I ask because designers seem to flop back and forth, from small to large grilles, and back.
Yet, my Saturn VUE did just fine without one.
And, years ago, I saw an interview with the late Raymond Loewy (designer of the Sudebaker Avanti-no front grille). He talked abot how controversial the car looked, as it had no grille. He said that wind tinnels tests showed that the radiator had enough airflow to cool the engine.
So, are these things merely styling exercises? I also wonder if no grille is a good way to protect the radiator from rocks, debris, etc.
You can be pretty sure auto designers have looked pretty closely at the pros and cons of having a grill. The latest Ford Focus closes a couple grill vents when it’s travelling at speed to reduce drag and increase fuel economy. You could certainly design a car without one, but the question is what tradeoffs would be involved. For example, you might need a larger and heavier radiator.
As far as I know, most cars today are bottom breathers - they take their air in for the radiator from under the front bumper. Grills are (mostly) for show.
Cars without grills still need airflow through the radiator, that has not changed. There is usually an air dam under the front facia that directs air from under the car up through the radiator.
That may be the case when the car is travelling at speed, but in every car I’ve seen the cooling fan is mounted behind the grill, and draws air through it when the engine gets too hot (typically when queuing).
The fan will draw air from wherever the design creates a duct to supply it.
All the Saturn VUE’s I see online have a grille of sorts. The Avanti has an air intake under the front bumper.
My vehicle is available in a twin turbo option and for that the grill is much larger. I assume it’s not cosmetic, but a functional necessity.
I can’t think of any reason why the twin turbo option would need a larger grill, so no it’s probably cosmetic.
The intercooler would seem to require some additional airflow to operate efficiently.
It wouldn’t require any more airflow than an non turbo engine already got, but yeah, upon further reflection my post was probably incomplete. I should have said that with intercoolers, it is possible to have additional air ducts, over and above what is already there on the non-turbo model, on the front that serve a functional purpose, but I don’t think such a thing is necessary - to the question “Do cars need front grilles anymore”.
The airflow needs to come from somewhere. Remember how popular slant-nosed cars with pop-up headlights got in the eighties and early nineties? And then, for the most part, they went away? That wasn’t just an aesthetic design choice. I don’t have a cite, but as I understand it, US DOT code changed in reaction to a higher number of pedestrians injured when they were struck by very low, relatively thin car noses. Either the requirements for bumpers or headlights or both were changed, and the result was a return to cars with blunt, generally more vertical noses that were more pedestrian-friendly.
I suppose you could cap off the nose, and continue to draw air from the bottom of the car, but designers want to put something on the nose to break up the resultant blank space. Since the area was there, it probably made sense to make use of it to draw more airflow through a front grill, and less from beneath the car.
Well for one thing, I’m pretty sure sharp, wedge shaped noses have worse aerodynamics/drag than blunt noses, the choice would have been strictly aethsetic. I’ve heard of this thing about pedestrians but I have never seen a reputable cite for it, or that the US even has any pedestrian safety regulations at all, and think it is apocryphal.
Current European studies and regulations indicate that the biggest source of pedestrian injury comes from the pedestrian striking his head against the immovable engine, through the relatively deformable hood and bodywork. European cars meeting new EU pedestrian safety regulations have explosive charges in the hood/bonnet that detonate upon impact to turn the bonnet into an airbag of sorts.
The demise of popup headlights I would think have have more to do with the widespread adoption of projector beam lights over the older reflector/sealed beam type. The old reflector lights took up a much larger area on the car’s fascia and on a sports car it often made sense to have them in popup housings to preserve the lines of the car. All the cars with popups look like shit with the lights actually up, and usually you can see just how large the housing were. Projector beams, such as those that debuted with the Z32 Nissan 300ZX, took up much less frontal area and were much easier to integrate into a fast flowing, streamlined front. Once these were widespread there was no point in having popups.
