VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND EARLIER 1937-1945 How to tell car from truck grill 1938 chevy

I am new to this site. Tons of great info. Getting out of race cars and building a 37 chevy coupe hot rod.

I got a nice grill in a deal I made and not sure whether for car or truck .Is there a way to tell apart. Definitely a 38 .

Does it fit on the car...? After all, come on...It's just a "hot rod"

I bought a very nice reproduction grill for a 38 car on Ebay. When it arrived it turned out to be about 1/2" too wide on each side. The vendor was selling for Dick Moffat and his explanation was "they are all like that". I got my purchase cost back after paying to ship it back. I believe it was a truck grill. Here is my previous thread on the subject. 38 Grill Purchase

I guess I need to ask why you are looking for a '38 grill if you're building a '37? They are not interchangeable. If you want to run a '38 grill you'll also need the '38 core support, the piece the grill mounts to. I don't know the dimensions of the car & truck grills but they also do not interchange.

This is not for my 37. I ended up with it when I bought a 38 . I had to buy the 38 to get the 37 parts I wanted. Would Only sell as a package. The guy said it was for a 38 but wasn't sure if car or truck. I'm just trying to see if way to tell apart. I have no use for it so will be selling or trading it

i would check out the H.A,M.B. WEB SITE

A '38 truck grill is larger than a car grill.

In '63 I had a sharp '38 MD. I found an NOS pair of '38 grill halves hanging near the shop entrance of a Chevy dealership in a small GA town. I paid $15 for the pair only to find it was too big for my '38 car. It fooled me til I got home and held it up to the car. Years later, I sold it to a guy to go on his '38 half ton.

If someone would measure the width of their car or truck grill at some given point, you could measure yours and know which it is.

the way i have been able to tell the difference was the shape around the headlight stand, a car grill is pointed, a truck is round. works out great if your at a swapmeet, faster than pulling out a tapemeaure
here`s a pic of my 51k mile all original 38, check out the grills "V" shape by the headlight stand

gln ..
I PM'd you on the HAMB.
sounds like if you fit it up to that shell you are selling and it fits then........its for a car ...
Filling station sells the truck grill but not the car .. dead giveaway that they are indeed different..

Ollie

Well Golly Guys there is show and tell photos provided, the truck has more than 2 bars below the crank hole.

yup, truck grill is taller

Question answered.

Thanks

After reading all this new (to me) information on the grill details, I looked up a photo of the grill I purchased, as mentioned above. The bottom of the grill is definitely made for a car. So the grill was just made too wide.

You can tell the grilles apart at a glance by looking at the bullet shaped intrusion at the headlamp area. The car grill has a slight point sort of like a shovel. The truck grille is round in this area.

Mike