I am in the process of painting my engine. I have blasted the old paint from the spark lead panel and have found the remnants of some plating. It's too far gone to tell if it was chromed or nickel or someotherthing. My first reaction was, oh yeah, somebody has plated this panel, maybe in the 50's or 60's. On closer inspection the plating appears very old, to the point of looking rather original.
So todays question is. Is it possible that this particular panel was factory [maybe option] plated from new?
I am expecting the experts to say, no way! You never know, 'til you find out. Keep in mind this was an export model.

Regards Neil

Neil,
I do not consider myself to be an expert, but my 38 Special has a painted cover.

Since the Specials were the low end of this model, I doubt that it would be factory plated.

Neil: I have never seen any Buick spark plug covers that were ever factory plated either prewar or postwar. Of course it has been done, but not from the factory. I hope the Old Guy and Dave Corbin can confirm this.

The only possibility that Buick would have plated the cover would be if they made a show car. They did things like that back in the days when "glitz" was the in thing.

I have a copy of a period road test done on a 1954 Roadmaster sedan. The caption next to a black and white photo of the engine bay says the tappet and sparking covers were plated.
But this could have been only for this vehicle or maybe ordered as a special from the factory. According to Mr. Earl the latter was correct. Anyhow that was good enough for me so I went ahead and got mine chrome plated and they look great.
If you're not being judged or worried too much about originality then go ahead and do it.

Hi neighbour. Thanks Ken but I am going to spray mine the correct green I purchased from Bill Hirsch Auto

Cheers Neil