To contribute to this conversation, here is a picture of the bubble and grille (no flash on the camera) on a 3,900 mile survivor that hasn’t seen the light of day until this week when all the cudas were pulled out to clean the shop. It's very obvious, like the pieces Terry has shown, the argent is the same and much easier to see that it is in person.

With all the good information posted here I think we can come to the conclusion that the factory intent was for the bubble and grille to match. Original bubbles will appear to be lighter depending on their exposure to the elements. The metals in the paint will oxidize at a much greater rate on a piece that is exposed like a bubble and make it appear much lighter. That will explain why the photo of the bubble on the black cuda Alltrim posted is much lighter. Based on the condition of the car that's obvious.

Another consideration is the fact that most of the bubbles were painted over a much more contrasting color in the red oxide primer. It takes more coats of argent to cover as apposed to the complementing color of a grey plastic grille. Our findings, painting more than 1,000 buckets and 500 grilles, is that every additional coat of argent lightens the shade of the appearance. Like I wrote earlier, we are very careful not to mix grilles and buckets even when they are sprayed the same day. We paint 10 grilles and buckets at the same time to insure a perfect match.

Whether a production line piece or NOS, the information so graciously supplied by fellow MOPAR people clearly shows that parts painted at different times with the same paint will change in shade. Based on all our experience here at B/E & A using argent paint, shades of the same paint changed considerably because of the inherent factors when spraying that type of material.

In closing, it is my presumption, that there isn’t one definitive shade of textured argent paint that is gospel as being correct, rather a shade anywhere in between.

After this exercise, it's easy to see why some people might preach that a lighter argent is gospel. Where some painted with a lighter argent? I don’t think so, more like the actual application of the paint that changed the shade.