Flookerang & Fratzog

Flookerang (pronounced flook–ah-rang)

A corporate logo adopted in 1957 by Chrysler Corporation for use in promoting the dramatically restyled versions of the company’s “Forward Look” designs (1955-1956).

1957: The construct was flook + (boom)erang.  Now mostly obsolete, flook was an alternative spelling of fluke (in the sense of “blade at the end of an anchor”).  In wide nautical use, flook (fluke) was used of any of the triangular blades at an anchor’s end, the appendages there to “catch” on the seabed or riverbed, keeping the vessel moored in position (ie not drifting away with the tide).  In armaments design, the flook was a metal hook that appeared close to the tip of many staff weapons (such as a bill) with the effect in combat depending on use; if thrust, could be penetrative (armor or flesh as need be) while if swung it could work as a “grappling hook”.  Fluke & flook are old words, documented since at least the tenth century although, anchors, staff weapons, arrowheads and such having by then been in use for millennia, the forms may well be more ancient.  The origin was the Middle English flok, fluke & flewke, from the Old English flōcand and cognate with the Old Norse flōki; it may be compared with the Old High German flah (flat (source of the modern German flach)), from the Proto-Germanic flakaz although for technical reasons related to the phonetics, etymologists seem to prefer a link with the Middle Low German vlögel (wing) and the Germanic vlōch & vlucht (used in the sense of both “wing” & “flight”) or even vlunke (the modern Low German Flunk (wing, pinion)).  The modern use in German of fluke to describe the tail of whales and such is thought borrowed from English.  The use of sea creatures came from the Old English flōc (flatfish), of Germanic origin, related to the German flach (flat), the Old Saxon flaka (sole), the Old High German flah (smooth) and the Old Norse floke (flatfish, flounder, flak, floe; disk), all ultimately from Proto-Germanic flakaz, from the primitive Indo European root plak- (to be flat).  The parasitic worm was so named in the 1660s by virtue of the distinctive (flat) shape.

A Flookerang: Chrysler corporation brochure, 1958.

In general use, “fluke” has become familiar as the description of the two lobes of the tails of whales (or similar creatures) and whales “fluking” their tails (appearing above the surface just as a deep dive is about to begin) have long been an Instagram staple; once hunted close to extinction for their meat and oil, the charismatic beasts are now among nature’s most prolific content providers although their flukes do occasionally suffer the indignity of being labelled “fishtails”.  Being mammals, they belong to the order Cetacea and are within the zoological class Mammalia, not Pisces.  Interestingly, although “fluke” & “flook” were historically used of the barbed projections added to some arrowheads, the terms seemed to have vanished from modern specialist terminology, replaced by “barbed arrowhead”, the two projections (pointing backwards towards the shaft) designed to resist withdrawal after penetration (and doing victim much damaged during the extraction).  The link with (in this case unfortunate) whales is that the biggest of the barbs were on the biggest of the arrows (the harpoons on whaling ships).  The variant in Scots English was fluik, known to be in use by at least the early seventeenth century.  The way use evolved differently in specialist vocabularies does make sense with nautical jargon retaining fluke or flook for an anchor's broad, seabed-catching blades while in archery, the industry settled on “barb”, presumably because the purpose of the structures mirrored the natural world, barbs in animals and plants doing much the same job.  Boomerang entered English texts only in 1827 and was from būmariny (missile weapon used by Australian Aborigines (a historic term for the native tribes in the continent of Australia, now generally classified as “indigenous” or “first nations” peoples)), the recorded phonetic form of a word in one of the now extinct languages spoken by the Dharuk people native to an area in what is now NSW (New South Wales) and known to geographers as the Sydney Basin.  A word pronounced as wo-mur-rang was noted in NSW in 1798 and it may have been related but there’s no documentary evidence.  Flookerang is a noun, Fratzonic is an adjective and Fratzonically is an adverb; the noun plural is Flookerangs.

1957 Chrysler brochure with Flookerang.  While the 1957 cars were (for better and worse) immensely influential, Virgil's real masterpiece was the 1955-1956 “Forward Look”; frankly, there he should have paused for a few seasons.

Although the The Flookerang can best be described as a pair of stylized boomerangs, one with an especially acute angle overlaid atop another in a more conventional shape and it can be assumed Chrysler used flook in the sense of the appendages on weapons rather than the homophonic fluke’s sense of (1) a lucky or improbable occurrence unlikely to be repeated or (2) to by pure chance obtain a successful outcome (although, in retrospect, there was an element of both in the corporation’s 1957 ranges).  The shape obviously was abstract and did not represent one of Chrysler’s manufacturing divisions (in 1957: Plymouth, Dodge, DeSoto, Chrysler & Imperial) or a specific model or range.  It was instead a mid-century modernist allusion to the latest version of the company’s “Forward Look” design, introduced for the 1955 season and styled by Virgil Exner (1909–1973; vice president of styling, Chrysler Corporation 1957-1962).  The 1955-1956 Chryslers were for the corporation a watershed because although the mechanical engineering had always been sound (in some ways, often industry-leading), by the late 1940s the styling of the cars had become “frumpy”, a product of the design ethos of Kaufman Thuma “K.T.” Keller (1885–1966; president of Chrysler Corporation 1935-1950 and chairman of the board 1950-1956) who believed a car should be able to be “driven by a gentleman with his fedora or Stetson on”.  This resulted in cars that were tall & boxy; while comfortable to sit inside and drive, they looked old-fashioned and out of step with styling trends from Europe or elsewhere in Detroit.  Basic engineering was the message (“function over fashion” in the modern parlance) and although there were critics of the approach (including many within Chrysler), Keller was unmoved, quoted as saying that while none of the corporation’s cars would: “…knock your eyes out, neither will they knock your hat off as you enter or exit”.  He also had earthier ways of explaining his philosophy.

Flookerang variations: 1958 Plymouth Fury (left), 1961 Dodge Dart Phoenix (centre) and 1961 Plymouth Fury (right).

Trouble was, in the unexpectedly prosperous US of the early 1950s, folk were becoming more interested in style and less in their hats and when Exner’s “Ford Look” appeared late in 1954, buyers responded to “longer, lower, wider” as predictably they would for most of the next two decades.  The lines were elegant, the dimensions well proportioned and, at least in the more expensive versions, there was nicely detailing and it was a direction the industry could have taken but the US of the mid 1950s had become something of a candy-store and there were lots of kids with pocket money; prosperity begat excess.  Exner’s 1957 range more than any was the one that ushered in mass-market fins and a half-decade of bloat in the American automobile; in retrospect, it was “the curse of plenty”.

Exner's masterpieces: 1955 Chrysler C-300 (left) and 1957 Imperial Crown Southampton (right).

