Design Details: False Faces
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The phenomena of false grilles is one that is widely talked about in our circles. The current most prominent offenders are clearly EVs, whether built on ICE platforms or attempting to evoke skeuomorphism to avoid scaring away legacy customers. ICE cars are certainly far from exempt when it comes to false grilles, though; these are especially common in bumpers and valances where they imitate brake cooling vents (ahem, last gen Civic hatch) with varying degrees of success. Today’s cars, though, all present fake grilles as their main, primary grille. That is to say, the grille that is representative of the ‘face’ of the car and often contains the badge or other corporate branding is entirely graphic and all intake air is diverted elsewhere (usually ‘bottom-breathing’ cars). Torch actually covered something similar to this back in his final days at the J, so that might help clear things up if you need more background.
Take some of Kia’s latest ‘Tiger Nose’ grilles for example, well, at least before it morphed into the ‘deconstructed Tiger Nose’ on the new Niro or EV6. The Rio and outgoing Soul feature it prominently up top, but both are false grilles, simply a panel of gloss-black plastic with all radiator air going around the license plate toward the bottom.
Chevy’s ‘two-bar’ grille which I’ve covered at length seems a bit hollow when the upper segment is just a black solid strip of plastic. These two Daewoo Chevies both do this, the Cruze apparently only after the 2014 facelift if Torch's mock-ups are to be believed.
Torch mentioned the current Compass and its seven-slot Jeep grille as a clear offender, but apparently this is market dependent as in LATAM markets it does actually feature openings for additional cooling.
Giugiaro’s 159 pulls the same trick, seen here with a UK market car on top and an Australian market car underneath. Note the opening next to the headlights which is blanked out on the former and open with the latter.
CUVs often pull this trick as well since their tall front fascias mean there is room for a purely styling gesture on the nose. The gen3 Escape (gen2 Kuga) did this with a gloss black filler panel for the Ford logo, not unlike the aforementioned Kias, while the gen4 Rav4 simply had these weird fake honeycomb grilles to tie into the headlights.
In Europe Stellantis seems to be a big offender with Citroën’s new corporate face openly incorporating a fake upper grille just to mount the Citroën badge; same with Opel’s new Manta-inspired ‘visor’ face which is often entirely gloss black plastic.
To be fair, these styling tricks are nothing new. Audi’s revolutionary aluminum A2 did something similar, though it used its fake styling grille as a cubby for the ‘serviceklappe’, a means for topping up fluids without opening the cumbersome hood.
Also of note is the first gen Chrysler Sebring coupe, the Mitsubishi-based one. It had this weird cross-hair grille at launch which was rather obviously fake, with all cooling air going underneath. The facelift lengthened the grille to make it actually take in some air.
Finally it all comes back around to Fiat and its horrible facelifts. As DTW calls the ‘Fiat Charter’, every facelift done by Fiat has almost always ruined the beauty or originality of the model and made it look generic and self-effacing. These two worsened the deal by adding a hideous fake grille in place of the smooth modernism that defined their previous looks. First is the grille-less Punto mk2, ruined by this ugly toaster-oven opening:
And the wonderful Multipla which went from ‘so-ugly-it's-awesome’ to ‘Honda FR-V with a tumor’ in its ill-advised facelift which added this buck tooth of a solid plastic grille.
The reasoning for all this is obvious; you get better aero when you’re not disrupting airflow at the leading edge of the hood, thus it’s better to get most of your radiator air down low. Are there any other ICE cars that similarly cop-out with their ‘main’ grilles as entirely frivolous fashion statements?
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@amoore100 This was primarily a bottom breather:
E90 M3
E92 328i
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@e90m3 the van, or its buyers?
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@amoore100 The Explorer Police Interceptor Grill is mostly fake. I'm guessing the regular version is similar. I believe the new Mustang is the same as well as the R8.
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@amoore100 None of this catfish mouth is for the radiator or any air intake whatsoever.
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Does the slit between the headlights count as a false grill?
How about a rear-engine air-cooled vehicle?
That's a big grill considering what's behind it.
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@amoore100 Not ICE, but on this note, I actually prefer the fake-fake (a fake of a fake) grille of the earlier Model S to the grille-less version:
The current design language makes me think of this:
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@Roadkilled Yes! I actually wanted to cover rear-engined buses as well, but I figured no one except me (and maybe @Miss-Mercedes?) cares
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@fintail I actually do like the Model S facelift, if only because I think the real opening where the badge sits now gives the face more depth:
In general I just hate the look of gloss-black plastic
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@amoore100 Yeah they missed out with the glossy part - should have textured it or offered it in patterns, might look good in plaid or paisley etc
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You should do another in false lights, head and tail. More and more it seems the headlight and tail light clusters are just for style, and maybe drl or parking lights, while the actual main lighting cluster is way lower down.
modern cars are all about fake unfortunately.'90 Toyota MR2 (NA, t-top)
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@amoore100 I actually really liked the Oldsmobile design language which ran the other way - stealing a little bit of extra air while not looking like it had a grill between the headlights at all.
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@Nauraushaun said in Design Details: False Faces:
modern cars are all about fake unfortunately.
Sadly yes. 'Eyebrow' DRLs are definitely on my list! And I've already covered clamshell trunks which often have 'fake-out' taillights, as well as all-red taillights which often move other bulbs to the bumper!
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@amoore100 yeah, I like the facelift, too, reminds me of the Kaiser Darrin, wish they had given the Model 3 the same treatment
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This is another of those things that's older than one may think. Grilles have been fashion statements since the second they stopped being bare radiators. The execution also varies wildly, and can look okay or horrible depending on the effort made.
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@KITT222 The B3 VW Passat comes to mind, even though, no fake grill, no grill at all.
My sister had a Bordeaux red wagon one back in the day.
Also, our motorhome, though it was a Diesel Pusher, had a significant grille (the A/C condenser, windshield fluid reservoir and horns were behind it).
2007 Kia Sedona EX
2009 Audi A6 3.0T quattro Avant -
@PlaysWellWithNOthers said in Design Details: False Faces:
The B3 VW Passat comes to mind, even though, no fake grill, no grill at all.
This is an interesting one because I was going to use the 'facelift' B4 (VW calls it a new gen but it's obviously a revised B3) Passat as an example, but they might have actually carved out some airflow through there? It's kind of unclear.
Rear-engined Class A RVs are another prime suspect as with the RR buses I mentioned above!
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@amoore100 said in Design Details: False Faces:
you get better aero when you’re not disrupting airflow at the leading edge of the hood, thus it’s better to get most of your radiator air down low.
Hence this: it bough them the few mph of top speed they needed to claim the "fastest production car.... in the world" title.
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@KITT222 said in Design Details: False Faces:
This is another of those things that's older than one may think. Grilles have been fashion statements since the second they stopped being bare radiators. The execution also varies wildly, and can look okay or horrible depending on the effort made.
I think this is a shame. In so many ways, car design reflects the function of the car. Such as mid-engined cars being cab forward and with intakes behind the doors. But somehow the grille thing reflects the function off cars 70 years ago though it had nothing to do with today's designs. It's all wrong.
