Vintage 57 Grill Bar Repair Kit

Some of you have seen my car at the nationals and may not have noticed that my grill bar is not quite like a 57 grill bar. The reason for the slightly different look is that I installed an old school repair part that was made by Gem Manufacturing and sold through various auto parts places back in the day. It is an entire panel that installs over the grill bar.

back in the day, you would get backed into, or you would bump something, and you either broke the plastic emblem, or broke the emblem and the lower part of the bar where the emblem fit. So when the later happened you bought one of these panels and installed it over the stock grill bar.

Early versions had the bow tie but that did not last long. Most got a rectangle.

Here is my grill bar with the panel installed.

There was also another version of the panel that incorporated a V in the design.

Then there was a pot metal insert that you could purchase that replaced just the broken emblem. I saw a photo of one many many years ago, probably in the late 70s, but never saw one in person. Well last week one popped up on eBay. NOS in the original box. The price was right so I could not resist. Here is the rarely seen pot metal replacement emblem.