Still, the macropterous era was among the most memorable era in an industry that’s had a few and, if excess there must be, it should be “laid on with a trowel”; that Exner’s re-styling for 1957 did but within a couple of seasons, compared with the ways GM (General Motors) outposts like Buick and Cadillac would explore the theme, the 1957 Chryslers appeared (almost) restrained.  By contrast with the extravagance seen on the cars the emblem was created to promote, the Flookerang was subtle, the overlaid shapes denoting (1) rapid forward progress and (2) the sweep of those big fins rearward.  As a conceptual link it was one of the more successful of its kind but, unfortunately, the species it referenced soon went extinct.  Chrysler in 1957 had announced the look in banner headlines reading “Suddenly, it’s 1960” and, in a period when the “futuristic” was everywhere in films, newspapers and fiction, the cars did seem to offer a glimpse of a bright, shiny new world.  The problem was however that once on the path of excess there is nowhere to go but “more excessive” and that’s what happened; by the time it really was “1960”, the moment had passed and the fins soon would be pruned, Exner fired (actually relegated to a face-saving consultancy) with the Flookerang in 1961 (mostly) abandoned, replaced by the mysterious Fratzog.

Flookercharger.

Chrysler’s use of the Flookerang was inconsistent, both in variations in shape and placement on vehicles, on some models appearing one season, vanishing the next, only to re-appear for an encore, perhaps explaining why it never really became culturally embedded as a symbol, its relatively short life contributing also.  It must though have appealed to at least one custom-builder who blended the tail-fins of a 1960 Plymouth Fury with a 1966 Dodge Charger, the Flookerangs left in place despite the tendency of those crafting such things to remove “extraneous detailing”.  The styling of the 1966-1967 Chargers was received with restrained enthusiasm (although, once a small spoiler had been added to the trunk (boot) lid to tame the “lift” encountered at high speed, the fastback lines proved aerodynamically efficient on the NASCAR (National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing) ovals) but few would have suggested grafting on a 1960 Fury’s fins would have improved the aesthetics.  That was however done by one visionary soul who didn’t stop at what clearly was thought a callipygous optimization, a 1967 interior used with the dashboard modified to house a remarkable 19 gauges, the four electroluminescent pods on the driver’s side matched by a symmetrical quartet to the right.  The engine was a 440 cubic inch (7.2 litre) V8 that may have been original although it included a Sonoramic cross ram induction system (most photogenic but never offered by the factory with the 440); the transmission a TorqueFlite 727 Automatic.  Given the configuration, adding five hood scoops seemed appropriate and the steering wheel boss retained its original Fratzog.  Unfortunately, the unique machine was damaged in a garage fire (one unkind comment on a Mopar site suggesting it may have attracted “the wrath of God”) and its fate is unknown.

Fratzog (pronounced frat-zog)

A corporate logo since 1961 used from time to time by Chrysler Corporation (and of late revived by Stellantis, the multi-national automotive manufacturing concern into which Fiat-Chrysler was in 2021 absorbed).

1960: According to industry legend, a wholly meaningless word made up on the spur of the moment by the shape’s designer.  If the designer (whose name remains unknown) had some inspiration for their choice, it seems never to have been documented but frequently it’s been assumed the construct was frat(ernity)+ zog.  Fraternity was from the Middle English fraternite, from the Old French fraternité, from the Latin frāternitās, ultimately from frāter (brother).  Although almost certainly unrelated to Fratzog, in the Albanian language, zog translates literally as “bird” (zogu (“the bird”, using the definite article)).  The Zogolli family’s (the construct being the root Zog + the Ottoman-Turkish patronymic suffix –oglu (son of)) most famous member was Zog I (Ahmed Muhtar Bey Zogolli; 1895–1961); King of Albania 1928–1939) and in 1922 (after the Ottoman Empire was dissolved), he Albanized and shortened his surname to Zogu, six year later clipping the final “-u” and adopting the mononym King Zog as his royal title.  Fratzog also predates by some 16 years the acronym ZOG (used also as Zog) (Zionist Occupation Government, Zionist Occupational Government, or Zionist-Occupied Government), a term (dating from 1976) for the US government used by certain antisemitic conspiracy theorists claiming Jews secretly control the US government (a recurrent theme in Nazi propaganda under the Third Reich (1933-1945) extended also to the UK government).  JOG (Jewish Occupational Government) has also been used but, historically, SOG was preferred it was thought to distinguish “Jewish subversive conduct” from “being Jewish” although that subtlety escaped most.  Fratzog is a noun; the noun plural is Fratzogs.

1966 Dodge Charger.  In case people didn't “get the message”, Dodge added a fratzog to the hubcaps (top left), gas cap (top left) and grille (centre) while a Flookerang appeared on the C-Pillar (bottom left) with a pentastar behind the front wheel-arch (bottom right).

Using standard etymological deconstruction, a surface analysis of Flookerang reveals the portmanteau construction but all that’s known of the origin of Fratzog is the logo emerged in mid 1960 from Chrysler’s Highland Park styling studio, then under the direction of Elwood Engel (1917–1986; Chief Designer, Chrysler Corporation 1961-1973).  Whether it was the work of an individual or something of a team effort is unclear but, given the simplicity of the task, that it came from the hand of a single designer is quite plausible.  While never named, some sources have referred to the designer as “he” so it’s reasonable to assume it was a man (throughout Detroit the styling studios then an almost exclusively male domain although women had for decades being involved in color choices and interior detailing) but no documentary evidence has ever been sighted.  The meaning of Fratzog has long been a mystery with the industry legend being it was “made up on the spot” after someone in the marketing department sent a request asking how they should refer to the thing.  Having the punchy qualities of being short, memorable, phonetic, unique and needing only two syllables, it would have had some appeal to marketing types but whether they ever sent a “follow-up” asking what it meant, isn’t known.

Cornell University's Chi Phi fraternity house, 107 Edgemoor Lane, Ithaca, New York.

Probably it was good they didn’t pursue the matter because the orthodoxy is “Fratzog” has no meaning, speculation focused usually on the “frat” element with the most popular theory being it may be a borrowing of the clipping of “fraternity” (a social organization of male students at a college or university) and familiar in forms such as “frat party” (much associated with drunkenness, frat houses to this day one of the most convenient paths to alcohol for those under 21 (in the US the minimum age at which alcohol may be purchased and consumed)).  Many of the designers at Highland Park would have been “frats” (members of a fraternity and habitués of frat houses) so it’s not impossible “fratzog” may have been slang among certain drunken students although that’s wholly speculative but there is a rich history of such constructs including “frat boy” & “frat rat” (members of a fraternity, the most obnoxious of the breed dubbed “fratholes”), “frat house” (a fraternity's building) and “frat flick” & “frat lit” (movies & books about fraternities or appealing to the frat boy stereotype (“fratire” the ultimate form of the literature, now understood as a stream of “toxic masculinity”)).  As might be predicted given the elements of frat house life (males aged 17-25, ample stocks of alcohol, disposable income and proximity to sorority houses (a source of female students aged 17-25)), behavior can be less than ideal and recent scandals at Cornell University have illustrated aspects of the culture.  Sorority was from the Renaissance Latin sorōritās, from the Classical Latin soror (sister), from the primitive Indo-European swésōr; the word may be compared with the Portuguese sororidade, the Spanish sororidad and the French sororité.

Lindsay Lohan “on theme” in the livery of the Cincinnati Bengals (a football team in the NFL (National Football League) as a member of the AFC (American Football Conference) North division (left) and 1968 Dodge Charger Bengal Edition (right).

