I'm in the process of changing from fiberglass bumpers to chrome. The factory OEM fog light grills that I've seen on line - are these polished aluminum, chrome-plated plastic, or ...? And, what do you recommend that I get?

Chrome plated plastic. On a rare occasion you might find a very early one made out of pot metal.

It was both - metal = early (+/- 70-71 MY IIRC) & plastic = late

Porsche still sells OEM plastic ones in ready-to-be-painted or chrome & pricey, & Mikey914/Mark W./914Rubber sells repro ones for less than that.

NOS or excl used pot metal ones will be like hen's teeth to find!

p914.com may list the exact point at which they changed over to plastic for weight & cost savings, as well as more weather/corrosion resistance.

I'm going to try painting my plastic ones with chrome paint and see how they come out. Since the existing chrome plating is nearly all peeled off, I'm thinking about sanding to a real fine finish before paint.

The model toy guys told me they strip vacuum plated chrome using one of two things. 1.) bleach, or 2.) Easy-Off. Bleach is apparently faster when immersed. With Easy-Off, they spray thoroughly, then place in a Zip-Lok bag. They did advise me to test a small area first, regardless. Anyone have any experience with this?

Andys

These are not easy to strip. Unfortunatley, even good paint isn't going to look right against a chome bumper. I do have another run of these comming up, and may have a set of second that aren't perfect, but will look better than the painted ones.
Drop me a PM if your interested.

Available new from Porsche if your resto doesn't meet your expectations. Rougly $100 each depending upon who you get them from.

I tried sandblasting the chrome off some old ones. These are not like toy models, that stuff does not come off easy.

Not quite. The metal ones are only found on *really* early production cars and some of the prototype cars.

Most certainly *not* throughout all of MY '70 or into '71.

My wife's was manufactured in Jan of '71 and they're plated plastic. This was a one owner car, delivered in Germany, then imported into the US.

Guess I'll look for plastic then. Thanks, guys.

Got some I just sent out for finishing, won't have back until mid Jan, but the price is right.
-Mark

I've painted used chrome ones for years..
In fact on the race car I repaint my front bumper/valance/grills 2x each season (due to rock chips)

its a pain in the butt to hand sand these
but not rocket science.
it takes an hour or so to do a good job
I fold a piece of sand paper up about 3 folds so it is rigid and then sand agressively between each bar of the grill

it works
brant

found some pictures in my vintage race car build thread: