I have orginal 1969 Chevelle SS Hugger Orange, I have repainted the car but in the process I noticed that when stripping the paint off that the car had black strips down the side and black painted at the bottom...you know where the door and fenders and quarters transition at the bottom "about 6in up"?
Is this orginally done on some SS or just the stripe or did someone just added the black at the bottom later for looks? I put the stripe back but not the black at the bottom?
Anyone??

I believe the black on the bottom was a '68 thing. Someone probably added it.

Someone had done something similar on my 72.

The car is still in its original paint except that the lower body, (in the area you described) has been painted black, with a stripe similar to the SS-stripes.

My theory is that before they had the paint matching technology we have today, that when a guys car started to get stone chips, they might have painted the bottom a color that matched the stripes rather than painting the whole car, rather than risking a bad color match.

Look at the bottom of the front fender in the picture in the sig.