Dealer badge refresh?

I wasn’t sure where to make this post, so mods please feel free to move it if need be.

My 84 VW Rabbit came with a die cast dealer badge on it, and I think it’s neat.  So I’d like to freshen it up and stick it back on the car.  Not a full on restoration, so no re-plating or any of that.

This is the badge, front and back:

It looks like it was chrome (or whatever) plated, and then the background was painted black.  There is still a little left there by the letters:

I have very little experience with pot metal, and I don’t want to destroy the thing.  Should it all be taken down to bare metal?  How would I get the paint into the background, and what kind of paint to use?

The good news is it’s still solid.  I dropped it three times after getting it off the car.

-Bri

My thought is;

 paint it black, then lay it face down on some fine grit sandpaper, sand until just the letters are back to metal, and clear coat it. 

I've done that with paint and powder coat on some valve covers. 

What I would do for a cheap refresh. Not the only technique by any means; Wet sand it with 240 grit (no finer) on a block in the horizontal direction only until all the chrome is gone. This is going to take serious time. A stationary belt sander would speed it up, but realize the pot metal is softer than the chrome plating, so takes real care. You may find a very thin layer of copper as well.  Do not breath chrome dust. Then I would paint it with clear acrylic lacquer. When that is dry I would hand paint the background with semi gloss black enamel.

We used to get our Audi’s serviced there after Tom Gleason stopped selling them around 85.  Cool piece

I think:  Bead blast it clean, then fill the rust voids with some type of epoxy or bondo, sand everything back to shape, paint it.  Going to take some time with an exacto knife, various sand papers, etc.

I found a news article from 2012 about the Howard Cooper dealership:

Ohio-based Germain Motor Company has acquired Ann Arbor's 47-year-old Howard Cooper auto dealership, the company announced Monday.

Howard Cooper opened in 1965 as a Volkswagen dealership and now sells four brands: Volkswagen, Porsche, Audi and Honda.

The 12-acre South State Street dealership, located north of Eisenhower Parkway, opened in 1965 as a Volkswagen dealership. In 1972, it expanded with the addition of Porsche and Audi franchises, and then added the Honda brand in 1979.

The dealership is still there, they're now known as Volkswagen of Ann Arbor:  https://www.vwannarbor.com  It's a long shot but I wonder if anyone there still has an old Howard Cooper dealer badge in the back of their desk drawer...you never know, it may be worth a phone call.

One source I read stated sandblasting, but that seemed a bit too aggressive.  Another mentioned using silver solder to fill the voids, but epoxy or body filler would certainly be easier to shape.

That’s interesting info on the dealership.  I didn’t know they had been around since the 60’s.

They are definitely still there though despite the name changes.  The more I think about it, stopping by there and asking around might be an interesting little adventure.