Blackwing (pronounced blak-wing)
(1) In
zoology (mostly ornithology, entomology & ichthyology), a widely used
descriptor of birds, insects, certain water-dwellers and the odd bat.
(2) As
Blackwing 602, a pencil with a cult following, manufactured by the Eberhard
Faber between 1934-1988, by Faber-Castell 1988 to 1994 and by Sanford
1994-1998. A visually (though not
technically) similar pencil has since 2012 been produced by Palomino.
(3) A
high-performance V8 engine manufactured by the Cadillac division of General
Motors (GM) between 2018-2020. Cadillac
continues to use Blackwing name for the some of its sedans.
1100s
(originally of birds, first informally, later in formal taxonomy): The
construct was black + wing. Black (In
the sense of the “color”) was from the Middle English blak, black & blake,
from the Old English blæc (black,
dark (also "ink”)), from the Proto-West Germanic blak, from the Proto-Germanic blakaz
(burnt (and related to the Dutch blaken
(to burn)), from the Low German blak & black (blackness, black paint,
(black) ink), from the Old High German blah
(black), which may be from the primitive Indo-European bhleg- (to burn, shine). The
forms may be compared with the Latin flagrāre
(to burn), the Ancient Greek φλόξ (phlóx)
(flame) and Sanskrit भर्ग (bharga) (radiance). Black in this context was “a color” lacking hue
and brightness, one which absorbs light without reflecting any of the rays
composing it. In the narrow technical
sense, black is an absolute (absorbing light without reflecting any of the rays
composing it) but in general use, as a descriptor or color, expressions of
graduation or tincture are used, thus the comparative is blacker and the
superlative blackest. The usual synonyms
are ebony, sable, inky, sooty, dusky & dark while the antonym is white. Wing (in the sense used in “flight”) was from
the twelfth century Middle English winge
& wenge, from the Old Norse vængr (wing of a flying animal, wing of
a building), from the Proto-Germanic wēingijaz,
from the primitive Indo-European hweh-
(to blow (thus the link with “wind”)).
It was cognate with the Old Danish wingæ
(wing), the Norwegian & Swedish vinge
(wing), the Old Norse vǣngr and the Icelandic vængur (wing). It replaced
the native Middle English fither,
from the Old English fiþre, from the Proto-Germanic
fiþriją (which merged with the Middle
English fether (from the Old English feþer, from the Proto-Germanic feþrō)). The original use was of birds but this quickly
extended to things where a left-right distinction was useful such as
architecture, sport and military formations (later extended to organizational
structures in air forces). Blackwing is
a noun & adjective; the noun plural is blackwings. In commercial use, as a registered trademark,
an initial capital is used.
Quite why Cadillac (the premium brand of General Motors (GM) since 1909) chose the seemingly improbable “Blackwing” as a name for an engine and later the premium, high-performance versions (the V-Series) of its sedans (a now rare body-style in North America) is said to date to the very origin of the brand, more than a century earlier. It was to recall the stylized black birds which appeared on the corporate crest first in 1902 (although not widely used until 2005 and trademarked in 1906). That escutcheon was adopted as a tribute to the French explorer (some are less generous in their descriptions) Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac (1658-1730) who in 1701 founded the settlement which became the city of Detroit.
Evolution of the Cadillac Crest: Antoine Laumet's original (and dubious) family crest (top left), A early Cadillac from 1905 (top centre), from a 1960 Coupe DeVille (top right), with the restored laurel wreath on the unfortunate vinyl roof of a 1968's Eldorado (bottom left), a post 2014 version without couronne & merelettes (bottom centre) and the current versions (bottom right), the black & white edition an illuminated badge created to mark the transition to electric propulsion; it's currently available as an option on petrol vehicles. The illuminated grill badge was a trick long used by the English manufacturer Wolseley (1901-1975).
Although
of bourgeois origin and having departed France surreptitiously after “some unpleasantness”, shortly after
arriving in the new world, Antoine Laumet re-invented himself, adopting a title
of nobility named after the town of Cadillac in south-west France and in some
histories, it wasn’t unusual for him to claim some vague descent from the royal
line, a story common among many of Europe’s aristocratic families and his
“family crest” was wholly his own invention.
Such things were possible then.
