The History of the BMW Kidney Grille: How It's Changed Over 100 Years
Photo by Krish Parmar on Unsplash There are few design elements in the car industry with a history as long or as contested as the BMW kidney grille . It has been narrow and elegant, wide and corporate, shrunk to almost nothing on a racing car, and ballooned to the point where it dominated an entire front end. It has sparked some of the most heated arguments in automotive design circles, generated more online commentary than almost anything BMW has done in decades, and yet, through all of it, remained instantly recognisable as BMW. Here is how it started, and how it got here. 1933: The BMW 303 and the First Double Kidney The BMW front grille as we recognise it today was born in 1933, on the 303, the brand's first six-cylinder model, launched at the Berlin Motor Show. Designer Fritz Fiedler divided the radiator grille into two vertical shapes with a chrome centre bar, rounded at the top and bottom. The BMW emblem sat between the upper arches. It was a practical design in part, the sp...