A visual history of car jewelry.

Hood ornaments are a fading jewel. Just a few decades back, many car-radiator covers set a shiny stage for pouncing beasts, figures from classical art, or twists on an automaker’s emblem. But now most models just roll with an abstract badge set flat against the hood or grille to streamline the brand. Hood ornaments won’t come back—the fact that they were often stolen during the heyday of hip-hop saw to that. But there are a few holdouts and classic examples worth remembering.

The three-pointed Mercedes star is probably the best-known. In the 1980s, it became a hip-hop symbol, and many Mercs had their ornaments harvested for fashion. But its current claim to fame is that it’s practically the last of the Mohicans. Most other automakers have jettisoned ornaments for a badge. Mercedes has not been immune to this trend, but the hood ornament lives on through its most upscale model, the E-Class sedan, and the smaller C-Class.

The regal Rolls still crowns every car with an ornament named “The Spirit of Ecstasy,” which has been around in some form, featuring the conjoined “Rs” of the badge, since 1911. Some may think it’s based on Nike of Samothrace, but it was modeled after Eleanor Thornton, the mistress of an early English car-magazine publisher, politician, and baron, John Walter Edward Douglas-Scott-Montagu. How’s that for some bloodlines?

Cadillac has dropped the hood jewelry—but up until the early 2000s, models didn’t leave the plant without a crest-and-wreath ornament. Even the horrific Cimarron, the “small” Caddy from the early 1980s, got some radiator bling. Anything that rinky-dink with a hood ornament today would be laughed off the lot.

Next to Mercedes, Jaguar has the most widely recognized ornament in use. Like the German brand, Jag reserves the pouncing cat for its two luxury sedans, the big XJ and smaller X-Type. But unlike the Mercedes’ abstract star, the Jag presents a realistic sculptural rendering of the namesake beast—and is therefore the only ornament to truly evoke the glory of the past, when the decorations literally symbolized their brands.

In the heyday of chrome and tailfins, extraneous external ornamentation was embraced. Sometimes, the ornaments were just that—details to convey a design philosophy. General Motors did this better than anyone, as the birthplace of “styling” under Harley Earl. This example is an exquisitely small piece of chrome filigree, but also a shiny winglet against a backdrop of black. It fulfills the jet-age vibe pursued by carmakers in the Ike Administration.
CORRECTION (Nov. 6): This ornament was originally misidentified as Buick's.

Bentley has pretty much dropped the hood ornament in favor of a winged “B” badge mounted flush to the hood. Prior to this, however, its ornament was a true study in redundancy. The brand displayed both a winged “B” badge and a winged “B” ornament, with the “B” angled as if leaning into the wind. Now that Bentley is owned by Volkswagen, such inefficiency is verboten.

Some hood ornaments are obviously better than others. Bentley, Rolls, Jaguar, and Mercedes have presented theirs as stylish pieces of automotive sculpture, as well as emblems. Jeep, on the other hand, doesn’t even have a symbolic badge. Rather, the division of Chrysler simply slaps the word JEEP on every vehicle, the better to bolster its rugged image. On the Grand Wagoneer, however, style crept in, though this has to be the lamest ornament ever. Almost designed to break off.