The Cadillac company modified the crest but retained the most
distinctive elements: (1) The couronne (crown
(from the Old French corone, from the
Latin corōna, from the Ancient Greek
κορώνη (korṓnē)) symbolized the six ancient courts of France;
(2) The pearls (which appeared in various numbers on both the family &
corporate versions) signified a family descended from the royal counts of
Toulouse; (3) The shield denoted the military traditions of a noble family, the
“warrior symbol” one of the most commonly used in heraldry while (4) The black
birds were known as merlettes (an adaptation of the martin), mythical small birds
without beaks or feet and never touching the ground, always in flight; they
represent a constant striving for excellence, and when presented as a trio,
referenced the Holy Trinity and thus a family’s adherence to Christianity. The merelettes appeared often on the standards
flown by knights during the late Medieval Christian Crusades staged to recapture
the Holy Land but they didn’t disappear from the Cadillac crest in deference to
sensibilities in the Middle East (a market of increasing value to GM). Like the crown, the black birds were removed
in 2000 as a part of a modernization exercise, the aim to achieve something “sharper and sleeker”, the more angular
look of the new “Art and Science”
philosophy of design. “Art and Science”
was from the class of slogans campaign directors of corporations and political
parties adore because they mean nothing in particular while sounding like they must
mean something.
A Cadillac Escalade driven by Lindsay Lohan receiving a parking infringement notice (US$70) for obstructing access to a fire hydrant, Los Angeles, September 2011. The crest’s laurel wreath would remain until 2014 but the merelettes had been removed a decade earlier.
Cadillac
over the years made may detail changes to the corporate crest and structurally,
the most significant addition came in 1963 when an almost enclosing laurel
wreath returned (it had been there in 1902 but was gone by 1908, returning for
a run between 1916-1925) and it proved the most enduring design thus far,
maintained until 2014. It clearly had
some cross-cultural appeal because in 1971 Holden (GM’s no defunct Australian
outpost) made a point of issuing a press release informing the country “special permission” had been received
from Detroit for them to borrow the wreath to surround the Holden crest on
their new HQ Statesman de Ville, a car so special that nowhere on the thing did
the word “Holden” appear, the same marketing trick Toyota would three decades
on apply to the Lexus. What has remained
constant throughout are the core colors and, according to Cadillac, black
against gold symbolizes riches and wisdom; red means boldness and prowess in
action; silver denotes purity, virtue, plenty and charity while blue stand for
knightly valor. Behind the and crest,
the background is platinum (a high-value metal) and the whole combination is
said to have been influenced by Piet Mondrian (1872–1944), a Dutch
artist noted for his work with color and geometric shapes.
The elegant black-winged Damselfly, one of dozens of insects, birds, aquatic creatures and the odd bat known as the “black-winged” something. One of some 150 species of Calopterygidae, the taxonomic name is Calopteryx maculata and the stylish little mosquito muncher is commonly found in North America, its other common name the ebony jewelwing.
Cadillac’s
all aluminium Blackwing V8 was designed with an AMG-like specification which
would once have seemed exotic to Cadillac owners. Built in a single basic configuration, it
featured a displacement of 4.2 litres (256 cubic inches), double overhead
camshafts (DOHC), four valves per cylinder, cross-bolted main bearings and
twin, intercooled turbochargers mounted in a “hot-V” arrangement (atop the
block, between the cylinder banks) a layout which delivers improved
responsiveness but, as BMW found, can bring its own problems. Intended always to be exclusive to Cadillac’s
lines (recalling GM’s divisional structure in happier times) it was in
production less than two years because the collapse in demand for the models
for which it was intended doomed its future; it was too expensive to produce to
be used in other cars. The early
indications had however been hopeful, the initial run of 275 over-subscribed, a
slightly detuned version accordingly rushed into production to meet
demand. In 2020, the Blackwood V8 was
cancelled.
Repurposed,
Blackwing however lives on at Cadillac, the company in 2021 appending applying
the name to exclusive variants of its CT range sedans. The CT5-V Blackwing is the last survivor of
what once was a well-inhabited niche and although clearly an anachronism,
demand still exists and although Cadillac has admitted this will be their last
V8-powered sedan, in announcing the 2025 range they’ve made it clear the last
days will be memorable. In a nod to
history, the company chose Le Mans in France to reveal details of the 2025 V-Series
Blackwing “Special Editions”, honoring the “Le Monstre” and “Petit Pataud”
Cadillacs which contested the 1950 24 hour endurance classic. Each of those was a one-off (one especially
so) but in 2025 there will be 101 copies of the Blackwing Le Monstre and 50 of
the Petit Patauds. The two are visually
similar, the exteriors finished in Magnus Metal Frost matte paint, accented by
Stormhawk Blue Carbon Fiber and Royal Blue brake callipers, the blue theme extened
to the interior fittings. Mechanically,
the two are essentially stock, the Petit Pataud based on the CT4-V Blackwing powered
by a twin-turbo 3.6 liter (223 cubic inch) V6 while the more alluring Le
Monstre includes a supercharged 6.2-liter (376 cubic inch) V8. For those who care about such things,
although Mercedes-Benz AMG once offered rear-wheel-drive (RWD) 6.2 litre V8s, the
Batwing offers the chance to enjoy the experience with a manual gearbox,
something the Germans never did. The
Blackwings are also much cheaper and have about them an appealing brutishness,
a quality Stuttgart’s engineers felt compelled to gloss a little.
