Rat (pronounced ratt)
(1) In zoology, any of several long-tailed rodents of the
family Muridae, of the genus Rattus and related genera, distinguished from the
mouse by being larger.
(2) In (scientifically inaccurate) informal use, any of the
numerous members of several rodent families (eg voles & mice) that resemble
true rats in appearance, usually having a pointy snout, a long, bare tail, and
body length greater than 5 inches (120 mm).
(3) In hairdressing, a wad of shed hair used as part of a
hairstyle; a roll of material used to puff out the hair, which is turned over
it.
(4) In the slang of certain groups in London, vulgar slang
for the vagina.
(5) As “to rat on” or “to rat out”, to betray a person or
party, especially by telling their secret to an authority or enemy; to turn
someone in.
(6) One of a brace of rodent-based slang terms to differentiate between the small-block (mouse motor) and big-block (rat motor) Chevrolet V8s built mostly in the mid-late twentieth century but still available (as "crate" engines) from US manufacturers.
(7) As RAT, a small turbine that is connected to a hydraulic pump, or electrical generator, installed in an aircraft and used as a power source.
(8) Slang term for a scoundrel, especially men of dubious
morality.
(9) In the criminal class and in law enforcement, slang for
an informer.
(10) In politics, slang for a person who abandons or betrays
his party or associates, especially in a time of trouble.
(11) Slang for a person who frequents a specified place (mall
rat, gym rat etc).
(12) In hairdressing, a pad with tapered ends formerly used
in women's hair styles to give the appearance of greater thickness.
(13) In the slang of blue-water sailors, a place in the sea
with rapid currents and crags where a ship is prone to being broken apart in
stormy weather.
(14) In zoology (in casual use), a clipping of muskrat.
Pre 1000: From the Middle English ratte, rat & rotte, from the Old English ræt & rætt, and the Latin rodere from the Proto-Germanic rattaz & rattō (related also to the West Frisian rôt, the German Ratz & Ratte and the Swedish råtta & the Dutch rat), of uncertain origin but perhaps from the primitive Indo-European rehed- (to scrape, scratch, gnaw). Zoological anthropologists however point out it’s possible there were no populations of rats in the Northern Europe of antiquity, and the Proto-Germanic word may have referred to a different animal. The attestation of this family of words dates from the twelfth century. Some of the Germanic cognates show considerable consonant variation such as the Middle Low German ratte & radde and the Middle High German rate, ratte & ratze, the irregularity perhaps symptomatic of a late dispersal of the word, although some etymologists link it with the Proto-Germanic stem raþō (nom); ruttaz (gen), the variations arising from the re-modellings in the descendants.
Mall rats. In North America and other developed markets, there is now less scope for habitués because changing consumer behavior has resulted in a dramatic reduction in the volume of transactions conducted in physical stores and some malls are being either abandoned or re-purposed (health hubs and educational facilities being a popular use).
The human distaste for these large rodents has made rat a productive additive in English. Since the twelfth century it’s been applied (usually to a surname) to persons either held to resemble rats or share with them some characteristic or perception of quality with them. The specific sense of "one who abandons his associates for personal advantage" is from the 1620s, based on the belief that rats leave a ship about to sink or a house about to fall, and this led to the meaning "traitor” or “informant" although, perhaps surprisingly, there no reference to rat in this sense prior to 1902 where as the modern-sounding sense of associative frequency (mall-rat, gym-rat etc) was noted as early as 1864, firstly as “dock-rat”. Dr Johnson dates “to smell a rat”, based on the behaviour of cats, to the 1540s. Sir Boyle Roche (1736-1807), was an Irish MP famous for mangled phrases and mixed metaphors, of the best remembered of which was “I smell a rat; I see him forming in the air and darkening the sky; but I'll nip him in the bud". There’s the rat-terrier (1852), the rat-catcher (1590s), the rat-snake (1818), rat-poison, (1799), the rat trap (late 1400s), the rat-pack (1951) and rat-hole which in 1812, based on the holes gnawed in woodwork by rats meant “nasty, messy place”, the meaning extended in 1921 to a "bottomless hole" (especially one where money goes). Ratfink (1963) was juvenile slang either coined or merely popularized by US custom car builder Ed "Big Daddy" Roth (1932-2001), who rendered a stylised rat on some of his creations, supposedly to lampoon Mickey Mouse.