Compare these 2 GIS pictures, of the Testarossa and the 599, and notice how huge the reflector lights on the old car are compared to the projectors on the new one. Note the angle that the old headlights had to be at.
http://www.carsbyownerinusa.com/blog/ferrari-cars-brand-of-most-famous-sports-cars.html
Grilles aren’t necessary. Look at the Lamborghini Countach and the Ferrari 308/328, these two come to mind. Both have their radiators mounted behind the driver (the engines as well) and use ducting in conjunction with “scoops” or ducted body work to force air to the radiators. Grilles are a functional item from a design era gone by. They are used today mainly for a styling exercise, to create a look. As others have mentioned to maintain a low drag coefficient it is better to draw the air from underneath or duct it rather than have a big honking grille acting like a billboard for the wind.
The Lamborghini Countach, the radiators are right behind the cockpit, you can see the intakes, the things with the vents on them.
http://crownassets.pwgsc.gc.ca/lotImages/FS197941.JPEG
The Ferarri 308, the same as the Countach, the radiators behind the cockpit. The air inlet is in the body, the hole can be seen right behind the driver door.
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I haven’t a cite either, but from memory I recall the pop-up/hidden headlight theme came about because designers/stylists hated having to work around the NHTSA-mandated round and rectangular sealed-beam lamps. Once NHTSA removed that requirement, headlamps could become part of the overall design theme.
oh, and they could wash their hands of the unreliable pop-up headlamp mechanisms. I mean, how many Fieros and Firebirds were there with one headlamp permanently stuck “open?”
the pedestrian-injury angle doesn’t seem too plausible to me, since cars in the '90s without pop-ups (e.g. the Chrysler LH cars and Neon, the Camaro) were still pretty “needle-like” as far as the profile of the front end.
I guess it depends on how you define grille. If you think of a grille as a stylistic area on a car, then no. If you think of it as an area to let air in, then yes. The Vue and Avanti both have grilles, maybe just lower than expected. The Ferrari 308 does too, it’s radiator is actually in the front and it pipes coolant to the engine in the back. The radiators on the Countach sit right behind those air intakes so the only difference between them and the grill on a UPS truck is the style and location.
thing is, the heat exchanger (radiator) for the car’s cooling system is sized for what the maker decides is the typical amount of waste heat the engine will have to dissipate to the environment during what they project to be “normal use.” If a car has a “normal” version and a higher-power “turbocharged” version, the manufacturer may elect to go with a larger radiator and increased airflow for the turbo version, anticipating that the owner of the turbocharged version will spend more time driving hard thus increasing the engine’s need for cooling. My Neon SRT-4 has a beefier radiator than a standard Neon does.
see, a “dirty little secret” with cars is that the cooling system can’t always cool the engine when it’s making peak hp. I have an issue of Car and Driver here somewhere in which there’s a review of a car (I think a Nissan) that consistently overheated when they were trying to reach its top speed. They get away with it because practically nobody extracts peak hp from their car for more than a handful of seconds.
's why a 300-hp 18-wheeler has a gigantic radiator, and a 300-hp V6 car has one that weighs a few pounds at most.
That is interesting. I have owned several '80’s era Mazda RX7s and never had a pop up light failure. The one in my garage right now is a 1984 and they still work as new. Buy I have noticed the Firebird/Camaro’s with the single light stuck up.
Back in the day, trucks with large grills, during the winter months, would put a restriction, oftentimes just cardboard, behind their grill to reduce the cold air flow. The airflow was actually cooling the engine too much. I assume that these days that has been corrected by technological advancements.
But yes, the stupid, ugly grills that Audi has introduced (based on Chrysler, Ram, whatever, designs), are totally unnecessary. It’s a shame that other manufacturers are copying the design because it is ugly and unnecessary. A car can be designed without a visible grill that will scoop air from under the body and sufficiently cool the engine. Big-ass grills are not a necessity and provide no enhancement to performance. Mid-engine cars have air intakes on the side of the car. It works quite well.
this makes no sense whatsoever.
They’re “copying” the design because people like the way it looks, and because the grille and associated components have been a visible part of cars’ overall look since the automobile has been in existence. Many manufacturers have settled on a design “theme” for the grille (Lincoln, Acura, Rolls-Royce, etc.) and is part of their signature style. And it’s quite possible to have said grille on the front and still manage the desired aerodynamics. That you personally find them “ugly and unnecessary” has nothing to do with the market at large.