Pontiac's 1940-Vintage Grille Theme Search

Grille design themes can be an important marketing tool for car brands, though many brands have ignored this idea, apparently without suffering permanent harm.  (By the way, I wrote an e-book on this subject: a link to it is on the side bar of this Web page.)

General Motors' Pontiac was different from most other marques during 1935-1956 due its use of what were called Silver Streaks (parallel chromed ridges) along hood centerlines always and trunk lid centerlines for some model years.  For five years around the early 1950s, however, Pontiacs did maintain a consistent grille theme that I discussed here.  And of course by the 1960s the brand had abandoned Silver Streaks and began using a consistant two-segment grille theme.

Around 1940 Pontiac, along with the rest of GM's brands, got new body designs.  But the grilles placed on its bodies differed greatly from model year to model year.  Let's take a look.

Gallery

1939 Pontiac "for sale" photo
This Pontiac is in the last year of its late 1930s body design.  Its grille is a common type for those days, being a transition from vertical to horizontal orientation.  It's a little hard to see, but on either side for the nose Silver Streaks are un-chromed horizontal openings.  Flanking these in the catwalk area are vertical bars over the main air intake segments.

1940 Pontiac "for sale" photo
The narrowing vertical prow-catwalk transition is preserved on the new-for-1940 body.  But the revised grille shape is mostly horizontal, as are its bars.

1941 Pontiac historic photo
The central vertical narrowing element is held over for 1941.  Otherwise, Pontiac's now totally horizontal frontal ensemble might be described as "architectural" in a similar vein to the '41 Cadillac's classic grille.

1942 Pontiac "for sale"
For the brief (due to World War 2) 1942 model year, Pontiac fenders flowed into front doors and headlights were moved to the car's outer edges.  The result was a more rounded appearance for these cars -- compare fender shapes with those in the '41 image.  Perhaps for this reason Pontiac stylists added curves to the grille framing and fatter horizontal grille bars.  That central vertical tapering element remains, but is clearly fading away.  The vertical openings at the grille flanks echo the Silver Streaks, but create fussiness to the overall frontal design.

1946 Pontiac - "for sale" photo
Postwar Pontiacs, along with most of the rest of U.S. auto industry offerings, were warmed-over prewar designs.  Here the grille framing is almost the same as for 1942, but major grille bars are now horizontal from side to side.  That taper element is now gone, replaced by a simple vertical bar at the center.