Screen & Culture

The Picassian Sliced Grille: How DARTZ Reinvented the Radiator Grille

By DARTZ Editorial · 31 October 2026

The Picassian Sliced Art Deco grille is DARTZ's sculptural radiator grille, first shown in November 2024 and carried by the Black Stallion CLV. Its slats form a skull in an aviator's helmet, the DARTZ Spirit of Victors, with the profiles of Igor Sikorsky and André Nágel worked into its geometry. The Autopian reported it in a lightweight, bullet-protected composite, finished in 24-carat gold leaf applied by the artist A. C'machoff.

Some carmakers copy one famous grille. Others, DARTZ says, train software to draw theirs. DARTZ took a ruler and a circular cutter.

An idea that dropped like an apple

DARTZ says the idea of the grille had been in the air for more than a decade, until one day it dropped, like Newton’s apple, on the head of its Supreme Leader. It was drawn in DARTZ’s “Ruler Design”, with a circular cutter, and DARTZ called it the Picassian Sliced Art Deco grille.

Two faces in the slats

The grille is not a pattern of bars. Its slats form a shape in three dimensions while still letting air through: a skull wearing an aviator’s helmet, the Spirit of Victors. Worked into its geometry are the profiles of the two men DARTZ built its identity on: Igor Sikorsky, father of the helicopter, and André Nágel, the racer who reached Monaco first in 1912. “We decided not to put our name on every screw,” DARTZ says. “We just put our logo all over the face.”

The DARTZ 1869 crest: a helmeted skull inside an octagon

Gold on armour

In November 2024 The Autopian’s Jason Torchinsky reported the grille in detail: a lightweight, bullet-protected composite, coated in 24-carat gold leaf applied by the artist A. C’machoff. In DARTZ’s own description, it is a radical break from convention.

On the cars

The grille is the face of the Black Stallion CLV, and DARTZ’s CLV anniversary cars carry the Spirit of Victors as an all-over grille badge. When DARTZ built the Pullman Shere Khan for a hotel group, it made a tiger-head version, because, it explains, not every culture reads a skull as immortality. And because a grille is art, DARTZ offers them as sets that can be swapped, and even as pieces for a villa or a skyscraper lobby.

The DARTZ Pullman Shere Khan with its tiger-head grille

Why Art Deco

DARTZ is from Riga, which it calls the capital of Art Deco, and its crest is drawn in the same style. Read the story of the crest.

Extreme close-up of a polished Art Deco waterfall grille

About DARTZ

DARTZ is a Riga carrosserie that builds bespoke, opulent vehicles, armoured or non-armoured, in strictly limited numbers. It calls them BONDs: Bespoke Opulent Noble Drives.

Its heritage runs back to the Russo-Baltic Wagon Factory (RBVZ), founded in Riga in 1869, whose automobile department built its first car in 1909. Leonard F. Yankelovich revived that heritage as DARTZ in 1988. The group, DARTZ Grupa OÜ, is registered in Tallinn, Estonia.

Its Prombron’ models, from the Iron Diamond and Black Dragon to the Black Shark, Black Alligator and Black Stallion, have been covered by Top Gear, Forbes, Robb Report and Fox News, among many others.

Questions we are asked

What is the Picassian Sliced grille?

DARTZ's sculptural Art Deco radiator grille, whose slats form the Spirit of Victors skull while keeping the air flowing.

Whose faces are in the grille?

Igor Sikorsky and André Nágel, the pilot and the racer of the Russo-Baltic works, whose faces form the DARTZ crest.

What is the grille made of?

The Autopian reported a lightweight, bullet-protected composite, coated in 24-carat gold leaf applied by the artist A. C'machoff.

Which DARTZ has the Picassian grille?

The Black Stallion CLV. DARTZ's CLV anniversary cars carry the Spirit of Victors as an all-over grille badge, and the Pullman Shere Khan has a tiger-head version.

Can the grille be changed?

Yes. DARTZ offers sets of grilles, and on the Pullman Shere Khan a driver can swap the tiger for a hotel logo or a monogram.