auto_editor

Welcome to the latest episode of "Strange Things I Notice Whilst Looking at Cars."

This week's "thing": Why does everyone treat Pontiac's "twin grille" treatment like it's a corporate trademark or "signature look" when, model-to-model, the "twin grille" treatment was actually used on almost every Oldsmobile, too, and in the Olds' case the two are more pronounced (i.e. further apart)?

Just look at a '70/'71 Cutlass: two "grilles" there, and there's a BIG ol' space between 'em, not like the little "separator" strip you see on Pontiacs.

[Heck, even my Custom Cruiser has a two-grille-style nose, it's just that in its case they're bridged by a single chrome "filler frame".]

Go grab your handy GM car almanac and wonder, as I did, at how more pronounced the "twin grille" treatment is on Oldsmobiles than it EVER was on Pontiacs (while Buick and Chevy used "single" grilles).

SO, I'm willing to grant Pontiac and BMW license to lay claim to the "twin grille" being part of their corporate "identity," but at the same time I have to ask why Oldsmobile never did...

MDchanic

BMW's twin grilles are supposed to be "kidney-shaped" (though it's hard to tell these days).

- Eric

joe_padavano

Like these?





Meanwhile, here's a 1961 Pontiac:

WhatIf

Yeah, I think it's safe to say Pontiac owned the split-grille theme. I think 1960(?) may be the last year they used a single grille. GTO's, Firebirds, Grand Prix's, Bonnevilles, all used pronounced split grilles in the 60's and 70's. That was Pontiac's trademark.

boondocker

56-59 bmw 507

rocketraider

Pontiac Styling is generally credited with the split grille design, but you wanna get technical Olds had it in 1956- a simple divider in the catfish mouth grille.

Olds had vestiges of it in 1967 but 68 was the year the split grille styling hit Olds in full force and continued almost to the end.

The new Collectible Automobile has a letter from a former Dodge stylist in which the guy admits Dodge Styling was "enthralled" with Pontiac's split grilles. You'll notice Dodge had their own versions of it starting around 1968-9, and he told a story about the "add-on" grille divider they came up with for the Dart GTS to add a little pizazz. Seems that manufacturing constraints and limitations couldn't overcome the "tacked-on" look of the divider, the QC guys were dinging every GTS that came off the line, and the plant manager was catching heat from above. So, Styling grudgingly removed the divider.

My first thought was that if a Chrysler QC guy was getting bent over something like that it must have been a very poor fit indeed, since Chrysler appearance QC was never anywhere close to Ford, much less GM!

WhatIf

The 1956 Olds wasn't a split grille, it was simply a divider set in an oval grille. That's not a split grille.



A split grille is a grille that has some body color between the left and right halves. This is a split grille :



By your definition, the 1939 Pontiac had a split grille.

AZ455

How's this for a split grill?

grill.jpg

rocketraider

A 1956 grille has a left and right half with separate part numbers. There's a divider piece between them. Looks like a split grille to me.

The Dodge GTS divider was much the same- a piece of stamped aluminum that was tacked on to give the appearance of split grilles, though it actually covered the center of the existing stamped grille, so it technically would not have been a true "split grille".

I'll allow that some 30s cars foreshadowed "split grille" styling.

The 67-68s Joe posted are technically not "split grilles", they are three-element grilles.

But, moot points. The styling worked, and in Pontiac's case, inspired other makes' designers to emulate it.

morepwr

I know in the last few years on Pontiac, the front looked a whole lot like a BMW grill (or vice versa)

WhatIf

The classic BMW grille that everyone refers to as "kidney-shaped" didn't really come out until the 1980's. The 60's-70's BMW's used two grilles, but they were always vertical, and they didn't lay the grilles horizontally until the 1980's.

1975 BMW


1986 BMW



Pontiac actually used kidney shaped grilles, set deep into the bumper, on the 1969 Firebird and 1970 GTO. That style seemed to appear decades later on BMW's. 4-headlights, kidney-shaped grilles, when you break it down, they are actually similar.

starfire

Ummm, I think it's important, when having these discussions, that things be described properly. I don't know exactly what to call the shape of those Pontiac and BMW grills above, but "kidney shaped" definitely is not correct. By way of example I have included some pictures of kidney shaped things. A leaf, some tables, a pool, and an actual kidney.

BTW, I always thought that Pontiac was known for the large noses.

WhatIf

Ummm...actually no, they are kidney-shaped grilles.

http://www.bmwism.com/index.html

If you do a search on "BMW grille shape" and see how times the phrase "BMW's signature kidney shaped grilles" comes up.

I agree though, not technically kidney shaped, but how auto writers, and BMW themselves, have referred to them for decades now.

joe_padavano

Only in the Bunkie Knudsen years. When he went to Ford, the T-bird got a similarly large schnozz...

starfire

Oh, I see it now. I was looking at the individual right and left grills. When I look at the whole grill area in the link you posted it does look vaguely like a kidney.

MDchanic

Au contraire. The traditional BMW grilles are not precisely kidney-shaped, but suggest kidneys, especially in the way that they were originally paired.

To wit (from bmwism.com):










- Eric

starfire

Hmmm, those remind me more of wings than kidneys. I think the folks at BMW were smoking a little something. Of course maybe I don't see the butterflies in the Rorschach test either

BlackGold

That's because there are no butterflies in the Rorschach test. They're all naked women.

Several years ago I found myself wondering why I, someone who disdains Japanese cars, found the Mitshubishi's attractive. I figured out it was because their split grill reminds me of Oldsmobiles.

MDchanic

Hmmmm... They all look like splatters of blood to me.

Makes me get really mad at the jail psychologist every time he shows 'em to me .

- Eric