The Dodge Charger Bengal Edition was created in 1968 by Cincinnati Dodge dealer to celebrate the formation of an NFL franchise for the city, arranging with Chrysler’s fleet supply staff to have the cars painted in orange and fitted with black vinyl roofs to match the team’s colors.  Amusingly, Chrysler had no such orange in the color charts for its passenger cars but a shade mixed for Michigan Department of Transportation's fleet proved a perfect match.  An order of 50 was required for the specialized run so 50 duly were ordered in a variety of mechanical configurations.  Reflecting Dodge’s usual build practice for 1968 Chargers, Fratzog logos were fitted on the grille and rear panel unless the R/T package also was ordered in which case R/T badges were substituted.  In either case, a Fratzog appeared on the steering wheel boss but mysteriously, some 1968 Charger R/Ts exist with a small Fratzog on the instrument panel while others have a miniature R/T.  “Special editions” like the Bengal Charger often appeared to stimulate sales of slow-selling models but the 1968 Charger was a hit from day one and although the product planners had projected sales that season of around 20,000, they were pleasantly surprised when more than 96,000 left the showroom, a second assembly line quickly added to meet demand.  It was a remarkable increase on its slab-sided predecessor (1966-1967) that in 1967 had struggled to achieve a volume of less than 15,000.

A Fratzog.

King Zog I of Albania died in 1961 but there’s nothing to suggest Fratzog’s second element was inspired by or a tribute to the deposed monarch, by then living in France (the culmination of a peripatetic exile made comfortable by having looted the Albanian treasury of its gold reserves) where he would succumb to cancer, his 65 years a reasonable achievement for someone who reputedly smoked some 200 cigarettes a day (if true, assuming he slept 8 hours a day, that’s a fag about every 5 minutes which does seem a heroic devotion to the art).  It’s intriguing to ponder whether being dubbed a “fratzog” was something good or bad but, whatever might be the history of the name (that might to some sound like something associated with the rituals in a Masonic Temple), the shape is no mystery to mathematicians, the Fratzog based on a Deltoid curve (the roulette created by a point on the circumference of a circle as it rolls without slipping along the inside of a circle with three or one-and-a-half times its radius).  Its year of debut came of course at the at the dawn of the space race but while the shape (three delta-forms arranged in an equilateral triangle) might be thought (at least vaguely) evocative of an aerospace theme, that would not much have encouraged more pessimistic types who saw only a “fractured deltoid”.  So, no translation, acronym or verified linguistic origin exists but despite that it certainly caught on, first appearing on the 1962 Dodge Polara 500 and Custom 880, before being applied to various Dodge and other Chrysler models until 1976 and in some places lingering until 1981 when, at the instigation of the new CEO, Lee Iacocca (1924–2019), the pentastar logo was standardized corporation-wide.

Fratzog on 1972 Australian Chrysler Valiant Charger E55 SE 340; not only the Americans had long model names.

Nor is it known if the Fratzog’s “triangular” theme was an allusion to the company’s original logo.  The Dodge brothers' (Horace (1868–1920) and John (1864–1920) engineering business had begun production of passenger cars just before World War I (1914-1918) and their first emblem had been a dual interlocking triangle that resembled a stylized Star of David.  The family was not Jewish and it’s believed the logo used representations of the Greek letter delta (in upper case use a triangle shape) meant to represent the two brothers who had always been close (John dying of pneumonia during the 1918-1921 influenza pandemic and Horace expiring the same year from cirrhosis of the liver).  Other logos would appear after Chrysler purchased Dodge in 1928 (following an abortive earlier attempt) but none were even vaguely Fratzogish so history is not much help in tracing the origin; the industry legend of a designer just “liking the shape” may really be true.  It did though have a longer and more diverse career than the Flookerang, serving variously as body badges & grille emblems and appearing also on gas (petrol) caps & horn buttons.  Despite the proliferation, the Fratzog never became thematic in print advertising the way the Flookerang had been used in the 1950s.  So that's it, both words (one a conventional portmanteau, the other possibly one but genuinely mysterious) emerging from a Detroit styling studio although, had anyone concluded Flookerang & Fratzog was likely either an unfinished novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821–1881) or a firm of Jewish accountants, that would have been understandable. 

The original Dodge Brothers logo, used between 1914 and 1930.  The oft-repeated story the logo was adopted to annoy the notoriously anti-Semitic Henry Ford (1863-1947) is now thought an urban myth.

Except among collectors or students of such things, by 2024, neither logo probably much registered in the public consciousness in the way of Chevrolet’s bow-tie or Ford’s “Blue Oval” (that font a hand-drawn rendition based on Henry Ford’s signature although PostScript and TrueType emulations variously are available (FordScript the closest, Fabiola Script & Neville Regular similar)) but despite the collective memory having faded, in 2024 Dodge announced the Fratzog would be revived as symbol of its new range of electric power-trains, assuring the world the constant advances in battery chemistry meant the days of thousand HP (horsepower) EVs with AWD (all-wheel-drive) and a 500 mile (800 km) range were nigh; burning rubber wasn’t going away, it’d just no longer require gas.  To make the historic link, there was CGI (computer generated graphics, generative AI (artificial intelligence) at that point not sufficiently refined) footage with Fratzogs, a rationale and lots of tyre smoke.  As things turned out, batteries continued to improve but Dodge’s announcement 2023 would be the end of the line for their gas-powered V8 muscle cars turned out to be premature though genuinely that was the intent.

1967 Wolseley Hornet (1961-1969, left) and 2022 Dodge Charger Daytona SRT EV Concept (right).  Although six decades apart, there are still commonalities, both having four wheels and illuminated grille badges.

Keen-eyed observers of promotional material for the 2024 (EV) Charger Daytona noted Fratzog logos on the wheel hubs with the one in the centre of the grille being illuminated, a feature long associated with the English manufacturer Wolseley which, under a number of corporate umbrellas between 1901 and 1975 variously thrived, survived or struggled until finally becoming one of the many victims of the doomed British Leyland (1968-1986).  Wolseley never produced a muscle car but in the 1950s & 1960s was one of the "preferred suppliers" for many of the UK's metropolitan police forces.  The Wolseley trademark is now in the hands of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), the state-owned SAIC Motor (formerly Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation) acquiring it by virtue of the MG Rover Group having in 2005 been absorbed by SAIC subsidiary Nanjing Automobile.  Although Nanjing has since 2008 produced vehicles using the MG name, there has never been any indication the Wolseley marquee might be revived, presumably because unlike MG which retained strong “brand recognition” because of the following enjoyed by its pre-1980 sports cars, Wolseley has faded from the collective memory, most of its original customers now dead. 

EV: The future of Fratzog.  Dodge's EV shtick is that “people buy performance, not a mechanical specification”, a variant of the hardware store's “people don't want 20 mm drill bits, they want 20 mm holes); it'll be interesting to see if the “US muscle car model” (front-mounted V8, RWD (rear-wheel-drive)) can be re-defined to “performance breakdown”.  The market will decide.

