Bubbletop (pronounced buhb-uhl-top)
(1) In
aircraft design, a design of pilot’s canopy (originally military slang for what
designers dubbed the “bubble canopy”, a Perspex molding which afforded exceptional
outward visibility).
(2) An
automobile using a transparent structure over the passenger compartment,
replacing the usual combination of roof & windows.
(3) A
descriptor of certain automobiles of the early 1960s, based on the shape rather
than the method of construction, the conventional metal and glass used.
1940s: The construct
was bubble + top. Bubble
dates from the late fourteenth century and was from the Middle English noun bobel which may have been from the Middle
Dutch bubbel & bobbel and/or the Low German bubbel (bubble) and Middle Low German verb
bubbele, all thought to be of echoic
origin. The related forms include the
Swedish bubbla (bubble), the Danish boble (bubble) and the Dutch bobble.
Top pre-dates 1000 and was from the Middle English top, toppe & tope (top,
highest part; summit; crest; tassel, tuft; (spinning) top, ball; a tuft or ball
at the highest point of anything), and the Old English top & toppa (top,
summit, tuft of hair), from the Proto-West Germanic topp, from the Proto-Germanic tuppaz
(braid, pigtail, end), of unknown origin.
It was cognate with the Old Norse toppr
(top), the Scots tap (top), the North
Frisian top, tap & tup (top), the
Saterland Frisian Top (top), the West
Frisian top (top), the Dutch top (top, summit, peak), the Low German
Topp (top), the German Zopf (braid, pigtail, plait, top), the Swedish
topp (top, peak, summit, tip) and the
Icelandic toppur (top). Alternative forms are common; bubble-top in automotive
& aeronautical engineering and bubble top in fashion. Bubbletop is a noun and bubbletopped is an
adjective; the noun plural is bubbletops.
“Bubbletop”
began as World War II (1939-1945) era military slang for officially was
described as the “bubble canopy”, the transparent structure sitting atop the
cockpit of fighter aircraft, the advantages being (1) superior visibility (the
purest interpretation of the design affording an unobstructed, 360° field-of-view,
(2) improved aerodynamics, (3) easier cockpit ingress & egress (of some
significance to pilots force to parachute and (4), weight reduction (in some
cases). Bubbletops had been seen on
drawing boards in the early days of aviation and some were built during World
War I (1914-1918) but it was the advent of Perspex and the development of industrial
techniques suitable for the creation of large, variably-curved moldings which
made mass-production practical. The best
known early implementations were those added to existing air-frames including
the Supermarine Spitfire, Republic P-47 Thunderbolt and North American P-51
Mustang. By 1943, the concept had become
the default choice for fighter aircraft and the technology was applied also to
similar apparatuses used elsewhere on the fuselage where they were styled usually
as “blisters”. In the post war years it
extended to other types, most dramatically in the Bell 47 helicopter where the
cabin was almost spherical, some 70% of the structure clear Perspex.
The enormous and rapid advances in wartime aeronautics profoundly influenced designers in many fields and nowhere was that more obvious than in the cars which began to appear in the US during the 1950s. Elements drawn variously from aeronautics and ballistics did appear in the first generation of genuinely new post-war models (most of what was offered between 1945-1948 being barely revised versions of the 1942 lines) but it was in the next decade the designers were able to embrace the jet-age (a phrase which before it referred to the mass-market jet-airline travel made possible by the Boeing 707 (which entered commercial service in 1958) was an allusion to military aircraft, machines which during the Cold War were a frequent sight in popular culture). On motif the designers couldn’t resist was the bubble canopy, something which never caught on in mass-production although Perspex roofed cars were briefly offered before word of their unsuitability for use in direct sunlight became legion.
GM Firebird XP-21 (Firebird I, 1953).
Not content
with borrowing the odd element from aircraft, the General Motors (GM) team
decided the best way to test which concepts were adaptable from sky to road was
to “put wheels on a jet aircraft” and although they didn’t do that literally,
by 1953 when Firebird XP-21 was first displayed, it certainly looked as though
it was exactly that. Its other novelty
was it was powered by a gas turbine engine, the first time a major manufacturer
in the US had built such a thing although a number of inventors had produced
their own one-offs. When the XP-21
(re-named Firebird I for the show circuit) made its debut, some in the press
referred to it as a “prototype” but GM never envisaged it as the basis for a
production car, being impractical for any purpose other than component-testing;
it should thus be thought of as a “test-bed”.
