Thursday Twister: Name All The Ornaments

34

This week, for the Thursday Twister we are going to head back to the past, when strange decorations covered car hoods — yes, the hood ornament.  The earliest record of a hood ornament comes in the form of a falcon located on Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun’s (1332–1323 BC) chariot.  A few thousand years later, auto makers had exposed radiators with caps that became a natural place for personalization and owners often had unique ornaments.  Years later the ornament became a badge of honor for many OEMs and it wasn’t until the 1960s/1970s that pedestrian safety legislation and public taste pushed them out of favor and into the history box.

Image credit: “Znaczek Mercedesa“. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons.

For me, the most iconic of emblems is the Mercedes-Benz tri-pointed star, behind which I have spent many an hour imagining it is some sort of gun sight — hoping high velocity projectiles will remove traffic ahead.

What is your favorite hood ornament put on a post-war car?

Standard twister rules are as follows: 

1. Only one ornament per comment (be sure to hit the refresh button on your
browser before you post in case someone else has posted since you loaded
the page).  Do not nest the replies, just reply to the main post — if
you reply to someone elses comment it should be in reference to his
comment and not a new submission.

2. You can post again, but only after someone else posts another car.

3. The contest will end at Sunday, June 21, 4pm PST.

4. One submission per hood ornament design (for instance, you can’t just pick another tri-pointed Merc hood ornament from a W108/W111 etc).

5. Each car must be a running/driving car (no clay model prototypes) and
at least two must have been built of that particular car (no one-offs.) and sold anywhere in the world after 1945.

6. No anonymous submissions — pick a name with the Name/URL dropdown.

Ready…set…hoodies!