There was also a neologism, “Frazonic” emblazoned on the rear valance; it turned out that adjective referred to the “Fratzonic Chambered Exhaust” (piped “engine noise”, replicating in tone and dB (decibels) the song of a Hellcat V-8; the adverb presumably “Fratzonically”).  Just as government regulations had by the early 1970s contributed to the demise of the first muscle car era (although the insurance companies did their bit), so it seemed clear that five decades on, government edicts might also drive extinct at least the V8-powered monsters of the new generation, production of such things no longer viable given the new fleet fuel efficiency mandate.  However, as things turned out, there may be a stay of execution, internal documents “obtained” by various sites appearing to confirm Dodge’s EV ranges may in 2028 be augmented by a Charger running the supercharged 6.2-liter (376 cubic inch) Hemi Hellcat V8 in a RWD (rear-wheel-drive) configuration.  The internal designation appeared as “HEV” though that stood for not the by now common “Hybrid EV” but the wholly more subversive “Hellcat Equipped Vehicle”; that repurposing may not have been mischievous but someone at Dodge may have been trying to annoy Greta Thunberg (b 2003).  So Dodge is gearing up for what may be one last hard ride for those who can remember the way things used to be done (when noise was organic and not Fratsonic) but within the Stellantis product planning department, the only poem much read is likely to be To a mouse (1785) by Robert "Rabbie" Burns (1759–1796) with focus on the two famous lines: “The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men / Gang aft agley” (ie however well-planned, things can go awry).  Corporate America has found Donald Trump’s (b 1946; POTUS 2017-2021 and since 2025) second administration more accommodating than its immediate predecessor but, like many, keenly they’ll be watching the returns from the 2026 mid-term elections.

Tit

Tit (pronounced tit)

(1) Any of numerous small active old world songbirds of the family Paridae, especially those of the former genus Parus.

(2) Medieval slang for a girl or young woman thought something of a minx.

(3) A small, worthless or worn-out poor horse; a nag (archaic).

(4) Slang for a despicable or unpleasant person (archaic).

(5) Slang for a teat (used in agricultural and other circles).

(6) As titbit, a small morsel of food (historic English use, tidbit now the mor common form and universal in the US).

(7) One of the many vulgar slang terms for the human female’s breast (mammary gland).

(8) A light blow or hit (sometimes merely gestural or symbolic).  This use as a stand-alone noun has long been obsolete but the sense survives in the phrase "tit for tat").

(9) Lightly to strike; to pat or tap (obsolete). 

(10) To taunt, to reproach, to castigate (obsolete). 

Circa 1600: From the mid sixteenth century Middle English titte, from the pre 1100 Old English titt and cognate with the Middle Low German & Middle Dutch titte, the German as zitze, the Icelandic tittr and the Norwegian titta.  The Scandinavian forms applied to small birds and the Old English titt was a variant of teat.  The modern slang variation, attested from 1928, seems to be a recent reinvention from teat, used apparently without awareness it’s a throwback to the original form although the form is on record from 1746 as an English and Irish diminutive of teat, used in nurseries.  The verb forms (lightly striking; reproaching) are obsolete.  Tit is a noun & verb, titlike is an adjective and titting & titted are verbs; the noun plural is tits.

A pair of small tits and a pair of great tits: Bushtits (Psaltriparus minimus, left) and great tits (Parus major, right), the word order of the latter descriptor distinguishing use from the more common idiomatic form: "a great pair of tits".

Among the smaller tits is the bushtit (Psaltriparus minimus), found in the US Pacific Northwest, the tiny songbird typically 100-110 mm (3.9-4.3 inches) in length and weighing 4–6 grams (0.14–0.21 oz).  The pygmy tit (Psaltria exilis) is smaller and a monotypic now within the genus Psaltria (it was previously placed, along with the rest of its family, with the true tits (Paridae).  The largest of the tits is the widely distributed great tit (Parus major) which measures usually between 135-155 mm (5.3-6.1 inches) in length and weighs 16-21 grams (6-.81 oz).  In ornithology, tits, chickadees, and titmice constitute the Paridae, a large family of small passerine birds found mostly in Africa and the more temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere and Africa.  Most were formerly classified in the genus Parus; in the English-speaking world the terms chickadee & titmice tend to be used in North America while its elsewhere it's  “tits all the way” (the Americans also resisted  “titbits” and were more reassured by “tidbits”).  The creatures are mainly small, stocky, woodland species with short, stout bills, some with crests and ranging in length between 4-9 inches (100-220 mm); they have a mixed diet including seeds & insects and have adapted well to co-habitation with humans in urban environments.  It seems linguistically pleasing ornithological taxonomy has given English the black-breasted tit (Periparus rufonuchalis), the cinnamon-breasted tit (Melaniparus pallidiventris) and the stripe-breasted tit (Melaniparus fasciiventer).

The origin of familiar use of “tit” as slang for “breast, human female mammary gland” (now also as "tittie" or "titty" although they also enjoyed other meanings) lies in the Old English titt (teat, nipple, breast), used as a variant of teat or from the dialectal and nursery diminutive plural variant “titties”.  Perhaps surprisingly, it appears the modern slang use in this context (predictably, almost always in the plural) is documented only from 1928 (though oral use may have pre-dated this) and the adoption (actually a re-invention) may be unconnected to the original form.  The tradition was however long because in the Middle English the singular was often tete or tate, often used figuratively to mean both “source of (spiritual) nourishment” and by the late fourteenth century, an “object of erotic attraction”.  In modern slang use, it appears the use of “tits” was almost exclusively male until the 1970s when it became of the words “reclaimed” by feminists as a political statement although, as a general principle women seem still to prefer “boobs” while there is among them (usually in a disparaging sense) acceptance of “fake tits” as a critique.

Shima-Enaga in flight (left) and young lady with her pair of Shima-Enaga plushies.

The Shima-Enaga (シマエナガ) is most prolific in the region of Hokkaido, Japan but they inhabit the entire Paleatrictic (a bio-geographic realm of the Earth and the largest of the eight defined; mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere, it extends eastward from Europe, across Asia, north of the foothills of the Himalayas, to the Bering Strait and south to the Mediterranean Basin, North Africa & northern Arabia.  It thus encompasses several bioregions and freshwater eco-regions).  The Shima-Enaga is a sub-species of the long-tailed tit (also as long-tailed bushtit) and is famous for its fluffy appearance and snowman-like features (especially in winter when they puff up their feathers to stay warm), leading it popularly to be known as the “snow fairy”.  Social creatures, they are renowned for their curious and active behaviour; living mostly on arthropods (mostly insects), they also eat a variety of vegetable matter.  The word “cute” could have been invented for the Shima-Enaga and they’re a staple of the vibrant Japanese plushie industry.

By the 1540s “tit” was used for a small or unproductive horse, the sense of something “diminutive” transferring over later centuries to other small creatures, most enduringly in birds such as the titmouse, tom-tit, titlark, titling, tit-babbler etc although not all survived to be added to modern taxonomy such as the late nineteenth century titty-todger (a wren); it seems a shame we no longer have titty-toger in the lexicon.  In the Nordic nations, the Icelandic tittr, the Norwegian tita and the Old Norse titling were all used of small birds but etymologists are uncertain about the connection, the OED (Oxford English Dictionary) suggesting the link was of either something small (not of necessity specific to birds) or even onomatopoeic, drawn from the “chip-chipping” sound of small songbirds.  At least by 1706 it was common slang for “titmouse” and by 1734 was used figuratively of persons but between the sixteenth & eighteenth centuries a “tit” could be a “girl or young woman” and while that could be merely descriptive, it was applied often in the deprecatory sense of “a hussy or minx” (though apparently not actually a prostitute).

