Restoring a six, and the VIN on the front fender well is obscured by a couple layers of paint over some surface rust. The stamping still look pretty sharp, but it isn’t clear how it was masked. Anyone have pictures of the area that show the details of the original paint?

It could be the same as the four cylinder cars, but I keep finding all sorts of weird little things that are different.

There was a thread on this earlier. In general it was not masked, so got some body color

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Thanks for the picture.
I looked for earlier threads, but didn’t find references to factory painted VINs. So much archived information here, I often fail to find things even when I know what I’m looking for. Even with Google’s help.

Applying some lacquer thinner I think I can see some factory primer amongst the stampings. Did the TUV start requiring naked VINs at some point? Certainly the later 4 cylinder cars appear to have them unpainted.
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I don't believe the TUV had that policy. I think it was the production line method. It is not clearly known when the VIN was stamped into the body. We do know that the six had vehicle order papers that followed the body down the final assembly line. The VIN, the engine and the transmission all had little stickers that were attached to the VO as each were assigned. The PO sheets had the Production Order Number printed on the sheets.
So if a painted chassis was placed on the line, and a VIN was then assigned the VIN would be stamped into a painted surface. On the fours the area was not painted, stamped, and then brush coated with a clear coating to protect it. I am not sure about the sixes since I have not really inspected an original finish VIN stamp.

Here's what mine looks like. Untouched since it left the factory.

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Glen Stazak told me the numbers were stamped after the cars were painted. That is why the paint looks chipped then touched up after.