Is that true for the engine covers though. I seem to recall some healthy debate over whether they were satin polished and lacquered, or painted and if painted they were a different colour Finish to the cases. I may be wrong by the way.
You can't lacquer polished parts Phil, the paint just slides off. Even scuffing the surface slightly with a scourer to get the satin look would still leave the subsurface of the metal with buffing soap impregnated into the metal, this would then cause the lacquer to flow off it. Honda painted them and then lacquered them, I believe it's called Five Wheel Silver. Plus you'd never get that consistency with polishing, there are some areas that you couldn't reach with a polisher, yet every casing looks exactly the same as the last one.
I did some carb bowls the other week, I had silicon oil on my fingers and I couldn't pick the bowls up, they just slid through my fingers due to how smooth the surface of the metal was.