Big tits are not always what they seem.

Some years ago, an image circulated on internet's “usual suspect” sites; it purported to show a wax-paper bag from the 1930s, used originally as packaging for “Big Tits Potato Chips” manufactured by the Tart-Chestnut Company of Dunn, North Carolina.  The back-story was the name came from “Big Tits” being the nickname of the rather corpulent Mr Titus Tart, one of the operation's co-owners (the implication presumably he was over-fond of his factory's products).  As might be suggested by a product called “Big Tits” coming from a the “Tart-Chestnut” concern, it was fake news although that didn't stop debates about whether the use of “tit” in its modern sense was part of US vernacular in the Carolinas by the 1930s, some even suggesting the linguistic innovation may not have penetrated south of the Mason-Dixon line because there, dictionaries of slang may have been banned from public libraries on grounds of obscenity.  Plausibility might have been enhanced had the image been rendered with a little patina although as an emulation of 1930s packaging it did seem a creditable job, the art deco typeface a nice period touch and even the colors recalled the inter-war years (1919-1939).

Lindsay Lohan with a table of titbits: Ruffled top by Christian Siriano (b 1985), necklace by Swarovski, photo-shoot for Who What Wear UK, November 2022.

The form “titbit” (small, delicate snack of food; a sweet morsel) was in use by the 1630s and was synonymous with “tidbit” which was in concurrent use, the coining of that thought to be the dialectal tid (fond, solicitous, tender (itself perhaps influenced by the relevant sense of “tit”)) + bit (in the sense of “a morsel”).  Tidbit was once the common use in the UK & other parts of the old British Empire but in US English was vanishingly rare, tidbit long preferred.  Also surviving into modern use is “tit for tat”, (an expression indicating “a retaliatory return”), first documented in the 1550s and from this ultimately came “titfer” which appeared in UK dictionaries of rhyming slang as a substitute for “hat” (in from the “that” element in “this for that”).  “Tit for tat” may have been a variant of the earlier “tip for tap” (blow for blow), carrying the same meaning.  The game tick-tack-toe (noughts & crosses) was so named at least by 1892 but, according to oral historians, decades before it had been known as tit-tat-toe (by 1852, in reminiscences of earlier years), the name thought derived from the sound made by the pencil on the slate with which it originally was played by schoolboys.  The modern slang “taking the bull by the tits” is an absurdist variant of “taking the bull by the horns” (confronting a problem and dealing with it in a manner prompt, resolute & effective”); it suggests someone is doing something wrong or has misunderstood (ie they have NFI).

Hung out to dry.

Titlings being prepared on the shores of a Norwegian fiord.  First crossing the seas with the Vikings (the food was ideal for long voyages) in the 800s, stockfish is still an industry in Norway and is reputedly the world’s oldest, continuously practiced export trade. That's disputed by some in the Middle & Far East who cite products such as silk, honey, figs, dates and such and it all seems to hinge on hoe one defines “continuously”.

The noun titling (plural titlings) can be unrelated to avian and other uses of “tit” and its derived forms.  At law, a titling was a legal right to property (ie holding a valid title defensible against other claims).  The word was used also in publishing (deciding on a title) and by printers (impressing the title on the back of a book); as a verb, titling was thus the present participle and gerund of title.  The noun use does however extend to birds and even the fish trade.  A titling could be either a hedge sparrow (dunnock, titlene, Prunella modularis) or the meadow pipit (Anthus pratensis) while among fishmongers, it referred to the stockfish (cod (or similar species) having been cut open and cured in the open air without salt (the terms for the “dried & salted catch” included klipfish and salt cod).  Stockfish was from Middle English stokfissh & stokfysch, from the Middle Dutch stocvisch and/or the Middle Low German stokvisch (stick fish), that from the fish being dried in the open air on sticks or poles.

In the pre-refrigeration age, dried fish was a staple of the industry although, as an open-air process, it was climate-dependent but, being a long-lasting product (safely, it could be stored for years), exports in bulk were common, the business in the British Isles common enough for some traders to be styled “stockfishmongers” and, in early medieval London, the area around Thames Street (near St Magnus the Martyr church) was known as Stockfishmonger Row because it was here the trade was concentrated; the product was an important, year-round source of low-cost nutrition.  Until 1512, the stockfishmongers of London (then, like many professions, family concerns handed from father-to-son) operated as a distinct trade association at which point they merged with the other (fresh) fishmongers to form the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers, one of the Great Twelve Livery Companies of the City of London (unlike the Freemasons, there’s nothing to suggest the fishmongers were notorious plotters & schemers) and it was a respectable business, one fourteenth century stockfishmonger serving three terms as Lord Mayor of London.  That was an office of some note, known in the thirteenth century Latin as Dominus (lord or master) before by the early 1400s being styled “Lord Mair”.  Mair was from the Middle English maire, from the Old French maire (head of a city or town government), a substantivation of the Old French maire (greater), from the Latin maior (bigger, greater, superior (a comparative of magnus (big, great) and doublet of major)).  It was cognate with the Old High German meior (estate manager, steward, bailiff (enduring in modern German in the surnames Meyer & Meier)) and the Middle Dutch meier (administrator, steward, bailiff).  It displaced the Old English burgealdor (a ruler of a city, mayor, citizen), burhġerēfa (boroughreeve) (headman of a borough or district) & portġerēfa (portreeve) (headman of a port).  In the 1500s, Lord Mayors became the first officials to be styled “Right Honourable” (now most associated with privy counsellors although certain members of the peerage also enjoy a right to the title).

Meier & Meyer are in Germany common surnames (something like “Smith” or “Jones” in English), sometimes used in idiomatic expressions.  Hermann Göring (1893–1946; leading Nazi 1922-1945, Hitler's designated successor & Reichsmarschall 1940-1945) came to regret his use, telling the nation on the outbreak of World War II (1939-1945): “No enemy bomber can reach the Ruhr. If one reaches the Ruhr, my name is not Göring.  You can call me Meyer.”  Göring well knew the expression of the era: “The bomber will always get through” but had come to believe his own publicity about the invincibility of the Luftwaffe (the German air force), confident it was only his bombers that would get through.  Unfortunately for him, the RAF (Royal Air Force) didn’t believe the publicity (propaganda) and staged their first small-scale air-raids on Berlin in 1940, doing little damage but denting Göring’s prestige.  Cynical Berliners were noted for their sardonic humor and quickly dubbed the air-raid warning sirens “Meyer’s trumpets”, re-naming the Reichsmarschall: “Herr Meyer”.  However, unlike many politicians (then and now), Göring took the view people telling jokes about him meant he was popular and these his staff collected, pasting them (along with cartoons & caricatures) into a scrapbook that gleefully he would read; there’s no record of him seeking retribution on the authors.  Indeed, late in the war, caught in the open during an air raid, as hastily as was possible for someone of his bulk, he made his way into the closest underground shelter and joined the crowd, announcing cheerfully: “Herr Meyer is here.”  He was well-received.

Fake & Faux

Fake (pronounced feyk)

(1) To prepare or make something specious, deceptive, or fraudulent.

