So I have the rear bumper off my 1995, and besides the surprising amount of dirt and grime inside there, it looked a lot dirtier than it actually was. I discovered that most of the body under the rear bumper and inside the taillight assemblies, etc. is covered in (now dirty) thin, plastic film.

It's a very stretchy, thin plastic that is bunching up by now or just starting to peel. If you peel it off, you have new looking paint/clearcoat underneath. It's also left a bit of a residue in some areas. I've got some pictures below.

I'm just interested in what this was for...did they cover completed bodies in protective plastic while they sat around waiting to be finished/assembled with the body panels? Was it not removed because those areas weren't visible after assembly?

 

If I were to guess, that is either clear coat peeling or, more likely, someone sprayed the car with a clear removable paint, like plasti dip. This protects the original finish and can be easily removed if the proper amount of layers are applied (usually 5+ coats)

 

I appreciate the reply.

I don't think the clear removable paint makes any sense. I'm the second owner since 04, and I've never had the rear bumper off the car, and the previous owners were an older couple that took the car to the dealership for it's maintenance intervals. No accidents either. I don't think the bumpers been off the car since assembly until now.

I thought about clearcoat, but I have pieces of the material that peeled off, and it's stretchy like plastic wrap. I would think clearcoat would be like flakes of brittle material that would fall apart into particles. It doesn't remind me of that look you see in cc peeling pictures.

 

looks like a removable sheet that didn't get removed. probably because it was not necessary to

 

I have the same stuff/thing going on behind the bolted on "honeycomb" material for the back bumper. It just seems like this is some kind of wrap material that has been on here a long time. Only problem is that it also partially got on the edges of the rear taillight plastic in a few places, and it's basically baked on there now. Seems like it was meant for metal and comes off that pretty easily, but not plastic.