Quartervent (pronounced kwawr-ter-vent)
A small, pivoted, framed
(or semi-framed) pane in the front
or rear side-windows of a car, provided to optimize ventilation.
1930s: The
construct was quarter + vent. Dating
from the late thirteenth century, the noun quarter (in its numerical sense) was
from the Middle English quarter, from
the Anglo-Norman quarter, from the Old
French quartier, from the Latin quartarius (a Roman unit of liquid
measure equivalent to about 0.14 litre).
Quartus was from the primitive
Indo-European kweturtos (four) (from which the Ancient Greek gained τέταρτος
(tétartos), the Sanskrit चतुर्थ (caturtha), the Proto-Balto-Slavic ketwirtas and the Proto-Germanic fedurþô). It was cognate
to quadrus (square), drawn from the sense
of “four-sided”. The Latin
suffix –arius was from the earlier -ās-(i)jo- , the construct being -āso- (from the primitive Indo-European -ehso- (which may be compared with the Hittite
appurtenance suffix -ašša-) + the relational
adjectival suffix -yós (belonging to). The suffix (the feminine –āria, the neuter -ārium)
was a first/second-declension suffix used to form adjectives from nouns or
numerals. The nominative neuter form – ārium (when appended to nouns), formed
derivative nouns denoting a “place where stuff was kept”. The
Middle English verb quarteren, was derivative
of the noun. Dating from the mid
fourteenth century, vent was from the Middle English verb venten (to furnish (a vessel) with a vent), a shortened form of the
Old French esventer (the construct
being es- + -venter), a verbal derivative of vent, from the Latin ventus (wind), in later use derivative
of the English noun. The English noun
was derived partly from the French vent,
partly by a shortening of French évent (from
the Old French esvent, a derivative
of esventer) and partly from the English
verb. The hyphenated form quarter-vent
is also used as may be preferable. Quartervent
is a noun; the noun plural is quartervents.
In use, the action of using the function provided by a quartervent
obviously can be described with terms like quarterventing or quartervented but
no derived forms are recognized as standard.
The now close to extinct quarter vents were small, pivoted, framed (or semi-framed) panes of glass installed in the front or rear side windows of a car or truck; their purpose was to provide occupants with a source of ventilation, using the air-flow of the vehicle while in motion. The system had all the attributes of other admirable technologies (such as the pencil) in that it was cheap to produce, simple to use, reliable and effective in its intended purpose. Although not a complex concept, General Motors (GM) in 1932 couldn’t resist giving the things an impressively long name, calling them “No Draft Individually Controlled Ventilation” (NDICV being one of history’s less mnemonic initializations). GM’s marketing types must have prevailed because eventually the snappier “ventiplanes” was adopted, the same process of rationality which overtook Chrysler in 1969 when the public decided “shaker” was a punchier name for their rather sexy scoop which, attached directly to the induction system and, protruding through a carefully shape lacuna in the hood (bonnet), shook with the engine, delighting the males aged 17-39 to whom it was intended to appeal. “Shaker” supplanted Chrysler’s original “Incredible Quivering Exposed Cold Air Grabber” (IQECAG another dud); sometimes less is more. Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) suggested a good title for his book might be Viereinhalb Jahre [des Kampfes] gegen Lüge, Dummheit und Feigheit (Four and a Half Years of Struggle against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice) but his publisher thought that a bit ponderous and preferred the more succinct Mein Kampf: Eine Abrechnung (My Struggle: A Reckoning) and for publication even that was clipped to Mein Kampf. Unfortunately, the revised title was the best thing about it, the style and contents truly ghastly and it's long and repetitious, the ideas within able easily to be reduced to a few dozen pages (some suggest fewer but the historical examples cited for context do require some space).
The baroque meets mid-century modernism: 1954 Hudson Italia by Carrozzeria Touring.
Given how
well the things worked, there’s long been some regret at their demise, a
process which began in the 1960s with the development of “through-flow
ventilation”, the earliest implementation of which seems to have appeared in
the Hudson Italia (1954-1955), an exclusive, two-door coupé co-developed by Hudson
in Detroit and the Milan-based Italian coachbuilder Carrozzeria Touring. Although some of the styling gimmicks perhaps
haven’t aged well, the package was more restrained than some extravagances of
the era and fundamentally, the lines were well-balanced and elegant. Unfortunately the mechanical underpinnings
were uninspiring and the trans-Atlantic production process (even though Italian
unit-labor costs were lower than in the US, Touring’s methods were
labor-intensive) involved two-way shipping (the platforms sent to Milan for
bodies and then returned to the US) so the Italia was uncompetitively
expensive: at a time when the bigger and more capable Cadillac Coupe de Ville
listed at US$3,995, the Italia was offered for US$4,800 and while it certainly
had exclusivity, it was a time when there was still a magic attached to the
Cadillac name and of the planned run of 50, only 26 Italias were produced
(including the prototype). Of those, 21
are known still to exist and they’re a fixture at concours d’élégance (a sort
of car show for the rich, the term an unadapted borrowing from the French (literally
“competition of elegance”) and the auction circuit where they’re exchanged
between collectors for several hundred-thousand dollars per sale. Although a commercial failure (and the Hudson
name would soon disappear), the Italia does enjoy the footnote of being the first
production car equipped with what came to be understood as “flow-through
ventilation”, provided with a cowl air intake and extraction grooves at the top
of the rear windows, the company claiming the air inside an Italia changed
completely every ten minutes. For the
quartervent, flow-through ventilation was a death-knell although some lingered
on until the effective standardization of air-conditioning proved the final
nail in the coffin.