(2) To conceal the defects of or make appear more attractive, interesting, valuable etc, usually in an attempt to deceive.

(3) To pretend; simulate; emulate.

(4) To accomplish by trial and error or by improvising:

(5) To trick or deceive.

(6) In jazz music, to improvise (non pejorative).

(7) To play music without reading from a score (usually non pejorative).

(8) Anything made to appear otherwise than it actually is; counterfeit.

(9) A person who fakes; faker.

(10) To lay (a rope) in a coil or series of long loops so as to allow to run freely without fouling or kinking (often followed by down).

(11) Any complete turn of a rope that has been faked down; any of the various ways in which a rope may be faked down.

(12) In German, a male given name.

1350–1400: From the Middle English faken (to coil a rope) of unknown origin.  The nautical adoption fake (one of the windings of a cable or hawser in a coil) was from the Swedish veck (a fold) and probably entered English from exchanges between English and Scandinavian sailors.  The more familiar modern meaning is documented from 1775 as an adjective meaning “to counterfeit”.  It’s attested from 1812 as vagrants' slang meaning “to do for, rob or kill someone” but was also, in an echo of the earlier form, used to mean “shape something”.  It’s thought to have been either (1) a variant of the obsolete feak & feague (to beat), akin to Dutch veeg (a slap) & vegen (to sweep, wipe) or (2), a part of the lingua franca via Polari from the Italian facciare (to make or do).  Fake is a noun, verb & adjective, faked is a verb, fakement is a noun, faking is a noun & verb and faker is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is fakes.

The rarely convivial Hjalmar Schacht, standing right behind Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945).  Dr Schacht was a confessed Freemason.

It’s documented from 1851 as a noun (a swindle) and from 1888 was applied to a person (a swindler), but most etymologists assume it had for some time been in oral use.  The most likely source is thought to have been feague (to spruce up by artificial means), from the German fegen (polish, sweep) which, in colloquial use was used to mean "to clear out, to plunder".  In English, much of the early slang of thieves is from German or Dutch sources, dating from that great linguistic melting pot, the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) and until the nineteenth century, was largely un-documented although the fragmentary evidence available does suggest use was constantly shifting.  While preparations were being made for the first Nuremberg Trial (1945-1946), the defendants had been interviewed by a number of specialists including a psychologist who, among a battery of tests, included relatively simple mental arithmetic and one who might have been expected to display great proficiency with numbers was confessed Freemason Horace Greeley Hjalmar Schacht (1877–1970; president of the Reichsbank 1923-1930 & 1933-1939, general plenipotentiary for war economy 1935–1937 and reichsminister without portfolio 1937-1943).  However, the tester was “amazed at Schacht’s inability to do mental arithmetic; he had expected great things from a financial wizard.”  This Schacht explained as a virtue rather than an inadequacy, claiming: “Any financial wizard who is good at arithmetic is probably a swindler.”  Schacht was acquitted by the IMT (International Military Tribunal) though that didn't stop the German courts subsequently sentencing him to eight years in prison (essentially on the basis of "being a Nazi").  On appeal, he was released in 1948.

Fake news (journalism deliberately misleading), although popularized in the 2016 US presidential campaign (and following the lead of Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021 and since 2025) subsequently applied used by just about anyone to describe any source of which they disapprove), was actually first attested in 1894 although, as a device, fake news is probably about as old as news itself.  Faker as an agent noun from faker the verb is from 1846 and the noun fakement (forgery) is from 1811.  To “fake (someone) out” is a description of applied gamesmanship in sport and noted from 1941.  To jazz musicians, “to fake” was merely oral slang for improvising and the “fake book” is attested from 1951.  Interestingly, the adjective "jivey" was sometimes used as a pejorative (phony, fake) unlike "jive" which, in a musical context, was always purely descriptive.  Synonyms include ersatz, fake, false, imitation, imitative, unreal, counterfeit, fabricated, factitious, spurious, substitute, affected, contrived, feigned, insincere, plastic, synthetic, unnatural, bogus, affected, forged, fraudulent, mock, phony, spurious, deception, forgery, hoax, scam, sham, trick, put on, assumed, fraud, impostor, quack, charlatan, deceiver, substitute, contrived, feigned, insincere, & unnatural.

Faux (pronounced foh)

Artificial or imitation and admitted or understood to be so.

1676: from the twelfth century French faux (feminine singular fausse, masculine plural faux, feminine plural fausses), from the Old French fals, from the Latin falsus (false), perfect passive participle from fallō (deceive, trick; mistake).  The origin of fallō is uncertain.  It’s thought either from the Proto-Italic falsō, from the primitive Indo-European (s)whzel (to stumble) or from the primitive Indo-European ǵhwel- (to lie, deceive) but etymologists note structural problems with the latter.  A doublet of false.  The word fake almost always carries negative connotations, the idea of something that is not real, an imitation designed to trick someone into thinking it is real or original.  A fake might be a forgery or copy which is (certainly with many digital fakes) indistinguishable from whatever is the real or original thing it imitates, indeed it might even be an improvement but it remains fake.  Faux is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is fauces.

Lindsay Lohan in faux fur, amfAR gala, New York City, 2013.

Faux has since the 1980s been used in English (with French pronunciation) to describe anything that is imitative without attempting to deceive.  Prior to this, the only frequent use in English was the faux pas (breach of good manners, any act that compromises one's reputation (literally "false step")), noted since the 1670s.  Faux tends not to convey the negative association of fake because it so blatantly an alternative rather than an attempt to deceive, indeed, it can be positioned as having positive connotations, such as was was done with faux fur.  Faux fur is still at least quasi-respectable and in certain circles, there’s long been a micro-industry devoted to turning into social pariahs anyone wearing the real thing.  Sometimes, supporters of PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) use direct action, the flinging of red paint onto the offending coat or stole a favorite tactic.  In the twenty-first century, it’s probably not possible to “announce something” without some sort of adverse reaction on social media, the objections (often condemnations) including environment impact, cultural appropriation, microaggressions, racial or gender stereotyping, cultural insensitivity, the carbon footprint, various phobias and other transgressions.  It’s just the way what’s deemed “acceptable” and what’s not is now thrashed out.  Historically, because faux fur was a product of the petro-chemical industry (by any standards a dirty business) the criticism for faux fur centred on the environmental impacts but there were also concerns about the ethics of “deceptive” supply chains and the perpetuation of fur as a desirable fashion item.

While it’s true no animal usually directly is harmed in the production of faux fur, critics maintain wildlife has nevertheless suffered because of the industry’s environmental impact and although the methods used in the argument do sometimes seem abstract with some remoteness between cause and effect, the case is not without foundation, the reliance of on plastics obviously not without cascading costs.  Even now, most faux fur is made from synthetic polymers like acrylic, modacrylic, and polyester, all from non-renewable fossil fuels and emerging from processes with a significant carbon footprint.  Of increasing concern too is the heighted awareness that merely by existing (and especially when being laundered), faux fur garments shed tiny plastic particles into the environment including waterways, contributing to marine pollution (and entering the human-food chain) in a way once underestimated.  Unlike natural animal pelts, plastics can take at least hundreds of years to decompose and some include “forever chemicals”; they do what’s on the tin.  There’s also in commerce some cheating with products labelled “faux fur” found to contain natural product (including that of domestic cats & dogs), an approach tempting because the mass-production of even cheap synthetic fur can be more expensive than that obtained from animals slaughtered in unregulated “factory farms”.  PETA objects to the sale and use of faux fur because it “normalizes the aesthetic” of wearing animal pelts, something that can contribute to sustaining demand for real fur and that critique applies to more recent innovations such as faux fur produced from a plant-base using material like hemp or wool (harvested without slaughtering the creature).

