When was metallic paint first used on Cadillacs?

[Quentin Hall]

There’s a lively debate going on on another forum about the origins of metallic paint and it’s time line. When did Cadillac first offer metallic paint as a standard offering?

[Mike Josephic CLC #3877]

Cadillac was one of the first to offer metallic paints
in 1933 according to info I have.  Other luxury makes
soon followed and by the 40's and 50's it was quite
common.

Mike

[The Tassie Devil(le)]

Don't forget that Lead was used in paint, and lead is a metal.

Bruce.

[Cadman-iac]

Don't forget that Lead was used in paint, and lead is a metal.

Bruce.

 Does that mean the color is a dull gray metallic?😁

[fishnjim]

If you exclude "gilding", leaf gold applique, pin stripes, etc. and other metallic oxide pigments, which were around pre-autos and strictly mean autos "body" painted with metal "flake" aka powder as "metallic", that's a DuPont Duco/Dulux circa depression era thing.   '33-ish is a good number.   
I think it would be difficult to establish exactly who/what was the first as records probably don't exist.   Many custom coach works o day and autos ex USA.   Depression was on, and slow to adopt, a lot went back to basic black, no chrome due to cost.
Can most certainly exclude before '25, as the technology wasn't available.

[Bob Schuman]

I vaguely remember learning that the 1934 Dodge had a metallic paint, using the word "poly" in the color name. Looking at <Autocolorlibrary.com> , they do not even list Cadillac from 1933 or 1935, so I looked at 1934 Dodge and did see "poly" colors in the list, so it seems likely that Cadillac did have a poly color in 1933, maybe even earlier.

Going to later years, I recall Cadillac and Olds having at least one premium acrylic lacquer color in 1956, other colors being the old nitrocellulose lacquers. Each succeeding year Cadillac and Olds, possibly Buick and Pontiac, also added more acrylic lacquer colors until 1959 when all were painted with acrylic lacquer.

My 2015 Holden/Chevrolet is metallic black, the only black Holden offered on that car, and it always looks dusty to me.