Rat has a specific meaning in the cricketing slang of the West Indies, referring to a ball which, after being delivered by the bowler, rather than bouncing off the pitch at some angle, instead runs along the ground, possibly hitting the stumps with sufficient force to dislodge the bails, dismissing the batsman, the idea being of a rat scurrying across the ground. In Australian slang, the same delivery is called a mullygrubber which, although it sounds old-fashioned, is said to date only from the 1970s, the construct thought based on the dialectal rural term mully (dusty, powdery earth) + grub(ber) in the sense of the grubs which rush about in the dirt if disturbed in such an environment. Such deliveries are wholly serendipitous (for the bowler) and just bad luck (for the batsman) because it's not possible for such as ball to be delivered on purpose; they happen only because of the ball striking some crack or imperfection in the pitch which radically alters it usual course to a flat trajectory. If a batsman is dismissed as a result, it's often called a "freak ball" or "freak dismissal". Of course if a ball is delivered underarm a rat is easy to effect but if a batsman knows one is coming, while it's hard to score from, it's very easy to defend against. The most infamous mullygrubber was bowled at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) on 1 February 1981 when, with New Zealand needing to score six (by hitting the ball, on the full, over the boundary) of the final delivery of the match, the Australian bowler sent down an underarm delivery, the mullygrubber denying the batsman the opportunity to score and securing an Australian victory. Although then permissible within the rules, it was hardly in the spirit of the game and consequently, the regulations were changed.
The Ram Air Turbine
The airline manufacturers have been exploring whether on-board
fuel-cell technology can be adapted to negate the need for RAT, at least in the
smaller, single-aisle aircraft where the weight of such a unit might be equal
to or less than the RAT equipment. The
attraction of housing in an airliner's wing-body fairing is it would be a step
towards the long-term goal of eliminating an airliner's liquid-fuelled auxiliary
turbine power unit. Additionally, if the
size-weight equation could be achieved, there’s the operational advantage that a
fuel-cell is easier to test than a RAT because, unlike the RAT, the fuel-cell can
be tested without having to power-up most of the system. The physics would also be attractive, the
power from a fuel cell higher at lower altitudes where as the output of a RAT
declines as airspeed decreases, a potentially critical matter given it’s during
the relatively slow approach to a landing that power is needed to extend the trailing
edge of the wing flaps and operate other controls.
If the weight and dimensions of the fuel cell is at least "comparable"
to a RAT and the safety and durability testing is successful, at least on
smaller aircrafts, fuel-cells might be an attractive option for new aircraft
although, at this stage, the economics of retro-fitting are unlikely to be compelling. Longer term research is also looking at a continuously
running fuel cell producing oxygen-depleted exhaust gas for fuel-tank inerting (a safety system that reduces the risk of combustion in aircraft fuel tanks by lowering the oxygen concentration in the ullage (the space above the fuel) to below the level needed to support a fire, typically by replacing oxygen with an inert gas like nitrogen),
and water for passenger amenities, thereby meaning an aircraft could be operated
on the on the ground without burning any jet-fuel, the fuel-cell providing
power for air conditioning and electrical systems.
The only rocket-powered fighter ever used in combat, the Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet had a small RAT in the nose to provide electrical power. The early prototypes of the somewhat more successful (and much more influential) Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter also had a propeller in the nose for the first test flights but it wasn't a a RAT; it was attached to a piston engine which was there as an emergency backup because of the chronic unreliability of the early jet engines. It proved a wise precaution, the jets failing on more than one occasion.
1974 Suzuki's air-cooled GT380 Sebring with Ram Air System (left) and 1975 Suzuki GT750 with water-cooling (right).
The other “Ram Air” was Suzuki’s RAS (Ram Air System), fitted to the GT380 Sebring (1972-1980) and GT550 Indy (1972-1977) as well as (off and on) several version of the smaller two-cylinder models. It wasn’t used on the water-cooled GT750 Le Mans (1972-1977) because the radiator acted to impede the airflow to the engine.
