Pontiac Hood Ornament unedited

The head of Chief Pontiac first appeared on radiator caps in the 1920s. After 1935, when the radiator was buried under the hood of the car, designers continued the motif on ornaments bolted to the hood which grew to be called “hood ornaments” in common parlance.
Pontiac’s ornaments are among the most striking from the flamboyant era of the American automobile. In the early 1930s they were shaped in the form of a Native American head adorned with feathered headdress, but by the 1950s they had morphed into the memorable configuration of jet plane with the head of Chief Pontiac at the helm.
These beautiful and iconic designs caught the public imagination then and now, but, when contextualized to their own day, their significance expands. They can be understood as ciphers of
industrial strength in the face of the complex and troubled situation for the Native American in
postwar America.
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