Caprice (pronounced kuh-prees)
(1) A
sudden, unpredictable change, as of one's mind or the weather.
(2) A
tendency to change one's mind without apparent or adequate motive;
whimsicality; capriciousness; a disposition to be impulsive.
(3) In
music, as capriccio, a term for a kind of free composition.
(4) A
brief (and hopefully torrid) romance; a fling
(5) A
model name used by General Motors (GM) in several markets.
1660-1670:
From the French caprice (whim) & capricieux (whimsical), from the Italian
capriccioso from capriccio (a shivering), possibly from capro (goat), from the Latin capreolus
(wild goat). Another theory, drawn from folk
etymology, connects the Italian compound capo
(head) + riccio (hedgehog) suggesting
a convulsive shudder in which the hair stood on end like a hedgehog's spines. The application in musical composition to
describe a kind of free composition dates from the 1690s, the sense drawn from
the Italian capriccio (the music
characterized by a “sudden start or motion”); earlier it meant "a prank, a
trick". The closest synonym is
probably whim but vagary, notion, fancy & fling can, depending on context, summon
a similar meaning. An act of caprice
differs from a fiat in that the latter, although it may be arbitrary, is an authoritative
sanction issued by those vested with a certain legal authority. The descendents include the Danish kaprice, the German Caprice and the Romanian: capriciu. Caprice & capriciousness are nouns,
capricious is an adjective and capriciously is an adverb; the noun plural is
caprices.
Famously capricious in her youth, Lindsay Lohan is now a mature and responsible mother.
Ford, and the rest of the industry, learned much from the Edsel debacle of the late 1950s. Although unlucky to be launched into the teeth of the worst recession of the post-war boom, mistakes in conception, design and production had been many and may anyway have been enough to kill the thing. The lessons learned had been expensive, depending on the source, a loss between US$250-300 million is usually quoted and that was at a time when a million dollars was a lot of money although how much of that loss was real or a product of taking advantage of accounting rules has never been clear. None of the most expensive aspects to design and build (1) engine, (2) transmission, (3) suspension, (4) body platforms and (5) assembly plant production lines were unique to the Edsel, all being shared variously with other Ford, Mercury and Lincoln models; surprisingly little was exclusive to the Edsel, indeed that sameness was one of the complaints about a car which Ford had puffed-up as “all new”. That essentially left interior and exterior trim, body panels, marketing and the distribution network to pay for. Ford certainly lost a lot of money on the Edsel but perhaps not quite as much as the books suggest. Still, it was a big loss and the corporate capriciousness wasn’t repeated in the 1960s. The Edsel had been a bad implementation of a sound concept: a spread of brand-identities across a market with a wide price-spread so a corporation can achieve economies of scale using many of the same resources to produce products which to compete both at the low-end on cost-breakdown and in segments where prestige or exclusivity matters. Ford’s notion was that General Motors (GM) and Chrysler were at the time better able to cover the market because both had more brand-names, GM having five: Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick & Cadillac as did Chrysler: Plymouth, Dodge, De Soto, Chrysler & Imperial. Ford had only three: Ford, Mercury & Lincoln (the short-lived Continental Division (1956-1957) a failure).
Thus
the attraction of adding another, an idea which worked well with products like
washing powder although, in the auto industry, costs tended to be higher and
the model wasn’t essential to cover a broad market, Mercedes-Benz for decades
successfully using the one brand for diesel taxis, trucks small and large,
Formula One racing cars and cars up to the grandest limousines. Indeed, the idea by Daimler-Benz to resurrect
adopt the long moribund Maybach name to sit atop the range was a failure,
reflecting the misunderstanding by the MBA-types involved of the value of the
Mercedes-Benz brand which had been acceptable for kings, queens, popes,
presidents and potentates. Only salesmen
with no background would think dotcom millionaires and the other newly-rich
would be more attracted to Maybach than Mercedes. Another brand might not have been a bad idea
but Maybach should have been positioned as a platform for the front wheel drive
and other categories which, frankly have only devalued the three-pointed star;
while some have been good cars, they simply were not Mercedes-Benz as they once were understood.
Nor is
the idea infinitely scalable. GM at one
time had nine divisions and the pattern evolved that the brand names tend to
appear in times of economic buoyancy (al la Edsel) and disappear during or
after recessions (Edsel & De Soto after 1958; Imperial after the first oil
shock, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Mercury and Plymouth in the wake of the global
financial crisis from 2008). So, while
the 1960s were about the most buoyant years yet, Ford didn’t repeat quite the
mistake though they certainly repeated one aspect of the Edsel debacle although
the implications of that wouldn’t play out for decades.
