Aesthetics: The Pre 2005 grille vs. the Post 2005 grille

[Cousinphil]

Call me old fashioned but there's something unlovely about the Audi "fish mouth" grille. And this seems to be the coming trend on both sides of the Atlantic. Even Ford has come out with an aggressive looking vertical grille on one of their new models. Am I alone in preferring the old horizontal grills on the pre 2005 Audis? Those were some handsome cars.

For a while there everybody from Volvos to Subarus were sporting the same basic horizontal grille. And for good reason. The horizontal grille was understated, tasteful and unobtrusive. The new grilles, in my opinion, are flashy and certainly aggressive but arguably ugly.

[LINDW4LL]

I'll speak to Audi only.

I think the new one-piece grilles look much better. Basically everything with the old grille, except (maybe) the B5 RS4, looks vastly outdated now.