bare inner body panels

Is it typical for auto makers to leave the inside of the body panels bare, with no paint or other protection?

This is my first "project" car, and I know that the maverick has a reputation for being a "cheap" car.

I have the carpet and seats out, and all the interior plastic covers, and am painting the "tubs" and inside the rear fenders, as well as any other metal that I see exposed from inside the car, on into the trunk. I am using POR-15, because of it's rust preventiveness and because it is best when applied directly to "aged metal".

So, did all cars leave these areas paint-free, or just the "economy cars"?

 

Try not to get any of that por15 on your hootus!

 

Back then they didn't dip cars like now. But I've noticed a difference between my Canadian built 74 and my US built 73, the 74 has black paint on everthing, inside the doors etc, and the 73 has red primer in spots. Just Por 15 the whole thing!! It's holding up good on my leg, it's only been a week now

 

I found that if you get at the spots with acetone within 15-20 minutes, it will come off, even if it feels dry. I keep the hootus very well protected (I guess you can say I wear "protection" ) I use long pants, long shirt, rubber gloves, and welding cap, but that leaves face and some wrist/ankle exposed. Also, if spots end up on the pants/shirt, you will have light fuzzy spots on the skin underneath.

I found a black sound-deadener, kind of like rhino-liner inside a good portion of the doors, but the rest of the car seems to be bare metal.

 

OK, I can't find the infamous "HOOTUS" thread....what gives?

 

I don't even remember where we saw that...it was a link to an outside site, wasn't it?

 

I think this is it...it appears to have been edited.

http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18595

 

My Canada built 74 has some kind of black coating to the center body line inside the rear panels, but it's on the top half . Looks like if it was some kind of sound deadner or rust preventative it would have been on the bottom half .

 

other than some sound deadener (sometimes in less than stratiegic locations)the cars were mostly bare metal.Paint/primer was put where the customer/owner would see it on a regular basis not every place it should be.Often times FoMoCo would fail to paint the bottoms of rockers/hinge side of door jambs/bottom edges of doors,fenders,quarters.Mopar was notorious for this as well.Gm allways seemed to paint there cars really well,but the paint they used was caa-caa.