Design: Tailgate Party: Fire Up the Grilles

“A fist in the wind” is how Mr. Peters describes the pickups’ design.

The new G.M. trucks are not alone in looking as if they can deliver a punch. The latest full-size pickups from G.M.’s crosstown rivals, Ford and Ram, step into the ring with flattened noses, their huge, blunt grilles often slathered in bright trim. A special edition of the latest Toyota Tundra seems to have as many bars as Milwaukee, capped with a flat, wide nostril.

“There is a trend toward a bigger, bolder look,” said Mr. Peters, the director of exterior design for Chevrolet trucks, full-size crossovers and performance cars.

 Automobile grilles have long been carefully created to reflect the image of their brands and a particular model’s place in the hierarchy, while truck grilles were comparatively bare and basic. But with trucks locked in ever-fiercer sales battles, their grilles have grown larger and more eye-catching, a modern, motorized riff on the battle shields of medieval crusaders.

After taking a hit when the economy slumped, pickup sales are on the rise again on the strength of a rebounding construction industry: Ram (previously known as Dodge Trucks) gained 49 percent in April from a year earlier, and the full-size truck sales of G.M. and Ford each rose around 24 percent.

Manufacturers are scrambling to grab larger shares of this highly profitable market with tougher, more distinctive designs.

Rugged exteriors help to hide the fact that many of today’s macho-looking trucks are softies on the inside, with interiors wrapped in soft leather, decked with wood trim and buzzing with electronic gadgets.

Luxury trucks are especially hot. Ford says that about a third of its pickup sales come from the higher-end versions priced at $35,000 or more. Not long ago, a $50,000 pickup seemed unimaginable. Now the price tags on fancy trucks can rise well above $60,000.

In addition, a tough grille can obscure the fact that the power plant behind it is shrinking — with more fuel-efficient V-6 engines replacing thirsty V-8s in many pickup trucks.

In Texas, where one-sixth of the nation’s pickups are sold, and where Mr. Peters showed off his new truck to the press recently, pickups are like the standard uniform of boots and cowboy hats: they are everywhere, but they come in many styles and shapes. Greater personalization, with a variety of available faces, is the latest truck trend.

 The image of the pickup truck is firmly wrapped in American mythology. Model names read like the listings for John Wayne Week on the Turner Classic Movies channel: High Country, King Ranch, Laramie Longhorn.

Manufacturers present trucks primarily as work tools, but despite the ads featuring cowboys, farmers and construction workers, more and more trucks are being used partly — or mostly — as family vehicles.

“There’s a lot of diversity in the customer range,” said Joe Dehner, chief exterior designer for Ram and Dodge. In addition to working trucks, he said, “we also get the ‘air haulers,’ which means they don’t necessarily carry something.”

For decades, trucks looked like basic metal boxes. Then Dodge offered up a bold new look for its Ram for the 1994 model year. Under Tom Gale, then the design chief for Chrysler, the pickup added a touch of fantasy to the utilitarian box. With its arched grille and raised hood, the Ram resembled the cab of a mighty 18-wheeler.

Today’s Ram designers call it “the big-rig look,” said Mr. Dehner. “We own that.”

But pickups from other manufacturers began to show the Ram’s influence as their designers visually separated the hood and fenders and raised the grille above the headlights.

For the 2014 Chevy Silverado, which will arrive in showrooms soon, Mr. Peters has revised a familiar look. Bolder elements surround its traditional so-called dual port grille. Mr. Peters said, “It looks tougher because it is taller and wider and sports a new single-piece bumper that emphasizes its horizontality.” He said that drivers want trucks “to be purposeful, capable, durable, with an aggressive appearance saying that they can take the punches of everyday life on the farm or job.”

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Categories: Design, Grilles, Party, Tailgate