The bubble canopy looked as if it could have come from a US Air Force
(UFAF) fighter jet and would have contributed to the aerodynamically efficiency,
the 370 hp (280 kW), fibreglass-bodied Firebird I said to be capable of
achieving 200 mph (320 km/h) although it’s believed this number came from slide-rule
calculations and was never tested.
Despite that, in its day the Firebird II made quite a splash and a
depiction of it sits atop the trophy (named after the car’s designer, Harley
Earl (1893–1969), the long time head of GM’s styling studio) presented each
year to the winner of NASCAR’s (National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing)
premiere event, the Daytona 500.
GM Firebird II (1956).
Compared
with its predecessor, the Firebird II (1956), rendered this time in titanium was
almost restrained, the Perspex canopy a multi-part structure over a passenger
compartment designed to seat “a family of four”. The family might have chosen to drive mostly
in darkness because the heat build-up under the midday sun would have tested the
“individually-controlled air conditioning”, a system upon which comfort
depended because the Perspex sections were fixed; there were no opening “windows”. Still, even if hot, the family would have got
places fast because the same 200 mph capability was claimed.
GM Firebird III (1958).
The Firebird III was displayed at the 1958 Motorama and although GM never built any car quite like it, within a season, elements of it did begin to appear on regular production models in showrooms (notably the rear skegs which Cadillac used for a couple of years) and some of its features are today standard equipment in even quite modest vehicles. The striking “double bubbletop” never made the assembly lines although some race cars have at least partially implemented the concept. What proved more of a harbinger was the specification, the Firebird III fitted with anti-lock brakes, cruise control, air conditioning, an automated “accident avoidance system” and instead of a steering wheel, the driver controlled the thing with a joystick, installed in a centrally-mounted “Unicontrol & Instrument Panel”. All these were analogue-era electro-mechanical devices too bulky, fragile or expensive for mass production, wider adoption in the decades to come made possible by integrated circuits (IC) and micro-processors.
1959 Cadillac Cyclone (XP-74).
Borrowing
from the Firebird II, Cadillac also used a bubble top for the Cyclone (XP-74)
concept car which in 1959 toured the show circuit. Although it was powered by the corporation’s
standard 390 cubic inch (6.5 litre) V8, there was some adventurous engineering
including a rear-mounted automatic transaxle and independent rear suspension
(using swing axles, something not as bad as it sounds given the grip of tyres
at the time) but few dwelt long on such things, their attention grabbed by
features such as the bubble top (this time silver coated for UV (ultra violet) protection)
which opened automatically in conjunction with the electrically operated
sliding doors. The Perspex bubble
canopies from fighter aircraft never caught on for road or race cars but so aerodynamically efficient was the shape it found several niches.
1953 Ferrari F166MM Spider by Vignale (left) and 1968 MGCGT (centre & right).
Bubbles
often appeared atop the hood (bonnet) to provide clearance for components
inconveniently tall. Most were centrally
located (there was the occasional symmetrical pair) but the when BMH (British Motor
Holdings, the old BMC (British Motor
Corporation) shoehorned their big, heavy straight-six into the MGB (1963-1980),
it wouldn’t fit under the bonnet, the problem not the cylinder head but the
tall radiator so the usual solution of a “bonnet bulge” was used. However, for that to clear the forward carburetor,
the bulge would have been absurdly high so a small bubble (and usually, ones this size are referred to as "blisters") was added. It probably annoyed some there wasn’t a
matching (fake) one on the other side but it’s part of the MGC’s charm, a
quality which for years most found elusive although it’s now more appreciated. For MGC owners wish to shed some weight or
for MGB owners who like the look, the “bonnet with bubble” is now available in
fibreglass.
The winning Ford GT40 Mark IV (J-Car) with bubble to the right, Le Mans 1967 (left) and the after-market (for replicas) “Gurney Bubble” (right).
