Modding Forum

Knowing how much Ford cut back on quality after the 2007 recession, that sounds very likely.

I've been able to find pictures of both types on ebay, though I'd assume they are all aftermarket nowadays. Most of your pictures appear to show 98 Crown Vics including that one that must have been taken in the late 90s or early 2000s, so I assume that they're probably all factory. On almost all pictures of more recent SAP CVPIs on the other hand the grills appear fully chrome. I wouldn't be surprised if they originally used black vertical bars because it clearly looks better, but Ford later…

Interesting, maybe some wear and tear from age affects the coating somehow? I've had one of those aftermarket pieces before and they were really cheap and flimsy, so I ended up buying an original OEM one new in box. I still have it, If I can dig it out of my storage, maybe I can check it out for reference.

They really are two different variants, though I'm not sure if they're OEM or aftermarket, you can see both in this video for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkkEdXTGS9s

It's the angle of the sun. I used to have a Crown Victoria with the same grille, the bars are chrome just like the rest but the vertical ones are only really visible when light shines at a lower angle.

I wonder if it's just the perspective and possibly dirt or if there are different versions of the grill, the vertical bars in all of your pictures look like black plastic rather than chrome. Same with these two: https://www.flickr.com/photos/147415391@N04/34368944356/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/146677979@N04/50643461982/ These on the other hand are definitely chrome and look more like the pictures I used as references: https://www.flickr.com/photos/146677979@N04/38748048352/…

https://imgur.com/a/3Nk7Ddn Depending on the lighting angle, they’re usually barely visible since they are recessed behind the horizontal bars. I guess it doesn’t happen naturally in game due to gta 5’s lack of decent AO.

Your link doesn't work unfortunately, but I'm not sure about that, in most pictures from similar angles it looks like they're just as visible as the rest of the grill.