I believe JohnZ has said that the area was "supposed" to be blacked out, but it was pretty random as to how often it was actually done that way. This, and a orig paint PC that was orange here, are the only orig paint cars that Ive dealt with that was not body color in the cowl area (orig paint, black stripe Z):
And the body color was sprayed first, with the firewall paint fogged in to the upper half of the firewall rather than the other way around.
dave