Essex Motors Hood Ornament 1930's

During the early 1930s, Avard T. Fairbanks, Professor of Sculpture at the University of Michigan was called on by a variety of automobile manufacturers to make hood ornaments. 

One of the earliest was a Griffen for the Essen Terraplane, later to become the Hudson Automobile Company.  The Essex Terraplane had a powerful straight-8 engine and was noted for winning the “Pikes Peak Automobile Competition.”
 
 
Copies of these radiator ornaments cast in bronze and chrome plated are made available for purchase.