The GT380, GT550 and GT750 were two-stroke triples noted for an unusual 3-into-4 exhaust system which the central header-pipe was bifurcated, thus permitting four tail-pipes. There was no justification in engineering for this (indeed it added cost and weight) and it existed purely for visual effect, allowing an emulation of the look on the four-cylinder Hondas and Kawasakis. Ironically, despite the additional metal, the asymmetric 3-into-3 system on the Kawasaki triples (1969-1976) is better remembered although the charismatic (if sometimes lethal) qualities of the machines may be a factor in that; exhaust systems do exert a powerful fascination for motor-cyclists. The RAS was nothing more than a cast aluminum shroud fixed atop the cylinder head to direct air-flow, enhancing upper cylinder cooling. The “ram air” idea had been used in the 1960s by car manufacturers to “force feed” cool air directly into induction systems and when tested it did in certain circumstances increase power but whether Suzuki's RAS delivered more efficient cooling isn’t clear. When the twin-cylinder GT250 Hustler (1971-1981 and thus pre-dating the pornography magazine Hustler, first published in 1974) was revised in 1976, the RAS was deleted and replaced by conventional fins without apparent ill-effect but the RAS was light, cheap to produce, maintenance-free and looked sexy so some advantages were certainly there. Interestingly, the companion GT185 (1973-1978) retained the RAS for the model’s entire production.
Big and small-block Chevrolet V8s: the Rat and the Mouse
Small and big-block Chevrolet V8s compared, the small-block (mouse) to the left in each image, the big-block (rat) to the right.
Mouse and rat are informal terms used respectively to refer to the classic small (1955-2003) and big-block Chevrolet V8s (1958-2021). The small-block was first named after a rodent although the origin is contested; either it was (1) an allusion to “mighty mouse” a popular cartoon character of the 1950s, the idea being the relatively small engine being able to out-perform many bigger units from other manufacturers or (2) an allusion to the big, heavy Chrysler Hemi V8s (the first generation (Firepower) 331 cubic inch (5.4 litre), 354 (5.8) & 392 (6.4) versions) being known as “the elephant”, the idea based on the widely held belief elephants are scared of mice (which may actually be true although the reason appears not to be the long repeated myth it’s because they fear the little rodents might climb up their trunk). Zoologically, "bee" might have been a better choice; elephants definitely are scared of bees. The mouse (small-block) and rat (big-block) distinction is simple to understand: the big block is externally larger although, counterintuitively, the internal displacement of some mouse motors was greater than some rats.
Whether that seeming anomaly (actually common throughout the industry during the big-block era) amused or disturbed the decision-makers at Chevrolet isn't known but in 1970 when the small block 400 (6.6) was introduced, simultaneously the big-block 396 (6.5) was enlarged to 402 (6.6) but the corporation then muddied the waters by continuing to call the 402 a "Turbo-Jet 396" when fitted to the intermediate class Chevelle, the rationale presumably that "SS 396" had such strong "brand recognition". Available since 1965, by 1969 the SS 396 Chevelle was finally out-selling the Pontiac GTO (which in 1964 had seeded the muscle car movement) so the attachment was understandable. Further to confuse people, the 400 was advertised as the "Turbo-Fire 400" while if fitted to the full-size line, the 402 was called the "Turbo-Jet 400". Presumably, the assumption was anyone understanding the 400 & 402 ecosystems would buy the one they wanted while those not in the know would neither notice nor care. Nor was the deviation in displacement between what was on the badge and what lay beneath the hood (bonnet) exclusive to Chevrolet, there being a long list of things not quite what was on the label although the true specifications usually were listed in the documentation and even the advertising. The variations occurred for a number of reasons but rarely was there an attempt to deceive, even if sometimes things were left unstated or relegated to the small print.
The “428
Cobra Matter”
That’s not
to say there were no disputes about the difference between what was “in the
tin” compared with what was “on the tin”.
