I have seen only two engines which I am certain had enough original paint on them to judge the color.
One of them I owned and another is one of a friend of mine which I am continuing efforts to own.
Both of them can be described better as light black than dark gray.
Normal engine grime protected the paint on the one that I owned. As I was removing the grime, there was little in the way of discerning the difference between the color of the normal oily grime and the engine color. Given the propensity for these engines to leak oil generously, makes me wonder if the choice in color was made intentionally to hide the leaks.
I have also run across a 55.2 with most of the original paint, including the yellow 235 script on the valve cover. We carefully cleaned the grime off, but the paint underneath was discernibly different than the oily grime. It had a blue hue in the otherwise darkish gray paint.
