Ok, I've decided my 50 chevy needs a nicer grill. Now, where can I get a tooth grill? What do I need?
A popular thing to do on these cars is to grab a 53 Chevy grille and surround. Mold the surround to the fronts of your fenders and paint/prime it to match your car. Then double the amount of teeth that go on the center bar. Extra points for losing the parking lights from the 53 grille bar, and replacing them with more teeth. Look for photos of Larry Watson's "Grapevine" to see what I mean. It's pretty tough to just add teeth to a 50 grille bar without making it look like you just bolted on some parts that don't fit. Either that, or it will look like some kind of gook or backwoods bling. Call me weird, but I kinda like the smooth elegance of the stock 50 Chevy grille. On My 52, I nixed the toothy 52 center grille bar, and replaced it with one from a 51.
Here's the best Grapevine pic I could find on short notice. This is a clone of the second incarnation. The first was a simple 2-tone purple that I personally like much better.
I've got teeth on my 50's grille, they are period accessories that were specifically designed for the stock grille and they just bolted up. Of course, you can't just buy these at any parts store any more.
You can buy a complete repro '53 Corvette grill from Nightprowlers. I've got one in my '53, and it is nice nice nice. (And they show up in a lot of customs in my early 1950s magazines, so they are also traditional traditional traditional!).
Those will work, too, but I'm talking about a steel grille that is a duplicate of the '53-57 Corvettes, including the mounting brackets and the center bar.
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