That sounds kind of crazy to me plating (or galvanizing, which is a hot dip vs electroplating) the entire body? Seems there's so many nooks and crannies for the nasty solutions to hide in and eat away at the steel. As far as getting paint to stick to zinc, modern cars have a pretty sophisticated process to get the paint to stick. I believe they phosphate the zinc to provide a porous layer for the paint to grab on to. I remember seeing a lot of cars in the 80's with paint peeling off in big sheets. My buddy had a Corsica that most of the factory paint job peeled off. I thought that was related to painting over galvanized steel sheet?
