriage color. It is the area with the white arrows. 2 years at paint shop finally starting to out back together.

Pete

Pete

[J_Speegle]

Neither originally though many builders paint it with something since the original finish is gone or was stripped when they had the car blasted 

The floor was painted by paint jets mounted below the moving uin-body through this process and were set to stop appling paint before it reached the rear cross member which was galvanized to try and keep it from rusting since it would not be getting painted. Same thing goes for the forward facing surface and a small section at the rear most point where it meets the cross member.  Then the rear valance was installed before the car was painted so the only exterior color introduced onto the cross member was some from the ends as it hung freely down from the taillight panel as the quarter panels and valance were painted and also through the empty back up light holes. Rear valance was not cut for the Shelby exhaust ports yet so that blocked direct paint application from that.

Of course they was some overspray introduced into the cavity from the trunk area when those panels were being painted and the high volume of overspray in general that spray guns of that period produced though Ford tried to reduce that with air manage systems of the era 

Hope this helps