In
something which would for most of the second half of the twentieth century have
seemed improbable or unthinkable, it’s now possible to buy a Cadillac with a
manual gearbox and a clutch pedal but not a Ferrari so configured. Ferrari by 1976 had begun to flirt with automatic
transmissions in their road cars (GM’s famously robust Turbo-Hydramatic 400)
but until 2004, Cadillac hadn’t needed clutch pedal assemblies on the assembly
lines since the last 1953 Series 75 (among the Cadillac crowd the Cimarron
(1982-1988) is never spoken of except in the phrase “the unpleasantness of 1982”). However, by the early twenty-first century, the
market for the cars Cadillac had perfected was shrinking fast so, noting the
success of Mercedes-AMG and the M-Series BMWs, Cadillac entered the fray and
the existence of the Chevrolet Corvette’s transmission in the corporate parts
bin meant offering a manual gearbox was financially viable in a way it wasn’t
for the Germans. In the same decade, advances
in hydraulics and electronics meant the earlier inefficiencies and technical
disadvantages attached to automatic transmissions had been overcome to the
point where no Ferrari with a manual transmission, however expertly driven,
could match their performance and customers agreed, sales of manual cars dwindling
until a swansong when the Ferrari California was released in 2008 with
expectations some 5-10% of buyers would opt for a clutch pedal. However between then and late 2011, a mere
three were ordered (some sources say two or five but the factory insists it was
three). Ever since, for Maranello, it’s
been automatics (technically “automated manual transmission”) all the way and
that wasn’t anything dictatorial; had customer demand existed at a sustainable
level, the factory would have continued to supply manual transmissions. The rarity has however created collectables;
on the rare occasions a rare manual version of a usually automatic Ferrari is
offered at auction, it attracts attracts a premium and there's now an after-market
converting Ferraris to open gate manuals.
It's said to cost up to US$40,000 depending on the model and,
predictably, the most highly regarded are those converted using "verified
factory parts". The Cadillac
Blackwing offers the nostalgic experience from the factory although the
engineers admit there is a slight performance penalty, buyers choosing the
manual purely for the pleasure of driving.
Living up to the name: The 1950 Cadillac Le Monstre.
The two
cars Cadillacs which in 1950 raced at Le Mans were mechanically similar but
visually, could have been from different planets. The more conventional Petit Pataud was a Series
61 coupe with only minor modification and it gained its nickname (the
translation “clumsy puppy” best captures the spirit) because to the French it
looked like a lumbering thing but, as its performance in the race would attest,
Cadillac’s new 331 cubic inch (5.4 litre) V8 (which would grow to 429 cubic
inches (7.0 litres) before it wqs retired in 1967) meant it was faster than it
looked. Underneath the second entrant (Le Monstre obviously needing no
translation but used in the sense of “monstrosity” rather than “large”) there
was also a Series 61 but the body had been replaced by something more obviously
aerodynamic although few, then or now would call it “conventionally attractive”. Although Le Monstre’s seemed very much in the
tradition of the “cucumber-shaped” Mercedes-Benz SSKL which had won the 1932
race at Berlin’s unique AVUS circuit, the lines were the result of testing a
1/12 scale wooden model in a wind-tunnel used usually to optimize crop dusters
and other slow-flying airplanes. Presumably
that explains the resemblance to a section of an airplane’s wing (a shape
designed to encourage lift), something which would have been an issue had higher
speeds been attained but even on the long (6 km (3.7 mile)) Mulsanne Straight,
there was in 1950 enough power only to achieve around 210 km/h (130) mph
although as a drag-reduction exercise it must have contributed to the 22 km/h
(13 mph) advantage it enjoyed over Petit Pataud, something Le Monstre’s
additional horsepower alone could not have done and, remarkably, even with the minimalist
aluminium skin it wasn’t much lighter than the standard-bodied coupe because
this was no monocoque; the Cadillac’s chassis was retained and a tube-frame
added to support the panels and provide the necessary torsional stiffness.
