Rogues Gallery of Busy Grilles and Front Ends

I've been hammering away for a while now about the current fashion for overly decorated designs.  I think an important reason for this fad or fashion is government fuel efficiency regulations that have driven engineers and stylists to wind tunnels in the pursuit of high aerodynamic efficiency.  The result is car bodies with nearly identical basic shapes, and this has led to the use of excessive ornamentation and aerodynamically irrelevant body surface sculpting as means to establish brand and model identification.

Another -- probably lesser -- reason is the normal pendulum swing from one extreme to another that is common where fashion is concerned.

This post presents examples of overly-busy looking grilles and front end ensembles on American cars of the 1950s, an era noted for extravagant styling themes.  Then recent and current examples are shown, illustrating that we now seem to be in a period even more extreme than the '50s.

The 1950s images are of cars for sale.  The others are manufacturers' publicity photos.

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1950s American Examples

1950 Buick
Classic overstatement that was toned down for the next model year.

1952 Packard 400 Patrician
This is a modernized version of the traditional Packard grille intended to better blend with post- World War 2 styling trends.  The sculpting is rather Rococo, but the overly decorated part is the "teeth" that thankfully disappeared on the 1953 facelift.

1958 Buick
If the decorations on the face of the hood were eliminated, the design would be a lot more coherent.

1959 DeSoto
A three-level grille-bumper ensemble, each level having a separate theme.

1959 Dodge
This design approaches the confusion seen in some of the recent images below.


Current and Recent Examples

2015 Nissan Juke
A small car with intentionally funky styling.

2016 Nassan Maxima
The Nissan badge and its chrome nest serve as brand-wide identification.

2017 Lexus IS
Variously termed as "hourglass," "spindle," and (by me) "back-to-back Lexus Ls, this has been a Lexus theme for several years now.  And, as seen farther below, Toyota seems to be adding it to its mass-market brand.

2017 Renault Mégane sedan
That enduring, yet somewhat inexplicable Moebius-diamond symbol reinforces an already somewhat cluttered design.

2018 Audi A8
Audi pioneered the theme of draping the grille over the front bumper.

2018 Genesis
Count the textures on the face of this Genesis by Hyundai.

2018 Honda Accord
This car has some interesting sculpting, but it gets carried a little too far on the front end.  The sweeping element atop the grille and its details do not relate well to what is below.

2018 Hyundai Sonata
This design is cleaner than most shown here.  But the faddish fake air intakes flanking the grille add to the clutter.

2018 Infiniti Q50
An odd, droopy look to the front.

2018 Toyota Camry
As mentioned above, Toyota's mainline American sedan is now getting a Lexus-like frontal design.  The hood face, the faux air intakes flanking the actual grille and the dark, two-level apparent grille segment do not work well together.

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LaSalle 1933 to 1934 Redesign

The focus of this post is the redesigned 1934 LaSalle (Wikipedia entry for the brand is here).  But instead of dealing with its design features, I try to put it in the context of 1933-34 carryover details for it and its parent brand Cadillac.  In addition, the 1934 LaSalle is compared to two other General Motors makes, Oldsmobile and Buick for reasons made evident below.

GM Art & Colour boss Harley Earl oversaw the new LaSalle design, but the stylist mostly responsible for its looks was Jules Agramonte.

Now some further background on LaSalle's 1934 redesign from an article by stylist/historian Jeff Godshall in the May/June 1971 issue of Special-Interest Autos (page 43):

By 1933, "La Salle had failed to get established despite its early success.  What looked right in 1927 turned out to be very wrong by 1933, so that year GM brass handed down the decision to discontinue the La Salle....

"Hearing this, Harley Earl went before the management committee and told them that he still had something  to show them.  While his exact words are not recorded, Earl said that as long as they had killed the La Salle, perhaps they would like to see what they had thrown away.  He then led them to the Art and Colour Section viewing room and pulled the drapes, and there stood the stunning new La Salle design for 1934 -- the slim-nosed, radically different (for the time) body that was to give La Salle a new 7-year lease on life.  Warren Fitzgerald of GM Styling asserts, 'It can honestly be said that Harley Earl saved the La Salle with his dramatic new design.'

