Zephyr (pronounced zef-uhr (U) or zef-er (non-U))
(1) A
gentle, mild breeze, considered the most pleasant of winds.
(2) As
a literary device, the west wind personified which should be used with an
initial capital letter and not capitalized if referring to some gentle waft.
(3) Any
of various things of fine, light quality (fabric, yarn etc), most often applied
to wool.
(4) The
usual (Westernised) spelling of Ζεφυρος (Zéphuros or Zéphyros), the Greek and
Roman god of the west wind. The Roman name
was Zephyrus, Favonius.
(5) A
model name used on various cars produced by the Ford Motor Company, including
some under the Lincoln and (the now defunct) Mercury brands.
Circa
1350: From the Middle English zeferus
& zephirus, from the Old English zefferus, from the Latin zephyrus, from the
Ancient Greek Ζέφυρος (Zéphuros or Zéphyros) (the west wind), probably from
the Greek root zophos (the west, the
dark region, darkness, gloom). The Latin
Zephyrus was the source also of zéphire
(French), zefiro (Spanish) and zeffiro (Italian). The plural is zephyrs and the derived term is
zephyrette (capitalised and not); the
alternative spellings were zephir
& zefir. The casual use in meteorology dates from
circa 1600. While, as Zephyr,
classically something warm, mild and occidental, zephyr can be used to refer to
any gentle breeze or waft where the wish is to suggest a wind not strong as in
a gust, gale, cyclone, blast, typhoon or tempest, the adjectival form being zephyrean.
In Greek mythology, Ζεφυρος (transliterated as Zéphuros
or Zéphyros) was the god of the west wind, one of the four seasonal Anemoi (wind-gods),
the others being his brothers Notus (god of the south wind), Eurus (god of the
east wind) and Boreas (god of the east wind). The Greek myths offer many variations of the life
of Zephyrus, the offspring of Astraeus & Eos in some versions and of Gaia
in other stories while there were many wives, depending on the story in which
he was featured. Despite that, he’s also
sometimes referred to as the “god of the gay”, based on the famous tale of Zephyrus
& Hyakinthos (Hyacinthus or Hyacinth).
Hyacinth was a Spartan youth, an alluring prince renowned for his beauty
and athleticism and he caught the eye of both of both Zephyrus and Apollo (the god
of sun and light) and the two competed fiercely for the boy’s affections. It was Apollo whose charms proved more
attractive which left Zephyrus devastated and in despair. One day, Zephyrus chanced upon the sight of Apollo
and Hyacinth in a meadow, throwing a discus and, blind with anger, sent a great
gust of wind at the happy couple, causing the discus to strike Hyacinth
forcefully in the head, inflicting a mortal injury. Stricken with grief, as Hyacinth lay dying in
his arms, Apollo transformed the blood trickling to the soil into the hyacinth
(larkspur), flower which would forever bloom in memory of his lost, beautiful
boy. Enraged, Apollo sought vengeance but Zephyrus was protected by Eros, the god
of love, on what seems the rather technical legal point of the intervention of
Zephyrus being an act of love. There was
however a price to be paid for this protection, Zephyrus now pledged to serve
Eros for eternity and the indebted god of the west wind soon received his first
task. There are other tales of how Cupid and Psyche came to marry but in this one, with uncharacteristic clumsiness, Cupid
accidently shot himself with one of his own arrows of love while gazing upon
the nymph Psyche and it was Zephyrus who kidnapped her, delivering his abducted
prize to Cupid to be his bride.
Zephyros was in classical art most often depicted as a
handsome, winged youth and a large number of surviving Greek vases are painted
with unlabeled figures of a winged god embracing a youth and these are usually
identified as Zephyros and Hyakinthos although, some historians detecting
detail differences list a number of them as being of Eros (the god of Love)
with a symbolic youth. Although sometimes
rendered as a winged god clothed in a green robe and crowned with a wreath of
flowers, in Greco-Roman mosaics, Zephyros appears usually in the guise of
spring personified, carrying a basket of unripened fruit. In some stories, he is reported to be the
husband of Iris, the goddess of the rainbow and Hera’s messenger and in others,
Podarge the harpy (also known as Celano) is mentioned as the wife of Zephyrus
but in most of the myths he was married to Chloris. Chloris by most accounts was an Oceanid nymph
and in the tradition of Boreas & Orithyia and Cupid and Psyche, Zephyrus
made Chloris his wife by abduction, making her the goddess of flowers, for she
was the Greek equivalent of Flora, and living with her husband, enjoyed a life
of perpetual spring.
