The magic of ornaments
10/08/2020
Before designers could play with LED and other lighting elements and let off steam, chrome and metal trim was used to characterize the appearance and structure otherwise boring surfaces, especially in the early days of the automobile.
The example above shows a Bristol 411 from 1973, which was fitted with a radiator grille with concentric and rounded rectangles, leading to adoptions such as "Toaster Grill" or similar. A new report on the Bristol 411knows more about this.
The second example shows the Chrysler Airflow from 1935, an aerodynamically optimized vehicle that probably didn't have enough sex appeal without ornamentation. We will leave it to our readers to judge whether the "ornaments" were a little overdone.
We have also just published a revised vehicle report on the Chrysler Airflow .