"The Series 350 ushered in both a new car and a new direction for La Salle.  Management decided that La Salle had gotten too close to Cadillac in size and price.  Remedy: put La Salle into a different [that is, mid-price] market entirely."

Out went its V-8 motor, replaced by a Straight 8 from Oldsmobile.  In came other changes to achieve the the new market niche.  The Wikipedia entry linked above mentions that "Beginning with the 1934 model year, a significant portion of the LaSalle was more closely related to the Oldsmobile, than to Senior Cadillacs."

Comparing 1934 price ranges, the LaSalle, now with a 119-in (3,023 mm) wheelbase sold for $1,595-$1,695.  The Oldsmobile series with the same wheelbase had a $895-$995 price range, and Buicks with that wheelbase were priced $1,110-$1,230.  However, the price range for the entire Buick line was $795-$2,175.  The lowest-price Cadillac line that year with 8-cylinder motors and 128-inch (3,251 mm) wheelbases were set at $2,545-$2,695.  LaSalle was GM's most expensive car for its wheelbase, but one could buy a 128-in wheelbase Buick for about the same price, $1,465-$1,675.  So LaSalle was in a tricky marketing situation armed mostly by its new styling.

Gallery

1933 Cadillac V-12 4-door sedan, Hyman Ltd. photo.

1934 Cadillac Coupe, Hyman Ltd. photo.  Although the body was new, Earl saw to it that the 1933 grille theme was carried over to the 1934 models.

1933 LaSalle Convertible Coupe, Auctions America photo.  LaSalle's grille theme is close to that of Cadillac.

1934 LaSalle sedan for sale.  The Cadillac-related grille theme -- fine vertical background bars, a stronger central vertical bar and five stronger horizontal bars -- remains.  But the drastic narrowing of the hood and grille opening largely obscures this continuity.  Note the shared front fender design: lesser GM brands got more traditional fenders for 1934.

1934 Oldsmobile 2-door, RM Sotheby's photo.  Although LaSalle got an Oldsmobile motor and some other engineering details, the brands were stylistically distinct.

1934 Buick Series 60 3-Window Coupe, Mecum photo.  This is the same body type as shown below for the 1934 LaSalle, though on a Series 60 128-inch wheelbase.  This car sold for about the same price as that LaSalle, but even though it was longer, its styling was less advanced and far less exciting.

1934 LaSalle coupe, photo source unknown.  Both the LaSalle and Buick coupes have the same basic body as the '34 Cadillac shown earlier.

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General Motors' C Body Cars: 1941 Facelifts

In my post dealing with General Motors' new C body designs for the 1940 model year, I stressed that styling was inadequately modernized.

To summarize: Most American closed-car designs in the period approximately 1934-1940 were awkward.  In part, this was because body and production engineering could not evolve rapidly enough to deliver sleek streamline-influenced designs stylists were capable of dreaming up.  For the 1940 model year, General Motors finally produced attractive closed cars in the form of its redesigned C platform.  But while these cars were attractive abaft of the front axle line, their front end styling seemed a little more dated.

This changed when GMs C body lines were facelifted for 1941.  An important factor was integration of headlights into front fenders, something GM was slow to do apparently because Engineering had objections.  The other improvement component was grille design.  Grilles for 1941 (with one possible exception) were much better matched to the rest of the styling.

Below are comparative images of 1940 and 1941 frontal designs.  Missing is a comparison for 1940 LaSalles because that brand was dropped at the end of the 1940 model year.

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Pontiac front end styling was greatly improved over the too-delicate 1940 design seen in the Mecum photo.  All fenders took on a squared-off "suitcase" motif with side ribbing.  Headlights are essentially blended into the fenders, though are still placed inboard of the fender sides.  The front of the hood has been flattened slightly to blend with the rest of the flattened face of the car.