The car which
really legitimized flow-through ventilation was the first generation
(1962-1966) of the Ford Cortina, produced over four generations (some claim it
was five) by Ford’s UK subsidiary between 1962-1982). When the revised model displayed at the Earls
Court Motor Show in October 1964, something much emphasized was the new “Aeroflow”,
Ford’s name for through-flow ventilation, the system implemented with “eyeball”
vents on the dashboard and extractor vents on the rear pillars. Eyeball vents probably are the best way to do through-flow
ventilation but the accountants came to work out they were more expensive to install
than the alternatives so less satisfactory devices came to be used. Other manufacturers soon phased-in similar
systems, many coining their own marketing trademarks including “Silent-Flow-Ventilation”,
“Astro-Ventilation” and the inevitable “Flow-thru ventilation”. For the Cortina, Ford took a “belt &
braces” approach to ventilation, retaining the quartervents even after the “eyeballs”
were added, apparently because (1) the costs of re-tooling to using a single
pane for the window was actually higher than continuing to use the
quartervents, (2) it wasn’t clear if there would be general public acceptance
of their deletion and (3) smoking rates were still high and drivers were known
to like being able to flick the ash out via the quartervent (and, more regrettably,
the butts too). Before long, the
designers found a way economically to replace the quartervents with “quarterpanes”
or “quarterlights” (a fixed piece of glass with no opening mechanism) so early Cortinas
were built with both although in markets where temperatures tended to be higher
(notable South Africa and Australia), the hinged quartervents remained standard
equipment. When the Mark III Cortina
(TC, 1970-1976) was released, the separate panes in any form were deleted and
the side glass was a single pane.
So
logically a “quartervent” would describe a device with a hinge so it could be
opened to provide ventilation while a “quarterpane”, “quarterlight” or “quarterglass”
would be something in the same shape but unhinged and thus fixed. It didn’t work out that way and the terms
tended to be used interchangeably (though presumably “quartervent” was most
applied to those with the functionality.
However, the mere existence of the fixed panes does raise the question
of why they exist at all. In the case or
rear doors, they were sometimes a necessity because the shape of the door was
dictated by the intrusion of the wheel arch and adding a quarterpane was the
only way to ensure the window could completely be wound down. With the front doors, the economics were
sometimes compelling, especially in cases when the opening vents were optional
but there were also instances where the door’s internal mechanisms (the door
opening & window-winding hardware) were so bulky the only way to make stuff
was to reduce the size of the window.
1976 Volkswagen Passat without quartervents, the front & rear quarterpanes fixed.
The
proliferation of terms could have come in handy if the industry had decided to
standardize and the first generation Volkswagen Passat (1973-1980) was illustration
of how they might been used. The early
Passats were then unusual in that the four-door versions had five separate
pieces of side glass and, reading from left-to-right, they could have been
classified thus: (1) a front quarterpane, (2) a front side-window, (3) a rear
side-window, (4) a rear quarterpane and (5) a quarterwindow. The Passat was one of those vehicles which
used the quarterpanes as an engineering necessity to permit the rear
side-window fully to be lowered. However
the industry didn’t standardize and in the pre-television (and certainly pre-internet)
age when language tended to evolve with greater regional variation, not even
quarterglass, quartervent, quarterwindow & quarterpane were enough and the
things were known variously also as a “fly window”, “valence window”, “triangle
window” and “auto-transom”, the hyphen used and not.
1967 Chevrolet Camaro 327 with vent windows (left), 1969 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 without vent windows (centre) and Lindsay Lohan & Jamie Lee Curtis (b 1958) in Chevrolet Camaro convertible during filming of the remake of Freaky Friday (2003) (provisionally called Freakier Friday), Los Angeles, August 2024. The Camaro can be identified as a 1968 or 1969 model because the vent windows were deleted from the range after 1967 when “Astro-Ventilation” (GM’s name for flow-through ventilation) was added. In North American use, the devices typically are referred to as “vent windows” while a “quarter light” is a small lamp mounted (in pairs) in the lower section of the front bodywork and a “quarter vent” is some sort of (real or fake) vent installed somewhere on the quarter panels.
Ford Australia’s early advertising copy for the XA Falcon range included publicity shots both with and without the optional quartervents (left). One quirk of the campaign was the first shot released (right) of the “hero model” of the range (the Falcon GT) had the driver’s side quartervent airbrushed out (how “Photoshop jobs” used to be done), presumably because it was thought to clutter a well-composed picture. Unfortunately, the artist neglected to defenestrate the one on the passenger’s side.
Released in
Australia in March 1972, Ford’s XA Falcon was the first in the lineage to
include through-flow ventilation, the previously standard quartervent
windows moved to the option list (as RPO (Regular Production Option) 86). Because it’s a hot place and many Falcons
were bought by rural customers, Ford expected quite a high take-up rate of
RPO86 (it was a time when air-conditioning was expensive and rarely ordered) so
the vent window hardware was stockpiled in anticipation. However, the option didn’t prove popular but
with a warehouse full of the parts, they remained available on the subsequent
XB (1973-1976) and XC (1976-1979) although the take-up rate never rose, less the 1% of each range so equipped and
when the XD (1979-1983) was introduced, there was no such option and this
continued on all subsequent Falcons until Ford ceased production in Australia
in 2016, by which time air conditioning was standard equipment.
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