Grille - in Powered Vehicles

In Powered Vehicles

In automotive engineering, a grille covers an opening in the body of a vehicle to allow air to enter. Most vehicles feature a grille at the front of the vehicle to protect the radiator and engine. Other common grille locations include below the front bumper, in front of the wheels (to cool the brakes), in the cowl for cabin ventilation, or on the rear deck lid (in rear engine vehicles).

Nowadays big grilles are primarily cosmetic. The grille is often a distinctive styling element, and many marques use it as their primary brand identifier. For example, Jeep has trademarked its seven-bar grille style.

Rolls-Royce is famous for arranging its grille bars by hand to ensure that they appear perfectly vertical. Other makers known for their grille styling include Bugatti's horse-collar, BMW's split kidney, Rover's chrome "teeth", Mitsubishi's forward swept, fighter aircraft-style grilles for their cars 2008 Lancer and Lancer Evo X, Dodge's cross bar, Alfa Romeo's six-bar shield, Volvo's slash bar, Audi's relatively new, so-called single-frame grille, Pontiac's split horizontal grille and an egg-crate grille on late-generation Plymouths. The unusual 1971 Plymouth Barracuda grille is known as a cheesegrater. Ford's three-bar grille, introduced on the 2006 Fusion, has become distinctive as well.

The contrary styling pattern also occurs. Starting from the late 1930s, Cadillac would alternate its pattern from horizontal bars to various patterns of crosshatching as a simple way of making the car look new from year to year, for this make did not have a standard grille form. Sometimes there is a sort of fashion trend in grille bars. For example, in the early years after World War II, many American car makers generally switched to fewer and thicker grille bars.

A billet grille is an aftermarket part that is used to enhance the style or function of the original OEM grille. They are generally made from billet, solid bar stock aircraft-grade aluminum, although some are CNC machined from one solid sheet of aluminum.

Customizers would alter the grille as a matter of course in personalizing their car, taking the grille bar from another make, for example. Even sheet metal with patterned holes for ventilation grating sold to homeowners for repair has been found filling the grille opening of custom cars.