Oldsmobile grilles retain all the 1940 element themes for '41 but are made bolder, as can be seen in this likely "for sale" photo.  Aside from the reworked headlights, Olds frontal styling is the least-changed of the lot.  A fussy design.  Unlike Pontiacs, sheet metal is almost unchanged.

Buick headlights were completely integrated, unlike those on Pontiacs and Oldsmobiles.  Better yet, they were placed near the sides of the reshaped fenders as seen in the for sale image.  The grille is now horizontal, not the equivocating '40 outline.  Grille bars are larger, adding strength to the design.

Cadillac faces for 1940 were strongly old-school, whereas the '41s received a classic design that set the theme for many decades of future Cadillacs.    The upper photo is from RM Sotheby's, the lower is a for sale photo.  Front fenders and the hood were less curved, headlights were integrated and placed outboard.  Note the fender crease that notionally passes through the headlight center and whose line becomes the upper edge of the grille.  I rank the 1941 Cadillac design as the best ever for that marque.

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General Motors' C Body Cars for 1940

General Motors is usually considered the American styling leader through the 1930s and for many years beyond (due in part to its market dominance).  But that doesn't mean that GM designs were attractive.  My view is that most American car designs for closed cars from around 1934 to about 1940 were awkward.  That was because of the shift from boxy-yet-functional pre-1934 styling to streamlining-cum-component-integrating designs during that period.  This change required changes in body engineering and production technology that took time to be mastered.  Hence, awkwardness.

But GM's new C body introduced for the 1940 model year shed most of the kind of awkwardness just mentioned, though it wasn't until 1941 everything fell into place.  That is, the basic body design was attractive, but brand-identification details carried over from previous years along with passé headlight assembly forms held back the styling promise of the new body until those elements were better integrated.

Below are examples of 1940 C body cars from Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick, LaSalle and Cadillac (no Chevrolets got the new C bodies that year).

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Here is a 1940 Pontiac Torpedo Coupe (Pontiac marketers labeled C body Pontiacs "Torpedo").  Ignore everything from the front axle line forward and you'll see the attractive, not-awkward styling.  The only archaic detail in this zone is the exposed running board that got covered in 1941.  The partly integrated head lights and Buick-like grille detract from the overall appearance.

GM marketers made heavy use of retouch artists in part because newsprint reproduction quality was comparatively poor in those days.  This worked-over photo shows the aft end of a 4-door C body Pontiac.

Side view of a 1940 Oldsmobile 90 sedan via Barrett-Jackson.  Styling is basically rounded, but not nearly as heavy-looking as before.  This is due to the thinner top and well-integrated trunk.  Front fenders are more blended into the rest of the body than on the other brands with C bodies.

And here is a side view of the Buick Roadmaster.  Note the longer trunk.

Buick Super, the next level down from the Roadmaster also got C bodies.  Note how the windshield divider line carries into a slight crease on the roof panel.  Again, the front end styling strikes me as being slightly at odds with the rest of the car.  Grille orientation is neither horizontal nor vertical, and the headlights are not quite integrated or separate.  Call all this "hesitant" or "ambiguous" or to put it most kindly, "transitional."

I find the LaSalle in this "for sale" photo the most attractive 1940 C body car even though it shares the same headlight problem as the others.

Side view of a 1940 Cadillac 62 Coupe from RM Sotheby's.  Cadillac's headlight housings remained discrete entities perched on the catwalk between the front fenders and the hood/grille assembly.  This was drastically improved the next year.

Barrett-Jackson photo showing rear 3/4 of a 62 four-door sedan.  The rear elements are nicely composed, whereas the front fenders are of the more squared-off "suitcase" variety.  The separate headlight assembly can be glimpsed here.

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1941: Harley Earl's Very Good Year

I am not alone when I claim that the 1941 model year was the best for General Motors' styling chief Harley Earl, though I think 1949 comes close.  Several designs were outstanding and the others were very good -- all this in the context of their times.

