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space saver or steel wheel spare

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any Y05 aar or t/a cars built ??

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The documentation and research certainly seems to point to polished rings and aluminum cars for steel wheel T/A's Ken, and I hope that is correct!
I do have a dog in this fight as my T/A is a steel wheel car and I have polished rings and a set of nice aluminum dog dish caps stashed away for it.
Here is a picture of a wheel on that Nats survivor car the owner claims where on it when he bought the car new in '70.

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Are you sure those are stainless caps? A friend had a survivor FC7 T/A and the caps were so nice that they looked like stainless but were actually aluminum. You had to plink them with your finger to tell they were aluminum.

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I didn't touch them, the car was behind a rope in that display area. I was talking to the owner and he told me they were stainless. I had some SS ones before I decided AL was correct for my T/A, so I have closely examined both types. I believe the ones on that FC7 one were SS, they had that darker pewter sheen that SS can take on.
The owner was sort of a know it all, told me he had heard that AL was correct, but believed his car showed that was wrong.
He also was telling me he thought it was funny everyone was painting their disc brake master cylinders black, as his had a plated top when he bought the car new. I didn't tell him I had researched that issue thoroughly, and have many underhood photos of period road tests that show the master was all black.
There was no point in arguing with him. Besides, I have no reason to think he was wrong, he was probably 100% correct... for his T/A.
I have often questioned the AL hubcap being used on T/A and trucks only in '70 issue. As an engineer working for manufacturing companies for almost 2 decades, that claim seems confusing. Why would they concurrently make two identical, other than the material, hubcaps? It makes more sense to me that there was a design change made during the '70 model year that changed the material from SS to AL. There would have been a transition period where both materials might have been used. Some SS might have still popped up in inventory late in the year that was used up on late production cars even.
As for the filler cap on that guy's T/A, a final inspection at assembly could have revealed a problem with the cap and it was replaced with a new one, or even the dealership might have found a dent or leak during its prep, and replaced it. I've had some NOS caps and they weren't painted, they were plated. So if the cap was replaced on that T/A certainly his memory of it being plated when new would be correct.
It's hard to make blanket statements about how cars would have been when they rolled off the assembly line because things are done sometimes that don't conform to the "process" for many reasons. Also, mistakes were sometimes made.
Even appropriate datecoding is hard to nail down. In general, parts would be made a month or so before they were used on the assembly line to assemble a new car. But sometimes things happen that delay parts from their final use for months.
I've ordered up parts for testing or evaluation before, and ended up not needing all the parts I received. Many months later, sometimes even a year, I will get off my duff and do some housekeeping, and send those unused parts back into inventory. Stuff like that happens all the time in manufacturing.
I wouldn't be surprised to hear that some cars even rolled off the assembly line with a mix of stainless steel and aluminum dogdish caps.

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I don't think aluminum ones can be restored very well. There are some new repros available, but I haven't had a chance to see any yet to judge the quality. I think they sell for around $300/set.
NOS ones are hard to find but when they turn up they aren't alot more than what those repros bring.

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Yeah but count on there being alot more NOS ones for sale now that repos are avalible...You decide why...