In the inter-war era, the finest of
the big American cars, the Cadillacs, Lincolns, Packards and Duesenbergs, offered
craftsmanship the equal of anything made in Europe and engineering which was
often more innovative. The 1930s however
were difficult times and by mid-decade, sales of the big K-Series Lincolns, the
KA (385 cubic inch (6.3 litre) V8) and KB (448 cubic inch (6.3 litre) V12) were
falling. Ford responded by designing a smaller,
lighter Lincoln range to bridge the gap between the most expensive Ford and the
lower-priced K-Series Lincolns, the intention originally to power it with an
enlarged version of the familiar Ford V8 but family scion Edsel Ford
(1893–1943; president of the Ford Motor Company 1919-1943), decided instead to
develop a V12, wanting both a point of differentiation and a link to K-Series
which had gained for Lincoln a formidable reputation for power and durability. Develop may however be the wrong word, the
new engine really a reconfiguration of the familiar Ford V8, the advantage in that
approach being it was cheaper than an entirely new engine, the drawback the
compromises and flaws of the existing unit were carries over and in some aspects,
due to the larger size and greater internal friction, exaggerated.
The V12 however was not just V8 with
four additional pistons, the block cast with a vee-angle of 75o
rather than the eight’s 90o, a compromise between compactness and the
space required for a central intake manifold and the unusual porting arrangement
for the exhaust gases. The ideal
configuration for a V12 is 60o and without staggered throws on the
crankshaft, the 75o angle yielded uneven firing impulses, although,
being a relatively slow and low-revving unit, the engine was felt acceptably
smooth. The cylinder banks used the
traditional staggered arrangement, permitting the con-rods to ride side-by-side
on the crank and retained the Ford V-8’s 3.75 inch (90.7 mm) stroke but used a small
bore of just 2.75 inches (69.75 mm), then the smallest of any American car then
in production, yielding a displacement of 267 cubic inches (4.4 litres), a
lower capacity than many of the straight-eights and V8s then on the market.
The V12 was introduced in 1936 in the new Lincoln Zephyr, the name chosen to emphasize the wind-cheating qualities of the modernist styling which, with a raked windscreen and integrated fenders, was among the more successful of the streamlined, aerodynamic designs which followed the Chrysler Airflows which had encountered such market resistance. A relatively low-weight and the presumed aerodynamic efficiency permitted more than respectable performance by the standards of the time but the engine did suffer teething troubles. Because the exhaust system was routed through the block to four ports on each side of the engine, cooling was from the beginning the problem it had been on the Ford V8, only on a larger scale. Although the cooling system had an apparently impressive six-gallon (22.7 litre) capacity, it quickly became clear this was under certain conditions marginal and the radiator grill was soon extended to increase airflow. Nor was lubrication initially satisfactory, the original oil pump found to be unable to maintain pressure when wear developed on the many bearing surfaces; it was replaced with one that could move an additional gallon (3.79 litre) a minute. Most problems were resolved during the first year of production and the market responded to the cylinder count, competitive price and styling; after struggling to sell not even 4000 of the big KAs in 1935, Lincoln produced nearly 18,000 Zephyrs in 1936, sales growing to over 25,000 the following year. Production between 1942-1946 would be interrupted by the war but by the time the last was built in 1948, by which time it had been enlarged to 292 cubic inches (4.8 litre (there was in 1946, briefly, a 306 cubic inch (5.0 litre) version) over 200,000 had been made, making it the most successful of the American V12s. It was an impressive number, more than matching the 161,583 Jaguar built over a quarter of a century (1971-1997) and only Daimler-Benz has made more, their count including both those used in Mercedes-Benz cars and the the DB-60X inverted V12 aero-engines famous for their wartime service with the Luftwaffe.
Lincoln ceased to use the Zephyr name after 1942, the V12 cars after then advertised simply as Lincolns, distinguished in name only by the coachwork. The Zephyr badge was in 1950 revived by Ford of England for their line of mainstream family cars, augmented after 1953 by an up-market version called the Zodiac, noted for its bling. The first three generations (1950-1966) were well-regarded (the Mark III (1962-1966) in most ways a superior car to the contemporary US Ford Falcon) and enjoyed success in both the home and export markets but the Mark IV (1966-1972), despite a tantalizingly advanced specification and offering a lot of metal for the money, proved so ghastly the name was retired when the range was replaced. Not having suffered the tainted Mark IV Zephyrs, Ford felt it safe to recycle the Zephyr name in the US, firstly on the bland Mercury clone (1978-1983) of the (US) Ford Fairmont and finally, for a single year in 2006, on an undistinguished Lincoln which was almost immediately re-branded the MKZ. There have been no Zephyrs since.
Lindsay Lohan resisting a zephyr's efforts to induce a wardrobe malfunction, MTV Movie Awards, Los Angeles, 2008.
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