Actor Pamela Anderson (b 1967), mostly real.

People do however seem unforgiving of fake boobs which, even if admitted (apparently sometimes even "boasted of") as being fake (which really should make them faux), seem forever doomed to be called fake.  The preferred form appears to be "fake tits".

Faux also blends well; there are "fauxhemians" (an individual who affects a Bohemian lifestyle while staying within social conventions), "fauxmances" (bogus romances, conducted for reasons good & bad), "fauxgasms" (simulated orgasms (often in the form "she's faking it")), "fauxlanthropists" (individuals who engage in charitable activities out of self-interest), "fauxpologies" (a non-apology), "fauxminists" (an individual presenting as a feminist but judged insincere), "fauxmosexuals" (heterosexual individuals who adopts fashion and mannerisms traditionally associated with the "L" & "G" factions in the LGBTQQIAAOP aggregation in order to gain social and/or financial advantage) & "fauxtatoes" (low-carb, keto-friendly alternatives to traditional mashed potatoes, typically made by blending steamed or roasted cauliflower).  Donald Trump dubbed Elizabeth Warren (b 1949; US senator (Democrat) for Massachusetts since 2013) Pocahontas because her claim to Native American ancestry proved dubious but allies of her predecessor (Scott Brown (b 1959; US senator (Republican) for Massachusetts 2010–2013)), referred to her as Fauxcahontas.  That was an incorrect use necessitated by the need of rhyme and word formation; technically she was a "Fakecahontas" but as a word it didn't work as well.  People anyway seemed to get the point: as a Native American, she was fake, bogus, phoney.

Christ with the Woman Taken in Adultery by Han van Meegeren (1889–1947) following Vermeer (1632-1675).

In May 1945, immediately after the liberation from Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, the authorities arrested Dutch national Han van Meegeren (1889–1947) and charged him with collaborating with the enemy, a capital crime.  Evidence had emerged that van Meegeren had during World War II (1939-1945) sold Vermeer's Christ with the Woman Taken in Adultery to Hermann Göring (1893–1946; leading Nazi 1922-1945, Hitler's designated successor & Reichsmarschall 1940-1945).  His defense strategy was as novel as it was unexpected: He claimed the painting was not a Vermeer but rather a forgery by his own hand, pointing out that because he had traded the fake for over a hundred other Dutch paintings seized earlier by the Reich Marshal, he was thus a national hero rather than a Nazi collaborator.  With a practical demonstration (a canvas and paints brought into the courtroom) of his skill, added to his admission of having forged five other fake "Vermeers" during the 1930s, as well as two "Pieter de Hoochs" all of which had shown up on European art markets since 1937, he convinced the judges and was acquitted but was then, as he expected, charged with forgery for which he received a one year sentence, half the maximum available to the court.  He died in prison of heart failure, brought on by years of drug and alcohol abuse. 

Justice might better have been served by the judges imposing a small, symbolic fine and requesting Mr van Meegeren to undertake not again to forge the work of others because, in the circumstances, swindling Hermann Göring seems more a community service than a crime.  His skills with brush and paint aside, Van Meegeren was able successfully to pass off his 1930s fakes as those of the seventeenth century painter of the Dutch baroque, Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675), because of the four years he spent meticulously testing the techniques by which recent painting could be made to appear appropriately aged.  The breakthrough was getting paints thoroughly to harden, a process that in an oil-based mix occurs naturally over 50-odd years; his solution was to mix the pigments not with oil but the synthetic resin Bakelite.  For his canvas, he used a genuine but worthless seventeenth-century painting and removed as much of the picture as possible, scrubbing carefully with pumice and water, taking the utmost care not to lose the network of cracks, the existence of which would play a role in convincing many expert appraisers they were authentic Vermeers.  Once dry, he baked the canvas and rubbed a carefully measured mix of ink and dust into the edges of the cracks, emulating the dirt that over centuries would have accumulated.

Guilty as sin: A slimmed-down Hermann Göring in the dock, Nuremberg, 1946.

Modern x-ray techniques and chemical analysis mean such tricks can no longer succeed but, at the time, so convincing were his fakes that no doubts were expressed and the dubious Christ with the Woman Taken in Adultery became Göring's most prized acquisition, quite something considering the literally thousands of pieces of art he looted from occupied Europe.  One of the Allied officers who interrogated Göring in Nuremberg prison prior to his trial before the IMT (International Military Tribunal, 1945-1946) recorded the expression on his face when told "his Vermeer" was a fake suggested that "...for the first time Göring realized there really was evil in this world".  For his crimes, Göring was sentenced to be hanged, a fate doubtless he believed the forger deserved to share.

Where demand exceeds supply, the market will respond: 2013 Mercedes-AMG G 63 6×6 (left) and 2014 Brabus B63S (right).

Aimed at the Middle East market and manufactured between 2013-2015, a run of 100 units was planned for the Mercedes-AMG G 63 6×6 and it was advertised on that basis, exclusivity part of the attraction.  However, such was the interest that dealers prevailed on behalf of a few influential "good customers" so some additional units were built but not many and within months, used models were selling for well above the US$550,000 (€379,000) list price.  That encouraged imitations and probably not since the DEMAG Sd.Kfz half-tracks of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's (1891–1944) Africa Corps ranged across Cyrenaica in 1941-1942 has there been a vehicle so suited to the open desert although progress meant the experience was able to be enjoyed at higher speed while listening to hi-fidelity recordings in air-conditioned comfort.  Of course the gas (petrol) consumption was, by twenty-first century standards, epic but for the demographic in the Middle East attracted by such things, fuel is a minor cost of their hobbies.  The German tuning house Brabus, noted for catering to the small but lucrative market of those who like the AMG cars but think they need more power, released the B63S, its 700 horsepower quite a chunk above the 536 offered by AMG.  In the narrow technical sense the B63S certainly was imitative but few would call was Brabus does "faux or a fake; being in some sense a manufacturer lends the brand a certain validity although Greta Thunberg (b 2003) would not have been impressed, thinking distinctions between terms like "real", "faux" & "imitation" tiresome distractions from the issue of "environmental thuggery".

1938 Mercedes-Benz G4 (W31, left) and an after-market conversion (right) of 2017 Mercedes-AMG G63 (W463) to a 6×6 configuration.

The factory's G63 6x6 anyway had its own hint of the imitative.  Although making much of its status as having produced the world's "first car" and maintaining in Stuttgart a museum with exhibits stretching back to the company's roots in 1886, Mercedes-Benz prefers to not much to dwell on the details of its activities between 1933-1945 but some of the output during those troubled years was remarkable, including the triple-axle G4.  The factory had developed similar cross-country vehicles for military use during the 1920s but, after testing a number of the prototype G1s, the army declined to place an order, finding them too big, too expensive and too heavy for their intended purpose.  Adolf Hitler however, as drawn to big, impressive machines as he was to monumentalist, representational architecture, ordered them adopted as parade vehicles and the army soon acquired a fleet of the updated G4, used eventually not only on ceremonial occasions but also as staff and command vehicles, two even specially configured, one as a baggage car and the other a mobile communications centre, packed with radio-telephony.

