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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Rounded-Tail Infiniti J30

Infiniti, Nissan's brand targeted as a Toyota Lexus competitor, launched its J30 model (Wikipedia entry here) for the 1993 model year.  It was marketed through 1997 and then dropped.

The above link (as of when this post was drafted) notes that the J30 was a mid-size car with the carrying capacity of a smaller car abaft of the B-pillar.  That seems about right, as the focus of this post is the J30s rear-end styling.

By the early 1990s, most new designs were tested in wind tunnels with results that have affected styling ever since.  But to some degree it was still a transition period.  The J30 has a soft, minimally-decorated appearance in line with the Oldsmobile Aurora (introduced for 1995) and the 1996 3rd-generation Ford Taurus.  All three cars lacked built-in trunk lid air dams and had rear ends rounded-off to one degree or another (the Aurora least so, the J30 to the greatest extent).

Let's look at the J30.

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The J30s frontal styling is rather bland, but in keeping with current fashions.

The same can be said with respect to this front three-quarter view.  By the way, this seems to be a factory photo that was digitally manipulated originally or perhaps later.  Note the background golf scene -- it's identical to that in the image below.

This shows the rounded rear end styling.  The design is clean and distinctive.  I don't know if the trunk could hold a set of golf clubs, as implied by the background setting, but the trunk does seem small.

Side view of a J30.  This also illustrates the rear-end problem: aesthetically okay, but lacking in practicality for many prospective owners.

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Infiniti's Window Profile Theme

Three years ago I wrote about reverse-angle or "dogleg" C-pillars, among other things commenting on a variation that Infiniti stylists had come up with.

We now know that the design is being used as a brand identification theme, finding it on about half of Infiniti's current lineup and likely to spread to the rest when they are redesigned.

I consider visual brand identity cues a good thing.  Many upscale brands have taken great care to devise them and retain them over many decades.  In the past, brand identity was handled by the design of the grille (Rolls-Royce, Packard, etc.), but there is no reason why other areas of a car can't be used (Cadillac's late 1940s and 1950s tail fins).

I think what Infinity is doing seems a bit contrived and fussy.  But the whole point is for it to stand out from the rest of the automobile crowd, so there isn't much to complain about, especially when contrasted with Lexus' assertive double-L grilles.

Gallery

2016 Infiniti QX60
On this SUV, the kink is near the upper part of the window.

2017 Infiniti Q60
But on this sports car, it is farther down and stretched out.

2017 Infiniti QX30
The kink rides lower in this smaller SUV.  However, the window shape is not involved -- the theme is carried out using a piece of chrome trim.

2018 Infiniti Q50
Here is the latest sedan version.  The actual C-pillar is only slightly curved at the window, the kink effect being largely carried out via the chromed trim.

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