[FirstOwner69]

The first picture below was taken about a week after I purchased the truck in 1969. The picture quality is poor due to digital conversion and poor lighting, but it shows what was original for a '69. The inner grille color was actually quite a bit more silver than it appears. See additional color comment below.

The second picture shows the inner and outer grilles put on my '69 after an idiot slammed into the front of my truck in early 1972. Both were genuine GM replacement parts and the outer originally looked the same as today's reproductions. I removed some of the black paint on the center bar to reduce the width of the horizontal lines and the paint adjacent to the turn signals to make the outer grille look more like the original.

The third picture is my first attempt to make a current outer grille and the inner grille installed in 1972 look more like the originals.

After looking at a bunch of inner grilles on what appeared to be original junkyard and car show '69s, I noticed that the solid horizontal portions below the top and bottom egg crates were also painted silver. The fourth picture is courtesy of SSTim and Jocko and seems to verify this. I then replicated that as shown in the fifth picture.

I also recall the original silver paint on the inner actually had a greenish-gray cast and not as bright as mine is today.