I’m not here to car-body-shame. Hell, some of my favorite cars are ones that most people deride as being homely. Automotive beauty is in the headlight of the beholder, after all. But every now and then I’ll see something that even I just can’t abide. And today that un-abideable thing is the grille design of the 1953 Opel Olympia Rekord. I realize that, according to our demographics, about 48% of our readers drive 1953-1957 Opel Olympia Rekords. Wait, am I reading that right? That can’t be right. What is the Olympia Rekord ownership rate for Autopian members? 73%? What the hell? Who did these charts?
Anyway, I’m going to assume that either those numbers are off and/or even if they’re right, our Opel Olympia Rekord owners are secure and have a healthy sense of humor about their cars. Because I really find the early grille design of the Opel Olympia Rekord downright … disturbing.
I realize the Olympia Rekord leaned heavily into American-inspired styling of the era, but it’s worth remembering just how much that aesthetic was. Auto design in early 1950s America was a riot of excess, a cacophony of chrome ornaments and bulges and a mix of visual references that ran the gamut from jet and rocket-age inspiration to parts that resembled dinosaurs. Still, it often worked, though the sheer size of the cars was a big factor there. Scaled down to European sizes, things tended to feel even more overdone, and that may be what we’re seeing here in the 1953 Olympia Rekord:
Most of the car isn’t bad; nothing too exciting, but nothing feels that wrong. Until we get to the grille. I mean, look at that thing:
It’s not so much a grille as it is a cruel-looking maw, full of teeth and disappearing deep down that car’s gullet. In fact, people at the time referred to it as a Haifischmaul-Kuehlergrill, or a shark’s mouth. I should note that not all Olympia Rekords had this grille; later ones opted for something far less disturbing:
That’s much tidier. And it makes that face feel less unhinged. I think my issue with the 1953 grille is what it reminds me of; take a look at the grille and tell me if you can see what I can’t help but see:
Is anything coming to mind? Anything maybe, like this?
You know those solid waste shredding machines? Those hoppers with the rotating rows of indestructible teeth, just waiting to mulch pretty much anything into ribbons? I’m sure you’ve seen the videos:
Look at that! Unstoppable power for turning somethings into nothings. It’s the final fate for so many things, including cars, and it feels like an angel of death for the material world. They’re alarming things, and that Opel grille feels like one of those to me. It has that same chute-like shape, with its deep recesses, and its full of metal teeth that curve back enough that its easy to imagine them rotating, sucking in everything as this Opel drives along, pulling rocks and squirrels and birds and trash and bicycles and everything into its horrific maw, grinding and mulching, ever hungry, never satiated, driving eating mulching tearing shredding driving driving sucking chewing destroying driving driving driving
Forever.
That P1 one the drawing looks really nice though.
I’m usually not at all into any Opels, so took me a bit by surprise 😉
Ich denke Ich bin ein bischen verliebt
I can only imagine the absolute horror of having to remove a dead deer or coyote out of that thing.
The problem is there isn’t much “grille” in the way to stop any random trash, birds, whatever from going right in and smashing your radiator
There might be an interior hidden grille, like on the whale shark mouth on the underside of the 1955 Citroën DS [fingers crossed emoji]
Those machines are terrifying, but I really don’t get that vibe from the Opel. The pink tinting in the top shot gives it a sort of predatory animal aura. I actually like the original grill better than the toned-down version that came along later. The current Lexus/Toyota grills are at least as offensive to my eyes.
That top shot is …. disturbing.
Also, not a lot of obvious PPE on the employees in that car shredder video, guess you’re just supposed to remember to not go too near while shredding is happening.
More like, Opel Master Shredder
Makes me think the Foot Clan might actually hunt pedestrians…
I actually dig it’s gaping maw.
I think the stylists were channeling the 1950 Buick Special.
How did one of these not star in Blood Drive? They wouldn’t even have to modify the car to make it plausible that it ate people.
I, for one, am comforted by this grille. It handily demonstrates that bad taste and design are not just modern contrivances by the likes of Lexus and BMW, but have a rich tradition spanning generations. What stronger testament to the fundamental unity of humanity than in realizing that as long as there have been craft, art, and aesthetics, there have been those that push for more, are unmoored and unfettered in that most vital and primal of human pursuits: to commit a thought to wood, metal, glass, and fabric something that leaves draws the very air from your lungs in a gasp, some new thing that is virtually telepathic in its power and impact, in that you immediately and can only think:
“Wow, that’s the ugliest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.”
The earlier vs later grille reminds me of toothed whale vs baleen whale. Maybe it’s just that I’m watching Moby Dick.
Evolution from being a predator to filter feeding.
They’re both sort of disturbing, but at least not in an Edsel vulva-type way.
The Freakonomics podcast recently did a very interesting 3-part series on modern whaling and they referred to Moby Dick a few times.
I’d never read it as a kid, so I picked it up from the library.
Turns out, it’s a really good book! Who knew (aside from everyone)?
It is a great book, though some parts are a slog. I too first read it as an adult. Now I read it every couple years.
The top shot, with the flesh-colored trim inside the grill reminded me of a, uh.. like a large human orifice? That’s all I can see there.
The rest of the pics make a whorl tooth shark spring to mind, but probably because I just watched the whole PBS Eons Permian period thing.
This is what it reminds me of: the heavily modified GMC M211 in the Sorcerer.
If you haven’t seen it, that truck is stuff of nightmare fuel.
The previous generation looks like a baleen whale’s mouth; this just looks…suggestive.
You know the scene where the train or car or whatever it was shoots into the big effigy’s mouth in A.I. Artificial Intelligence? This thing’s mouth looks like it wants to be that huge statue’s mouth, taking all comers.
So to speak.
From brief research, GM did not export Opel cars to North America until 1958. Near as I can tell, the vast majority of Autopian readers are located in North America. Following math and logic, I will assume that 0.00000000375% of Autopian readers own pre-1958 Opels.
Most of us have imported them later. I don’t know if the figures presented are correct, but somewhere between 45 and 75% of us having one sounds right.
Why did they just let the car fragments pile up on the floor?
Still not as ugly as the grill on the MGA …