LOOKING BACK
Vertically slotted grilles are the iconic faces of Jeep vehicles dating back to the 1940s.
Grilles with multiple heavy steel bars on the original prototype vehicles were replaced after a few years of grilles featuring nine slots.
The seven-slot grilles that are the face of modern Jeeps first appeared in 1945.
“It's like the trademark or face of Jeep,” said Bill Ringeisen of Evans City, who is running the Faces of Jeep exhibit at Cooper's Lake Campground near Slippery Rock during the Bantam Jeep Heritage Festival. “You can tell the years of them by the grilles.”
The exhibit will showcase 34 grilles dating from the 1940s to the 1980s, which are new this year. Seven of the grilles are from various Jeep vehicles manufactured in the 1980s.
“We're basically going in chronological order by decades. We're up to the '80s. A couple more decades and we'll be caught up,” said Patty Jo Lambert, festival director.
The Faces of Jeep exhibit was added to the festival in 2015 to commemorate Jeep's 75th anniversary.
People and businesses pay $500 to present, or sponsor, grilles and the money is used by the festival committee to buy, restore and maintain grilles for future exhibits and make the display backdrop for the grilles, Lambert said.
“We've been able to find all the actual grilles since the 1940s and fix them up with some restoration,” she said.
Ringeisen said festival representatives find grilles for the exhibit in junk yards, swap meets and just about anywhere old car parts can be found.
“We find a grille, we mount them and get them ready. We put the model names, year and make of the vehicle and the number made and the name of the sponsor. We're looking for next year already,” he said.Jeep grilles from the 1990s will be added to next year's exhibit.Grilles from Jeep pickup trucks as well as CJ models are included in the display, Ringeisen said.Most of the 640,000 Jeep vehicles used in World War II were left behind in Europe and North Africa, making their grilles nearly impossible to find in the United States today.“Not many came back from World War II,” Ringeisen said.Bringing those vehicles back to the country would have hurt Willys' post-war plans to manufacture and sell Jeeps, he said.Seven grilles that would have appeared on World War II Jeeps had to be custom-made for the exhibit.Grilles for three Bantam Jeeps, two Willys Jeeps and two Ford prototype Jeeps were produced for the exhibit, Ringeisen said.Some grilles, such as those from CJ-5 models, are easier to locate. About 600,000 CJ-5s were manufactured from 1955 to 1986, he said.
