10 Worst Truck Grilles
Here are ten of the ugliest pickup truck grilles we've ever seen! (A shocking number of these are on brand 2025 trucks. Coincidence? We think not.)
Intro
The design of a pickup truck grille dictates how attractive or unattractive the truck looks overall. Of course, attractiveness is a subjective term and not everyone is going to agree what is ugly and what is beautiful. But it is a fun topic to discuss, so we decided to come up with a list of the ten worst truck grilles in history. And this is for all trucks, not just Fords. In fact, there are very few Fords on our list. There are also not many older trucks on our list. Is it just us or are trucks getting uglier each year? Back in the day, trucks were not really styled, they were simply built to be functional. As a result, the overall look of trucks back in the day was rugged and simple.
But in recent years it seems that everyone is over styling trucks and that has led to some questionable grille designs. The following list contains what we think are the ten worst from oldest to newest. What ugly truck grilles would you add to the list?
Image: Ford
1. 1961-1967 Ford Econoline Pickup
We start the list off with a Ford and it is the Econoline Pickup. Unlike some other grilles on this list, the Econoline grille is not offensively ugly. But it does look like it is part of an air conditioning register instead of a part on a truck. It is not too unusual for the period, and we include it here to help illustrate how much things have changed from then to now.
Image: Ford
2. 2003-2006 Chevrolet SSR
Chevrolet tried something bold in 2003, and we give them kudos for that. But a quasi-pickup convertible truck is not what the world needed. The funky grille design didn’t help matters much. It was supposed to have a retro look to it and it sort of does but the overall design just didn’t work. By 2006 the SSR was gone. But you can still grab them on the used market if you want a funky truck. The one pictured here sold on Bring a Trailer a couple months ago for $25K.
Image: Bring a Trailer
3. 2021-2023 GMC Canyon Denali
This is the first of several modern GMC trucks on our list. GMC seems to want to corner the ugly truck grill market. The Canyon Denali is the luxury mid-size truck offered by GMC. It was redesigned in 2021 and apparently GMC had a surplus of chrome they were trying to get rid of. The grille looks like a giant, chrome electric razor.
4. DODD Grilles – Any Year, Any Truck
This might upset some folks here, but the “DODD” grilles are not a good look. If you want a Raptor grille, Ford will sell you a Raptor. Putting a Raptor grille on a non-Raptor is questionable. But getting these cheap aftermarket grilles that spell out DODD to avoid legal action from Ford is another thing all together. And some folks never even bother to add the ‘F’ and ‘R’ to spell FORD, so they drive around with these DODD grilles. The one pictured here was posted on the r/Ford subreddit where the poster was asking what the heck the grille was supposed to say.
Image: Reddit user ISeeInHD
5. 2025 Toyota Tundra Capstone
The entire front of the truck is grille. There is hardly any room for the headlights, which look like an afterthought. These trucks start at over $80K so we guess Toyota felt like they should give buyers as much grille for the money as possible. To be fair, the body-matched grille surrounds help things a little; the chrome variants are possibly the worst offenders. But the massive grille combined with the comparatively tiny headlights makes for a strange-looking truck.
6. 2025 Tesla Cybertruck
Good grief this thing. A rolling dumpster that is ugly from any angle. There is no real grille to speak of other than a flat band of aluminum and a recessed light bar. The fun thing about that recessed light bar is that it is great at collecting snow and blocking the headlights. So, you get poor functionality to match the poor looks.
Image: Tesla
7. 2025 GMC Sierra EV Denali
We get that everyone wants to style their EV models a little differently so that they stand out. And the GMC Sierra EV Denali sure does stands out. But what is this supposed to be? Is GMC trying to make it look like a Storm Trooper helmet? It looks like GMC didn’t know when to stop styling it. Let’s add more creases and vents and slots and see if that makes it look any better. It is like five different designers all had their own vision and their boss didn’t want to disappoint any of them, so they included everybody’s design.
Image: GMC
8. 2025 Hyundai Santa Cruz
With the compact Hyundai Santa Cruz you get more headlights than you ever thought you needed. There are lights that cascade down into the grille of the truck. It looks strange during the day but at night the light signature looks like a pair of bat wings. A truck grille doesn’t need to be composed of lights.
Image: Hyundai
9. 2025 Honda Ridgeline HPD
The 2025 Honda Ridgeline HPD has a nose that is dominated by a large amount of black plastic that cheapens the look of the truck. But the worst part of this the grille design that has a glossy black piece that forms a set of eyebrows over the headlights. That whole glossy black trim piece looks like the truck has a mustache.
Image: Honda
10. 2025 GMC Sierra 2500HD AT4X AEV Edition
And we end our list with yet another GMC and in our opinion this one has the worst grille of the bunch. It is just a giant piece of black plastic that dominates the front of the truck. We are not sure exactly when or why or how this happened, but for some reason truck makers seem to think that an enormous grille makes a truck look tougher and more expensive. But it doesn’t. It makes the truck look like a caricature of a truck.
Image: GMC