Savoir Faire for Your Car

The first 30 years of the 20th century saw the automobile evolve from crude, clumsy designs to long lean, ever so stylish racing greyhounds of the late 1920’s and 1930’s

Car mascots or hood ornaments are in reality a thing of the past. Regulated to a few luxury brands, such as Bentley, Rolls Royce, Jaguar and Mercedes Benz, they are rare nowadays, and do not convey the luxe factor that they once did. They also conveyed speed and glamour in the jazz age taking their inspiration from the art deco or classical motifs abounding at the time.

One’s Rolls or Hispano-Suiza always had a mascot and if you did not like the one provided by the company you could always add your own.

Some of the most beautiful come from Lalique that master glass maker extraordinaire. The designs encompassed everything from gods and goddesses, to animals and stylised comets. One could pick from the Lalique catalogue and have it mounted on your bonnet. This was also a way of adding your own stamp on said Hispano, for a bit of cachet. Often the Lalique Mascots once mounted had a small light attached underneath so that they were illuminated at night. It must have been something so see perched at the end of the long bonnets at the time this fabulous piece of illuminated glass at night.

Highly sought after by collectors now, these speak of a bygone era full of savoir faire!