My guess is that historically it is 'grille', but Americans have a tendency to drop letters, whether this is because of laziness, modernization of the language, or to differentiate themselves from their British origins, I do not know. Examples:
- color instead of colour,
- aluminum instead of aluminium,
- filet instead of fillet,
- program instead of programme,
- BBQ instead of barbecue,
- W instead of George W. Bush,
- etc.
Ever since the difference in spelling between 'grille' and 'grill' caught my attention, I have been using 'grille' since it seems to have more in common with automotive terminology and is less likely to be confused with a barbecue grill.
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e·co·mod·ding: the art of turning vehicles into what they should be
What matters is
where you're going, not
how fast.
"... we humans tend to screw up everything that's good enough as it is...or everything that we're attracted to, we love to go and defile it." - Chris Cornell
[Old] Piwoslaw's Peugeot 307sw modding thread