US racing
driver Dan Gurney (1931–2018) stood 6' 4" (1.9 m) tall which could be accommodated
in most sports cars and certainly on Formula One but when he came to drive the Ford
GT40 Mark IV it was found he simply didn’t fit when wearing his crash helmet. The original GT40 (1964) gained its name from
the height being 40 inches (1016 mm) but Mark IV (the “J-Car”, 1966) was lower
still at 39.4 inches (1,000 mm). Gurney
was the tallest ever to drive the GT40 and the solution sounds brutish but fix
was effected elegantly, a “bubble added to the roof to clear the helmet. Gurney and AJ Foyt (b 1935) drove the GT40 to
victory in the 1967 Le Mans 24-hour endurance classic and the protrusion clearly
didn’t compromise straight-line speed, the pair clocked at 213 mph (343 km’h), on
the famous 3.6-mile Mulsanne Straight (which was a uninterrupted 3.6 miles (5.8
km) until the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (the FIA; the
International Automobile Federation and world sport’s dopiest regulatory body)
imposed two “chicanes”), Known ever
since as the “Gurney Bubble”, such is the appeal that they’re now available for
any GT40 replica: Like the AC Shelby Cobra, the GT40 “reproduction” industry is
active and there are many times more of these than there are survivors of 105 originals.
Ferrari 250 GT “Tour de France” LWB Berlinettas by Zagato: The “double bubble” roof (left), the Hofmeister kink (centre) and the famous “Z” kink, (right).
The Italian coachbuilding house Zagato was founded in 1919 by Ugo Zagato (1890-1968) and since the early post-war years, their designs have sometimes been polarizing (the phrase “acquired taste” sometimes seen), their angularity often contrasted with the lines of other, notably Pinninfarina and Bertone but unlike many which have over the years folded, Zagato remains active still. One Zagato design never criticized was his run in 1956 of five Ferrari 250 GT “Tour de France” LWB Berlinettas, memorable also for introducing the signature “Zagato double-bubble roof. The roof was practical in that it better accommodated taller occupants but it really was a visual trick and a variation on the trick Mercedes-Benz used on the “Pagoda” (W113; 230, 250 & 280 SL; 1963-1971) which they explained by saying “We didn’t lower the roof, we rained the windows”. The other famous feature (which appeared on only one) was the fetching “Z” shape on the rear pillar, replacing the “Hofmeister kink” used on some others.
1962 Chevrolet Impala “bubbletop” Sport Coupe (left), 1963 Ford Consul Capri (centre) and 1972 BMW 3.0CS (E9, right).
The 1959
Chevrolet quickly came to be nicknamed “bubbletop” and the style spread, both
within GM and beyond. The “bubbletop”
reference was to the canopy on aircraft like the P-51D Mustang but was an
allusion to the shape, not the materials used; on cars things were done in traditional
glass and metal. Across the Atlantic,
Ford in the UK applied the idea to their Consul Capri (1961-1964), a two-door hardtop
which the company wanted to be thought of as a “co-respondent's” car (ie the
sort of rakish design which would appeal to the sort of chap who slept with
other men’s wives, later to be named as “co-respondent” in divorce
proceedings). The Capri was a
marketplace failure and the styling was at the time much criticized but it’s
now valued as a period piece. Chevrolet
abandoned the look on the full-size cars after 1963 but it was revived for the
second series Corvair (1965-1969). A
fine implementation was achieved in the roofline of the BMW E9 (1968-1975)
which remains the company’s finest hour.
The bubble shirt and bubble tops.
The bubble skirt (worn by Lindsay Lohan (centre)) is one of those garments which seems never to quite die, although there are many who wish it would. Once (or for an unfortunate generation, twice) every fashion cycle (typically 10-12 years), the industry does one of its "pushes" and bubble skirts show up in the high street, encouraged sometimes by the odd catwalk appearance; it will happen again. While the dreaded bubble skirt is easily identifiable, the “bubble top” is less defined but there seem to be two variations: (1) a top with a “bubble skirt-like” appendage gathering unhappily just above the hips (left) and (2) a kind of “boob tube” which, instead of being tightly fitted is topped with an additional layer of material, loosely gathered. The advantages of the latter (which may be thought of as a “boob bubble”) are it can (1) without any additional devices create the illusion of a fuller bust and (2) allow a strapless bra to be worn, something visually difficult with most boob tubes because the underwear’s outline is obvious under the tight material.
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