The 1930s were a time when designs evolved from largely angular bodies and assemblages of many discrete parts (fenders, headlights, running boards, spare tires, etc.) to smoothed styles where most of the formerly discrete parts were largely blended into aerodynamically-influenced ("streamlined") compositions.  Between those points, a good many awkward designs were marketed by GM and the rest of the industry.  For General Motors, 1941 models were safely beyond that, as stylists and body engineers were now comfortable with with the new concepts.

GM had three basic bodies for 1941, but they were fairly similar.  Most attention was paid to using ornamentation as brand identification.  Each brand had its own theme (with one exception), and those themes were distinctive.  The exception was entry-level Chevrolet, which was given a grille similar to that of the upper-middle brand Buick.

Gallery

Buick Sedanette - Hyman Auctions photo

Cadillac - for sale photo
My favorite year for Cadillac, and a design that established brand identification indicators for decades to come.

Chevrolet Special DeLuxe Club Coupe - RM Sotheby's photo

Oldsmobile 98 Club Coupe - Auctions America Photo

Pontiac - for sale photo
I am partial to '41 Pontiacs because my father owned one (a model not nearly as sleek as the one pictured here).

Here is the 1941 LaSalle that never entered production. The image is part of page 46 from Automobile Quarterly, Vol. 41, No. 1, 2001.  This would have made for a very fine production design.  Sadly, a Cadillac model was substituted.  (LaSalle was a "companion car" to Cadillac -- companion brands being a late 1920s GM experiment.)

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When DeSoto Wanted to be a Buick

Buick stood next to the top (Cadillac) in General Motors' hierarchy of brands once LaSalle was dropped from the lineup after the 1940 model year.  Like other GM brands, Buick offered models across a price/prestige range.  Around 1950, the most expensive Buicks overlapped entry-level Cadillacs in price, while the least-expensive Buicks competed with Oldsmobiles and some Pontiacs. Over at Chrysler Corporation, Chryslers were competitive with Buicks, while the Imperial model was in the Cadillac price range.  DeSotos considerably overlapped Chrysler's range, but from a slightly lower starting point.  That is, DeSoto competed with all Buicks save the Roadmaster line and all Oldsmobiles except the lower-level 76s.

From 1942 though 1954 a major Buick brand identification feature was a grille with vertical bars.  DeSoto grilles also had vertical bars, but from 1941 through 1955.  And there was a brief time -- model years 1951 and 1952 -- that DeSoto even borrowed Buick's hood sculpting theme.  I am not sure that was a good idea, essentially copying the looks of a competing brand.  In any case, that detail was dropped on DeSoto's restyled 1953 line.

Gallery

1939 Buick - publicity photo
Buick first tried out a vertical grille bar theme in 1939, but went to horizontal bars for 1940 and 1941.

1941 DeSoto - Auctions America photo
DeSoto's first use of vertical bars on a horizontal grille.

1942 Buick
Vertical bars were back for the war-shortened 1942 model year.

1949 Buick Super Sedanette - Hyman Ltd. photo
Buicks were restyled for 1949.  Note the sculpting on the front of the hood.  DeSoto stylists were aware of this feature when the 1951 facelift was being developed.

1950 DeSoto - for sale photo
DeSotos were also given new body designs for 1949.  The 1950 models got a revised grille design.

1950 Buick Special Sedanette - Hyman Ltd. photo
Another new set of bodies for Buick in 1950.  The hood sculpting theme was carried over from 1949.

1951 DeSoto - for sale photo
All Chrysler Corporation cars were facelifted for 1950, the most noticeable change being the rounded-off hood prow.  Now DeSoto picks up Buick's hood sculpting.  Not an exact copy, but pretty close.

1951 Buick Super - Hyman Ltd. photo
That same model year Buick got a new grill, but the hood sculpting was unchanged.

1952 DeSoto - for sale photo
DeSotos for 1952 were almost identical to '51s.  The only difference seen here is the typeface for the word "DeSoto."

1953 DeSoto - Mecum Auctions photo
As mentioned above, restyled 1953 DeSotos dropped the Buick-like hood sculpting.

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