Sculpted Chrome Grilles: USA 1951

An automobile styling fashion in America from the late 1940s into the mid-1950s was large, often sculpted, grille bars.  Grille framing was often bold for many years before and after that time.  What I'm dealing with here is chrome-plated designs within the framing.

For the purposes of this post, I selected model year 1951 as representative.  If it wasn't the peak year for sculpted grilles, then it was close.  By the late 1950s the fashion turned to grilles featuring moderate-size grid patterns.

Not all American brands are shown below because not all brands had extreme designs.  Omitted here are DeSoto, Dodge, mainstream Chrysler, Chevrolet, Oldsmobile, Kaiser, Nash, Henry J and Studebaker.

Unless noted otherwise, images are of cars listed for sale.

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Chrysler Imperial
The bumper includes fat ribs that echo the bold, horizontal central grille bar.

Plymouth
Plymouth and all other Chrysler Corporation brands received front-end facelifts for 1951.  For some reason the downturned frame harkens to the similar "sad" expression on 1949 Lincolns that had been a source of shopper complaint and was quickly altered for 1950.  The horizontal central bar follows the shape of the framing.

Ford
Spinners was a Ford theme beginning in 1949 and lasting through 1954.  1949 and '50 Fords has a single, central spinner, but the '51s were given two of them.  The fog lights mounted on the bumper are accessories and not part of the grille design.

Lincoln Cosmopolitan
An example of a "not-sad" Lincoln frame.  The theme is strongly horizontal, but provided some relief by the raised "teeth" whose section is aligned with the hood cut lines and bumper guards.

Mercury
Not large sculpted bars here.  But the band of vertical bars is itself a large, sculpture element.

Buick Special - RM Sotheby's photo
For many years Buicks were identified by their sets of vertical grille bars.  The main sculpting here is the parking light assemblies at the edges of the grille.

Cadillac - Mecum auctions photo
Cadillac grilles carried a grid theme for many years.  Here the grid bars are few and bold.

Pontiac
Sculpting here is mainly in the form of a gull-wing for the main bars.  The gap is bridged by a cross pattern and Indian head symbol.  Also present are a few teeth below the gull wings.  Perhaps because my father bought a 1951 Pontiac, I'm inclined to think this was perhaps its best grille design during that era.

Hudson
I think this was a superior Hudson grille design.  Rounded elements of the license plate frame are nicely related to both the Hudson triangle motif in the central section and the curved sections of the frame and upper interior bar.

Frazer - unknown photo source
Final model year Frazers surprisingly were given a drastic facelift.  That included the large, bold element seen here that is part frame and part additional decoration.  Truly a sculptural design.

Packard 200 - factory photo
Packards were redesigned for 1951.  The 200 series was the marque's entry level and received a less elaborate grille than other Packards.  Most of the sculpting is found in the framing, a bold interpretation of the traditional Packard grille/hood interface.   Given the framing and central vertical splitter, the remaining details are largely logical.

Packard 250 - RM Sotheby's
Above the baseline 200 models, Packards were given sets of grille "teeth" that complicated the design.  This was not corrected until the 1953 model year when grilles were given a moderate restyling.

Allstate, the Badge-Engineered Henry J

A nice example of 1950s American badge engineering is the 1952-53 Allstate.  As the link indicates, Kaiser wished to increase sales of its slow-selling compact Henry J brand by offering a faintly facelifted version for sale at the (in those days) dominant Sears-Roebuck department store chain.  What this means was that in a number of larger Sears stores there would be a small section with an Allstate car on display along with a sales desk.  By the way, for non-USA readers, the name "Allstate" is the name Sears uses for its insurance sales arm -- it was borrowed for naming the car.

Below are comparison images for Allstate and its host Henry J brand.

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You might want to click on this Allstate advertisement to enlarge it so that the smudgy text is faintly readable.

Publicity photo of a 1951 Henry J, the car's initial model year.  This design was carried over into 1952, but soon supplemented, as shown below.

Publicity photo of a 1952 Allstate.

This is a 2015 photo of mine of an Allstate taken at the National Automobile Museum (The Harrah Collection) in Reno.  That's a 1937 Cord 812 Beverly Sedan in the background.

Allstate grille.  Compare to the grille on the 1953 Henry J Corsair below.

"For sale" photo of a 1953 Henry J Corsair.  The Corsair model with the same grille design was introduced during the 1952 model year.  It has a cleaner, bolder design than that of the Allstate in the pervious photo.  Badge-engineering economy measures included the shared grille opening and the positioning of the turn-signal lights.

Bonus view: Allstate interior.

Henry J: Cute, But Few Sold

Kaiser-Frazer's Henry J (1951-1954) was named after Henry J. Kaiser, founder of the company.  This was one of several marketing errors associated with the brand; an odd name without meaning to many people.

Another, according to this Wikipedia entry, was that conditions for getting a government loan forced the company to cut manufacturing costs to the bone, resulting in a cheap looking car.  For example, early Henry Js had no trunk opening; one had to open the side door, fold down the rear seat back and then try to maneuver a heavy, cumbersome piece of luggage into place.  For not a lot more money, a potential buyer could get a new entry-level Chevrolet, Ford or Plymouth with a trunk lid as standard equipment, more passenger room and other goodies not found on a Henry J.

Henry J styling was what I call cute, and more pleasing than that on many other small cars in the USA and elsewhere at the time.  A nice gesture was the small up-kick or micro-tailfin at the rear of the fender line.  It served as a counterpoise to the fastback roof line, giving the design some needed balance.  Unfortunately, that fastback roof line was going out of style in 1951.  Worse, it yielded an inconveniently sized trunk -- the trunk that was difficult to access due to its lack of a lid.

The grille was an oddity -- large, chromed shapes perhaps inspired by squiggly graphics and table tops that were so strangely popular around 1950.  Even so, it wasn't really bad.  Maybe that's because Kaiser-Frazer had a team of first-rate stylists for a few years, including Buzz Grissinger.

Gallery

An advertising image showing a Henry with seriously small people.

This publicity photo offers a better sense of scale, though the boy with his hand on the door is pretty small.

More probably small-ish people stuffed into an already small car.  In those days, cars of any size were often pictured with small people or people crammed into the passenger compartment to give the illusion that the car was larger than it really was.  Note how the flowing fender line adds a touch of grace to what might have become just another slab-sided design.

This was one of the few photos I found on the Internet showing a Henry J with no trunk opening.  A trunk lid was quickly added once it became clear that the original configuration was hurting sales.  The double-curve at the top of the backlight window echoes window shapes on the new, redesigned Kaisers.