Some of
the additional horsepower came from the novel induction system. Le Monstre’s V8 was configured with five carburettors,
the idea being that by use of progressive throttle-linkages, when ultimate
performance wasn’t required the car would run on a single (central) carburettor,
the other four summoned on demand and in endurance racing, improved fuel
economy can be more valuable than additional power. That’s essentially how most four-barrel carburettors
worked, two venturi usually providing the feed with all four opened only at
full throttle and Detroit would later refine the model by applying “méthode Le Monstre” to the triple carburettor
systems many used between 1957-1971. As
far as is known, the only time a manufacturer flirted with the idea of a five carburetor
engine was Rover which in the early 1960s was experimenting with a 2.5 (153
cubic inch) litre inline five cylinder which was an enlargement of their 2.0
litre (122 cubic inch) four.
Fuel-injection was the obvious solution but systems then weren’t
available so the prototypes ended up with two carburettors feeding three
cylinders and one the other two, an arrangement as difficult to keep in tune as it
sounds. Rover’s purchase of the aluminium
3.5 litre (214 cubic inch) V8 abandoned by General Motors (GM) meant the
project was abandoned and whatever the cylinder count, mass-produced fuel injection
later made any configuration possible.
Five carburettors wasn’t actually the highest count seen in the pre
fuel-injection era, Ferrari and Lamborghini both using six (done also by
motorcycle manufacturers such as Honda and Benelli) and Moto-Guzzi in the 1950s
fielded a 500 cm3 Grand-Prix bike with the memorable component count
of 8 cylinders, 4 camshafts, 16 valves & 8 carburetors. The early prototypes of Daimler’s exquisite
V8s (1959-1969) were also built with eight carburettors because the original
design was base on a motorcycle power-plant, the reason why they were planned
originally as air-cooled units.
Le Monstre ahead of Petit Pataud, Le Mans, 1950. At the fall of the checkered flag, the positions were reversed.
Motor
racing is an unpredictable business and, despite all the effort lavished on Le
Monstre, in the 1950 Le Mans 24 hour, it was the less ambitious Petit Pataud
which did better, finishing a creditable tenth, the much modified roadster
coming eleventh having lost may laps while being dug from the sand after an
unfortunate excursion from the track.
Still, the results proved the power and reliability of Cadillac’s V8 and
Europe took note: over the next quarter century a whole ecosystem would emerge,
crafting high-priced trans-Atlantic hybrids which combined elegant European
coachwork with cheap, powerful US V8s, the lucrative fun lasting until the
first oil crisis.
Perfection in a pencil: The Eberhard Faber Blackwing 602.
The Blackwing 602 remains fondly
remembered by those who admire the perfect simplicity of the pencil. Produced in the shape of a square ferrule (both
pleasant to hold in one’s hand and less susceptible to rolling off the desk),
it used a soft, dark graphite blend which required less pressure (the manufacturer
claimed half but it’s not clear if this was science or “mere puffery”) to put
what was wanted on paper. To casual
users, this may not sound significant but for those for whom pencilling was a
full-time task (notably writers and artists), the advantages were considerable
and the advertising claim “Half the
Pressure, Twice the Speed” must have convinced one target market because
the Blackwing 602 was a favourite of stenographers (a profession one of the
early victims of the technological changes which have emerged in the wake of
the transistor & microprocessor).
The Blackwing 602 was manufactured by Eberhard Faber between 1934-1988, by
Faber-Castell (1988-1994) and by Sanford (1994-1998). In 2012, after buying rights to the name, Palomino
being production of a visually similar Blackwing but they didn’t quite replicate
the graphite’s recipe. Original
Blackwing 602s are now a collectable and in perfect condition are advertised between
US$50-100 although there was one recent outlier sale which benefited from a
celebrity provenance.
Pencil porn.
Doyle’s in New York on 18 June 2024
conducted an auction of some items from the estate of US composer and lyricist
Stephen Sondheim (1930–2021), attracting dealers, collectors & Sondheim
devotees. There was Lot 275: (Three blue
boxes printed with "Eberhard Faber/Blackwing/Feathery-Smooth Pencils, two
of the boxes complete with 12 pencils, one with 8 only (together 32
pencils). Some wear to the boxes and
drying of the erasers”, listed with a pre-sale estimate of US$600-800. The hammer fell at US$6,400 against a
pre-sale estimate of US$600-800. That’s US$200.00 per pencil, indicating the value of a celebrity connection but whoever set the
pre-sale estimate (US$18.75-25.00 per pencil) clearly didn’t check eBay.
No comments:
Post a Comment