Maybe, but I'm almost certainly from a different corner of the earth, and IME old cars never aimed for the wet putty look.
I follow car news quite deeply, and have been since the 80s, and other than military vehicles, I have not seen manufacturers paint their cars to look like wet putty until recently.
Maybe they were offered but not popular?
If you have links to any examples of old cars that look like wet putty, I'd love to see them.
https://collectableclassiccars.com.au/private-sellers/datsun... ^ this was definitely more "wet putty" when it was new.
https://www.justcars.com.au/cars-for-sale/1968-chevrolet-cam... <-- this one probably isnt the original color, but there was a similar colored one that I'd seen. (probably more like https://news.classicindustries.com/hubfs/Classic_Industries/... or https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/524bc779e4b0b5... )
> Maybe they were offered but not popular?
This is my bet too, not popular at the time.
Some of those are in different light and maybe my definition of wet clay are not matching yours.
What? Nah uh. There's no way that sickly bright grey is an old color. I've got 3 60s cars here and I've been into old iron all my life.
The bright grey thing first showed up here just over a year ago. I commented on it to my kids at the time, soon we saw it everywhere.