Fender Paint Mystery

I'm doing a frame-off on my 1960 CJ5. Its history: it was a fleet Jeep for the Milwaukee County Park System, pulling gang turf mowers on golf courses and parks from its delivery until my father bought it in 1968, and it's been in the family ever since. It was delivered in Fountain Green metallic, like dozens of its siblings in the park fleet, and the Jeep dealer who took it in trade and resold it to my dad had repainted it in a darker forest green. He was a good friend of my father, so I'm sure it was a fleet trade in like he said (plus there were other identical 1960 Jeeps on his lot at the time).

In doing the restoration, I've had the body and frame chemical dipped, but I held off on the fenders, trying to decide whether the rust damage and bondo "repairs" in the usual spots were worth restoring or if replacement was in order. I opted to give restoration a shot, but since the dipper is now quoting about four weeks turnaround, I decided to strip it myself. Now the odd part: the right fender--and only the right fender--has layers of the forest green repaint over factory color of Fountain Green metallic over, strangely, Olive Drab. There aren't any extra holes factory-punched into it. The OD doesn't look like primer and nothing else on the vehicle had this layer. I'm thinking that was that it is an M38A1 fender, but if it were swapped out aftermarket it would have been prior to 1968 since it's been in my family since then and we never swapped it. I would have thought that a replacement M38A1 fender would have been more difficult to obtain for civilians than a CJ fender and probably more expensive. And I doubt it would have been easy to come by a used M38A1 fender in the early 60s since that model was still active and in production. I'd also think a large county fleet operation wouldn't screw around scrounging up a used fender, but would just order a new one. For what it's worth, every square inch of the fender was visibly Fountain Green--crevices, seams and the backsides of flanges--so it was clearly painted off the vehicle.

Here's what the partially-stripped fender looks like: https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/zlPFmfn9TH-lMWlOLmnfXw.zV20R4JpFnt1MpsDfqpz0r

Could the factory have grabbed an M38A1 fender for a CJ5? Could it be some odd primer that was only used on that fender? Both fenders have nearly identical rust and repairs, so they're apparently close in age. Or were M38A1 replacement fenders readily available and cheap in the early 60s?

Any thoughts or theories?

 

Anything and everything could happen in the early 60's. A lot of dirt cheap prices. What stands out to me is that washer looking divot in front top of the fender.
M38A1 hole?

 

That hole was for aftermarket truck-style turn signals that the Park System installed on all their CJs. It didn't have a snow plow, so I don't know why. The hole is going to be patched and I'm reverting to OEM parking/turn signals.

They also ordered their Jeeps with a few semi-rare options like ventilating windshields, limited slip, T98 4-speeds, and rear PTO.

 

The picture in the link is a cj fender. M38a1 would have captive nuts and holes for the snorkel tube. Cj just had the notch.
We had another example of a Renegade part having a 2nd coat from the factory. Might have been practice before starting a full run of paint then repainted or a way to hide other issues like scratches in the part.

 

I have seen early short factory replacement fenders in both red oxide primer and olive drab primer. Later fenders with the sidemarker light could also be a flat black primer. Fenders were often easily damaged and were cheap to replace with factory parts back in the day.
-Donny

 

FWIW, I've now stripped the other fender and it's olive drab too. Neither one is the Korean War "brownish" OD, but it appears that was changed to the more conventional OD in 1956, four years earlier than my CJ was built. So is it OD paint or primer? No idea, but there's nothing between it and steel.