Remember when the car industry tried to avoid front grilles?
The relentless search for aerodynamic improvement that characterized the 1990s tried to go against a component that was crucial for pretty much all the models available at the time
Fashion goes in circles, as people say. Whether regarding clothes, architecture, decoration or even food, there are times when, for instance, discretion is key up to when it’s suddenly replaced by more elaborate creations. Oversized elements are all the rage today, then plain obsolete tomorrow. Black and chrome are elegant and fashionable now, then cold and forgettable by the end of the month and so on. The only way to be consistently in style is to accept that style is anything but consistent.
When it comes to cars, companies develop and follow rather strict guidelines in order to establish strong visual identities, but there are also some general trends that they follow — it would be foolish not to. In nowadays, the strongest one is off-road appearance. From accessory kits applied to superminis to the removable doors and roof panels sported by the Jeep Wrangler, almost every automaker has at least considered following this trend… just like they did with the trends of previous years.
Which older trends are those?
The most noticeable ones change around every decade. While we’re living the crossover years now, the 2000s were filled with boxy bodies, tall waistlines and angular shapes; the 1990s used smooth contours and as few ornaments as possible; the 1980s featured even boxier design, but paired to full-width tail lights and lots of chrome trim; and the 1970s reflected the oil crisis through a general lack of innovation. However, this issue is much more complex.
Design trends are the concrete expression of ideas, which can come whether from the industry or the public. One of the latest trends is that of crossover cars. The biggest reason for their popularity is reflecting a change in people’s habits: many are willing to give up some emotional qualities in order to get something more practical and adaptable to several purposes. The trend that motivates this article is another interesting example.
Yeah, let’s go back to those grilles
Everything in the 1990s was heavily influenced by the advances being made regarding electronics. When it comes to cars, computer software was becoming more and more important to their development because of its precision: from fuel injection to brake systems, every component was likely to get important improvements when paired to electronic aid. It was only a matter of time for design to follow that path, especially the external one.
Automakers entered in such a frenzy that beauty ended up directly associated to aerodynamics. From compact urban cars such as the Opel Astra F to typical sports cars like the first Dodge Viper, everyone was suddenly offering simple body panels, wedge-shaped front fascias, high-deck rear fascias and the lack of any accessory that protuded from the body. However, you weren’t pursuing the aerodynamic goal seriously if your car still had a front grille.
Tell me more about it!
Grilles are essential to any car with an internal-combustion engine because they admit cooling air into the radiator. The thing is, in order to do that, they need to deviate part of the air flow over the body, so there’ll always be some loss of aerodynamic efficiency. In most modern cars, the grille is located in the front fascia to match the engine’s position and is horizontally divided to make room for hidden structures that make the body stiffer.
While makers couldn’t eliminate them altogether, they could minimize them — and that’s what they did. Many cars sported little or no space at all dedicated to the upper part of the grille. The impact on visual harmony was mitigated in some cars by a simple plastic cover and in others by extending the hood up to the bumper’s upper line. As you can imagine, removing a component which used to be omnipresent didn’t always yield pleasant visual results.
What exactly did automakers do?
In general, the radiator was moved to a lower position to make only the lower grille necessary. Some models replaced the grille with an empty sheetmetal region so as to offer a more conservative appearance, but others went as far as adopting pop-up headlights; everything was worth trying if the goal was to make the front end more aerodynamic. The third-generation Volkswagen Passat and several generations of the Chevrolet Corvette are good examples of that.
This solution became so popular that, in just a few years, it managed to overcome the fact that upper grilles were considered non-negotiably present shortly earlier. The streets quickly became filled with smooth, wedge-shaped cars of all sizes, purposes and origins — some also using headlights that would only appear to the world when in use. Cars looked like spaceships back then, but not in the cartoonish way of the 1960s.
Why did that stop?
First of all, refer to the beginning of this article: fashion goes in circles. Bad trends never really catch on and good ones fade away once people get tired of them. The awkward-looking cars made room for very different models as soon as it was financially viable, but even the pretty ones had to go sometime. Models considered cutting-edge at first were quickly moving to obsolete and old-fashioned territory and that wasn’t desirable at all.
There were some rational implications as well. Not all engines and radiators could yield appropriate performance using such limited air intake, pop-up headlights required a whole additional mechanism to open and close, which increased fragility and costs, and the front end’s shape turned out to be too aggressive to pedestrians. By the end of the decade, industry, press and public concurred that it was time to let go of the grille-less design trend.
From nothing to everything
If you’re wondering what happened next, all you need is to take a look at today’s cars. Automakers started using upper grilles again at a time when technology had evolved enough to allow the execution of more complex designs. They were freed from being merely functional and slowly became an important asset to establish visual identity among a maker’s lineup. In nowadays, attentive observers can guess who makes a given car model by simply looking at its grille.
Double kidney for BMW, crosshair for Dodge, seven vertical slots for Jeep, spindle for Lexus, tiger nose for Kia… In nowadays, almost every big automaker has a signature grille (and headlights) design, which is applied to each of its models with only enough variation in size and shape as to adapt to the user’s dimensions and purpose. Which other famous examples of grille design do you know, whether new or old? Feel free to share them with us as comments below!
