The hood ornament harkens back to the embellished radiator caps of decades ago. The flat faced grille of the Rolls Royce Phantom likewise mimics the exposed radiators upon which those caps would reside. It makes sense on the Rolls Royce as it has loads of retro styling elements. It is still possible to order a Mercedes-Benz E-Class or S-Class with a hood ornament, but I believe those are the only mainstream models which still make it available.

The hood ornament and flat-faced grilles came to symbolise "old" in the automotive world. Vehicles with older demographics sported these styling elements in to the 1980's. Hood ornaments and grilles themselves became smaller or non-existent in the 1990's in response to this trend. This also fit with the "aero" trend. Grilles were revived as branding elements in the 2000's. Now we have vehicles with giant corporate-branded grilles, but still, without hood ornaments. I think government fuel economy regulations may mean we'll never see a new surge of hood ornaments as they would disrupt air flow.

 

there is no such strategic plan, Nissan is not even Japanese anymore, it is owned by Renault.

Simply put, Acura and Infiniti are sales failures. I guess that puts them into that lower list :-).
Nissan/Renault have huge plans for Infiniti, they are just not happening... it is not enough to simply say you want to be #1... Ghosn and Lutz do/did a lot of promises and PR campaigns.

 

in fairness to lutz, plans he put in place for gm are bearing fruit, particularly cadillac.

 

Factor out the Lexus ES and Lexus RX, and all off sudden Lexus is a sales failure as well.

 

Yes, that was (and still is) a common teenage prank. But a lot of owners liked the ornaments (still do), and, despite vandalism (which can happen with any car, as the number of keying-incidents prove). I don't see the need for them to have been dropped, except maybe for pedestrian-impact standards. And putting them on a spring-loaded support solved at least part of that problem.

 

Lutz was one of those unusual auto-execs who was not only concerned about buisness/sales and profits, but also the design of the actual vehicles that his company was producing. In short, he was a car guy, not just a buisnessman.

Interesting, though, that you mentioned Cadillac. I remember that when Lutz first came to GM, he was given a Chauffeur-driven Cadillac DeVille at company expense. After sampling the Buick Lucerne and its comfort, even though it was not what one would call an ''enthusiast car", he decided to dump the chauffer-driven Caddy, take home a Lucerne, and use it as his daily-driver, driving it himself.

Today, Lutz does a question-and-answer column in some of the auto-mags.

 

IMO, apples and oranges. Ghosn seems to be more concerned with cost-cutting, profits, and the bottom-line. Lutz not only is a buisnessman but a car guy as well....see my posts above.

 

How about a hood ornament of bull horns on your Lexus for all you Texas's boys.

 

Though I'm sure that someone in this forum will correct me if I'm wrong, I don't remember a production Lexus vehicle ever having a factory ornament. Some, though, were available in the aftermarket for those who wanted to customize.

 

Sorry I did not read all the posts in this thread so if this was mentioned please forgive me but these days the manufacturers have actually become much more efficient than they have been in the past. Back in the mid to late 50s all through the 60s the car companies were so competitive that they redesigned some models every year and offered most of their cars with any option the factory had. Now you can usually only get packages and that is it.

 

Same could be said about MB if you take away the C & E sales ,or BMW if you take away the 3 and 5 sales. Usually taking away the top sellers from a brand can make that brands sales look bad

 

The Japanese are the best at this, there is no doubt about it.

 

Honda, back in the 1980s, pretty much started the buisness of marketing by package/trim-level, not with single-options.