In June 1969, a certain Mr Karl Francis “Fritz” Schiffmayer (1935-2010) of
Lake Zurich, Illinois, wrote to Ford’s customer relations department
complaining about the “427 Ford Cobra” he had purchased (as a new car)
from a Chicago “Ford
Dealer”. What disappointed Mr
Shiffmayer was the performance which didn’t match the widely publicized numbers
achieved by many testers and, perhaps more to the point, he found his “$8500 Super Ford
could barely keep up with” various $5000 Chevrolets. For a Ford driver, few things could be more depressing. Upon investigation, he discovered that despite
“‘427’ signs
all over the engine and the front fenders”, his car was not “a ‘427’ as
advertised and labelled but a ‘428’”. Both V8s were around seven litres but were in
many ways not comparable.
Mr Shiffmayer's letter to Ford, 23 June 1969.
Notionally,
Mr Shiffmayer got more than he paid for (ie 428 v 427 is nominally an extra
cubic inch) and had he bought a dozen (12) bread rolls from the bakery and been
supplied a “baker’s dozen” (13) there’d have been no grounds for complaint
because bread rolls are a “fungible” (ie functionally identical) so getting 13
is always better than getting 12 at the same price. However, the 427 and 428 engines, although
from the same FE (Ford-Edsel) family and externally similar (until closely
inspected), were very different internally with the former notably more
oversquare (ie big-bore) and fitted with cross-bolted main bearings;
additionally, the 427s used in the Cobras featured “side-oiling”, a more
extensive system of lubrication which afforded priority deliver of oil to the
bottom-end, making the engine more robust and better suited to the extreme
demands of competition. By contrast, the
a Cobra’s 428 was a modified version of the “Police Interceptor 428”, a
high-output edition of a powerplant usually found in Ford’s full-sized line
including luxury cars and station wagons where it’s smoothness and effortless
low-speed torque was appreciated. The
“Police Interceptor” specification was literally that: the engine used by law
enforcement in highway patrol vehicles and for street use, it offered a useful
lift in performance but it was not suitable for racetracks. Later, Ford would “mix & match” the 427
& 428 to create the 428 Cobra Jet, the 427’s heads, intake manifold and
some other “bolt-on” bits & pieces creating a combination of power and
torque close to ideal for ¼ mile (402 m) runs down drag strips although even
then Ford cheated, under-rating the output so the cars would be placed in a
different category. That year, in drag
racing, the 428 Cobra Jet Mustangs dominated their class which prompted the
sanctioning body to change the rules, imposing their own nominal output ratings
rather than accepting those of the manufacturer. Still, even the Cobra Jet 428 remained
suitable only for street and strip because ¼ mile runs were done in a straight
line and, without the cross-bolting and enhanced lubrication, it wouldn’t have matched
the 427’s ability to endure the extreme lateral forces encountered on high-speed
circuits.
AC Shelby Cobra CSX3209 after 427 transplant.
That “427
Cobras” with 428 engines even existed was a product of circumstances rather
than planning. Although now million
dollar collectables, it’s sometimes forgotten the 427 Cobra was a commercial
failure and that meant production numbers never reached the levels required for
homologation to be granted for competition in the category for which it was
intended so as well as not selling as well as the small block predecessors on
which the model’s reputation was built, nor did the seven litre version ever
match its success on the track. When it
came time to build the second batch of 100 427 Cobras, the engine was in short
supply because the intricacies in construction, coupled with the wider bore
being at the limit the block would accommodate (at the foundry, with a slight
shifting of the casting cores, a 427 block would have to be scrapped), it was
expensive to produce and inconvenient for Ford to schedule in the small batches
the sales supported. The cheap,
mass-produced 428 Police Interceptor was both readily available and half the
cost so it was an attractive alternative for Shelby and that it bolted straight
without needing any changes made it more desirable still; thus 428-powered “427s”. For the final run of 48, Shelby procured from
Ford genuine 427 side-oilers so the 100 428s were a minority of the big-blocks
used and many have since been converted (“rectified” some prefer to say) with
the substitution of a 427.