1965 Ford LTD.
In
1965, Ford reverted to the business model which had worked in pre-Edsel times
and introduced the LTD as an up-market option for their full-sized
Galaxie. It seemed a good idea at the
time and it was, the option proving popular with customers and lucrative for Ford,
the option package costing about US$175 to install yet it added some US$335 to
the sticker price and the psychology of turning the mainstream Ford into a “luxury
car” seemed also to exert a pull on the buyers’ wallets because it was possible
to work through the option list and add some 30% to the bottom line. Unlike most Galaxie customers, LTD buyers
were inclined to tick the boxes. Even at
the time, although generally impressed with the thing (and in fairness to Ford much
attention had been devoted to some basic engineering to ensure it was quieter
and smoother than before), reviewers did ponder quite what the effect of moving
a Ford up-market would be on the companion Mercury Division, positioned since
1938 as up-market from Ford, yet well short of Lincoln. The corporation aimed to solve that problem by
maintaining some differentiation between the two brands and to some degree this
worked for decades but eventually the point of maintaining three distinct
layers had ceased to have value for Ford and in 2011 Mercury was shuttered.
1965 Ford LTD.
The LTD
(it apparently meant “Lincoln Type Design” and not “Limited”) did though have
quite an effect on the completion with the entry level ranges of others soon
augmented with similar options.
Chevrolet called their effort the “Caprice”, Plymouth, like Ford”
preferred a TLA (three letter acronym) and opted for “VIP” while AMC used “DLP”
which apparently stood for “Diplomat”. Of
them all, only the Caprice and the LTD endured but the concept overtook the
industry which switched increasingly to adding variations of their basic models
with as many “luxury” fittings added as the budget would permit. There were critics at the time who criticized
all this as “gingerbread” but buyers responded and soon tufted, pillowed upholstery
in crushed velour or even leather could be had in even the most humble showrooms. A popular name for such models was “Brougham”,
borrowed from a nineteenth century horse-drawn carriage named after a member of
the UK’s House of Lords and even if most weren’t aware of the etymology, they
knew it sounded suitably aristocratic which was all that mattered. What came in retrospect to be known as the “brougham
era” lasted into the 1980s.
1969 Chevrolet Caprice four-door hardtop.
While never
the biggest sellers, dealers liked to have four-door hardtops on display
because of the perception they generated showroom traffic and although the
collector market prefers two-doors (especially convertibles), the four-door
hardtops were often Detroit’s most ascetically successful coachwork for
full-sized cars. In 1969, Chevrolet
restricted the Caprice range to two & four door hardtops because the more
elaborate interior trim (compared to the cheaper Biscayne, Bel Air &
Impala) was more susceptible to sun damage which precluded offering a
convertible. That may have been the
reason why in the same era some European manufacturers switched from timber
veneer to leather for some vulnerable surfaces in a few convertibles although
the published explanations were sometime different. Improvements in the durability of materials
meant that when the revised range was released in 1973, a convertible Caprice
was added to the range.
1981 Holden WB Caprice.
Holden,
the General Motors operation in Australia began selling their own Caprice in
1974. In the tradition it was a more elaborately-appointed
version of an existing model and in GM tradition replaced an existing badge as
the top-of-the-range, the Statesman de Ville relegated to become the
entry-level of the long-wheelbase cars, the basic Statesman (always aimed at
the hire-car business) retired, mirroring Ford which dropped its Fairlane
Custom and, adding a Marquis (a name borrowed from Mercury) as a Caprice
competitor atop the Fairlane 500. The
Statesman & Caprice never quite matched the appeal of the competition but
it did go out in surprisingly fine style, the WB range (1980-1984) a remarkably
successful re-styling of the HQ-HJ-HX-HZ platform (1971-1980) which endured for
almost half a decade after the smaller, Opel-based Commodore had replaced the
mainstream models. Developed in unusual
secrecy, Holden were miffed to learn Ford’s ZJ Fairlane & FC LTD (released
in 1979) had beaten them to the market by six months and included the additional
side window they’d hoped would make such a splash on the WB. Instead, they made much of the Caprice having
a grill made from steel. Not that long
before, all grills had been made from steel but most had long switched to extruded
plastic so to have one genuinely hand-assembled in steel was a point of
differentiation although the public response was muted. Despite the age of the platform, the
attention to the underpinnings which began to be taken seriously after 1977
meant the thing was a capable, if thirsty road car and among the dedicated
customer base, there was genuine regret when production ended in 1984. In 1990, Holden revived the name for a
stretched Commodore (some of which were even exported to the US and the Middle
East to be sold as Chevrolets) and production continued until the Australian operation
was shuttered in 2017.
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