Erick,
I've never seen that piece of trim painted like that before. Seems very out-of-character for the factory to paint something that's clearly supposed to be shiny. Plus it's on a piece of trim that clearly takes abuse from ingress & egress, so painting it would only be inviting chipped paint.
My understanding is that piece of trim was originally wrapped in masking tape when the cars were delivered new to protect them. I can't imagine the factory would paint a piece of shiny trim, then place masking tape on it.
Douglas Kim
New York
USA