Interestingly, four of the 428s were fitted with automatic transmissions
which actually made them more-suitable for street use but nobody seems subsequently
have done this as a modification.
Shelby American's reply to Mr Shiffmayer, 21 July 1969.
As it was, As it was, Mr Shiffmayer decided to persevere and kept Shelby Cobra CSX3209 until he died, in the 1970s replacing the 428 with a specially built “tunnel port” (a trick with the pushrods to optimize the fluid dynamics of the fuel-air flow) 427. Whether he was impressed with the reply (Ford referred his letter to Shelby American) he received in response to his complaint isn’t known but it’s an interesting document for a number of reasons:
(1) “…during the five year existence of the Cobra, three engines were used, the 289, the 427 and the 428.” Actually, the first 75 used the 260.
(2) “Only a very few of the 959 Cobras built contained the 427 engine.” Actually of the 998 built (in fairness this wasn’t in 1969 the agreed “final count” but it’s hard to understand how 959 was calculated) more than 150 had the 427 and whether this constitutes “very few” is debatable but it’s also not relevant to the complaint.
(3) “The 427 is a nomenclature such as the GT-500 is for the Shelby car. It does not relate to the cubic displacement of the engine. We are sorry that this misunderstanding occurred.” Actually, when the Cobra 427 was released, “427” was a direct reference to displacement. The “GT500” label was never likely to cause a “misunderstanding” because (1) there was no Ford 500 cid engine and (2) the GT500 was always advertised as being equipped with the 428.
Indisputably as labeled: 1966 Shelby 427 S/C Cobra (CSX 3040). In 2018, it sold at auction for US$2,947,500.
So, the letter from Shelby really wasn’t a great deal of help (it was dated the day after man set foot on the moon so perhaps the writer's attention was divided). Were such a case now to go to court several matters would need to be considered:
Was it notorious (ie widely known; common knowledge) in the circles of potential purchasers of such a car that some were powered by 427s and some by 428s and the differences between the two were well documented? According to some sources, it was only after the “428 Cobra matter” began to attract comment that sales literature was updated to reflect the changed specification while others maintain publication was concurrent with production.
Was the fact the car had only “427” badges an indication of which engine was fitted or just a “model name” al la the Shelby GT500 (which used a 428) & GT350 (which used either a 289 or 302 (and later a 351))? That originally (in 1965) “427” was a reference to the 427 engine seem incontestable but the question would be whether this changed to a mere “model name” when the 428 was adopted. It would seem the evidential onus of proof of that would rest with Shelby American.
When making the decision to purchase, did the buyer rely on representations from an authority (in this case a “Ford dealer”) which might reasonably have been expected to (1) possess and (2) communicate all relevant facts? In that matter, the court would need to consider whether, in the circumstances, there is any substantive difference between a “Ford dealer” and a “Shelby franchised dealer”. This would be decided by (1) any competing claims from the parties and (2) what documents were supplied prior to or at the point of purchase.
Is it relevant that in 1966-1967 when Ford offered both the 427 & 428 in the Galaxie, that car was sold as the “7 Litre” (they really did use the French spelling) irrespective of which seven litre (427 or 428) V8 was fitted? Given that, should the Cobra have been thus labelled and was the continued use of the 427 badge a misrepresentation in 428-powered cars?
Was the dealer aware of the buyer’s background? Mr Shiffmayer was (1) an engineer with a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Wisconsin and (2) he was not only an owner of a 289 Shelby Cobra but also raced it with notable success. If the dealer was aware of those facts that doesn’t absolve them of a responsibility fully to disclose all relevant information but a court could consider it a mitigating factor. If the dealer was aware those facts, what would then have to be considered is whether it would have been reasonable for it to be assumed the buyer either knew of the mechanical details or could reasonably have been expected to know.
Evidence: Shelby American "Shelby Cobra 427" spec sheet listing the 428 as the engine, thereby suggesting "427" was a model name rather than a reference to a specific engine. The significance of this document rests on whether it appeared before or after Shelby American began selling 428 powered Cobras.
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