1937 Mercedes-Benz G4.

Hitler’s entry in Vienna following the Anschluss (the absorption of Austria into the Reich), 14 March, 1938 was "warmly welcomed" by the assembled crowds.  It was in the post-war years the project to recast Austria's image as "the Nazi's first victim" rather than "willing companion" was undertaken by the government; elsewhere in Western Europe, eyes anxiously looking east, governments were anxious to lend their support.  The statue in the background is of the Archduke Charles Louis John Joseph Laurentius of Austria, Duke of Teschen (1771–1847) and often referred to as “Archduke Karl”, mounted on the Heldenplatz.

Eventually, between 1934-1939, 57 G4s were built, originally exclusively for the OKW (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (Armed Forces High Command)) and OKH (Oberkommando des Heeres (Army High Command)) but one was gift from Hitler to Generalissimo Franco (1892-1975; Caudillo of Spain 1939-1975).  The Spanish G4, one of few which still exists, was restored and remains in the royal garage in Madrid.  According to factory records, all were built with 5.0, 5.3 & 5.4 litre straight-eight engines but there is an unverified report of interview with Hitler’s long-time chauffeur, Erich Kempka (1910-1975), suggesting one for the Führer’s exclusive use was built with the 7.7 litre straight-eight used in the 770K Grosser (W07 (1930–1938) & W150 (1938–1943)).  Some of the 770s were supercharged so, if true, it's a tantalizing prospect but the story is widely thought apocryphal, no evidence of such a one-off ever having been sighted.

The white G63 6x6 (above) was a “conversion” of a 2017 G63 by G Wagon Car Technology GmbH (Austria), a operation with a high-reputation, derived at least in part from their work being undertaken wherever possible with the use of factory part-numbers.  Given their high standards, "fake" or "faux would seem harsh and all but the most obsessive of the originality police likely would settle on "clone", "replica" or "recreation".  One thing that tends to set the factory’s original G63 6x6’s apart from most of the after-market conversions is the latter tend to use the standard G63’s axles while the former were built with more expensive portal axels.  Portal axles include at each wheel hub an off-set gearbox, raising the axle tube above the wheel centre-line, increasing the ground clearance under the differentials (vulnerable to damage in extreme conditions) without incurring the disadvantages (higher centre of gravity, additional structural stress) induced by conventional suspension-lift techniques.  Portal axles provide also built-in gear reduction, reducing stress on drive-trains and off-setting power losses if larger tyres are fitted.  Because of what they do internally, there are also weight-saving benefits because with the “twisting effect” on axle shafts and CV (constant-velocity) joints reduced, components need not be so heavy.  While not a simple installation, portal axles also allow the suspension’s original geometry to be maintained, even if larger wheels and tyres are used.  However, for everything one does there’s a price to be paid and in engineering that’s expressed as “trade-offs”, the advantages gained by the use of portal axles accompanied by the drawbacks of increased complexity and higher maintenance, each unit requiring regular oil-changes.

Walmart chic for a half-million-odd US$.

In places like Turin or Cannes, there wouldn’t have been many who thought Chrysler’s RAM TRX was “too small” but Texas-based operation Hennessey knew there was in the US sufficient demand to schedule an annual production of 12 Mammoth 1000 6×6 TRX trucks, the base price listed at US$449,950 (before options).  Rated at 1,012 HP and measuring some 23½ feet (7.2 metres) end-to-end, in addition to the usual specifications sheet, the company provided a succinct explanatory paragraph: “Everything we do at Hennessey Performance is turned up to 11, but the Mammoth 1000 6×6 is definitely turned up to 12!  Everything on the Mammoth 6×6 is bigger, badder, and more imposing – plus, it’s still super-fast, while being a total powerhouse off-road. It’s the undisputed king of the road.”

Amusingly whether or not fitted with the portal axles making them more suited to use off-road, most of the G63 6x6s were bought not for their rough terrain capabilities but as status symbols, few drivers ever venturing far from the smooth surfaces of urban life that, paradoxically, proved their native environment.  Additionally, the fate of many seems to be as "collectables" carefully to be stored in a climate-controlled garage, awaiting the next venture onto the auction circuit, owners hoping to "flip" their investment for a profit.  Because all that can be guaranteed about the market is that "it will fluctuate", as might have been predicted for such a niche item, results have been mixed.  The concept is though a niche with obvious appeal because in the US a number of suppliers have entered the market to offer similar three-axle conversions on the platforms of the big Chevrolet, Ford and RAM pick-up trucks; impressionistically, most of these also seem to have been purchased for urban use and although their sheer size would seem to mitigate against use in cities, in the US the size differential between them and much else of what's on the roads is not so stark as in other places and for those who really do value functionality, their load-carrying and towing capabilities would be appreciated.  Additionally, among the MAGA (Make America Great Again) crew, such machines have become political statements; that's an abstract kind of functionally.

Ferrari GTO production numbers 1961-1964.  The most fastidious insist only what happened in 1962-1963 counts and there are thus 36 Ferrari 250 GTOs.

There are however fake cars and they're considered bogus if represented as a factory original but are really a modified version of something else.  Even if a functionally exact copy indistinguishable from what the factory did, without disclosure that’s fake because it's not "authentic" yet exactly the same machine modified in the same way is instead a “clone”, “tribute”, “recreation” or “replica” if represented as such; it's all in the transparency of the disclosure.  Clone, recreation & replica do imply a exact copy but some leeway does seem to be granted given mechanical exactitude is sometimes simply not possible.  A vehicle substantially a replica of something but includes modifications to improve safety, performance or some other aspect of the dynamics is usually styled a “tribute” or “restomod” (a portmanteau word, the construct being resto(red) + mod(ified)).  The improvements can be transformative and, in certain cases, increase value but in others, the changes might detract.  Whether clone, replica or tribute, if what’s being referenced is something rare and desirable, the difference in value can be a factor of more than fifty-fold.  Originality can trump improvement.  The differential exists even if what’s created is for all practical purposes an exact a copy of something such as the various replications (the best word) of 1930s Bugattis, Mercedes-Benz and such by Pur Sang of Argentina.  While a common approach by those making “replicas” of things like the Ferrari 250 GTO is to take the chassis and drive-train of a mechanically similar but less valuable Ferrari of the era and “modify as required”, what Pur Sang does is, with exquisite attention detail, craft just about every part from scratch.  Nuts & bolts they buy “off the shelf” but not much else.  The result is extraordinary and, for what one gets, their prices seem reasonable.

1962 Ferrari 250 GTO recreation by Tempero of New Zealand.

As an extreme example there is the fabled Ferrari 250 GTO, of which usually it's accepted 36 were built although those prepared to cast the definitional net a little further claim there were 41: (2 x (1961) prototypes; 32 x (1962–63) Series I 250 GTO; 3 x (1962–1963) “330 GTO”; 1 x (1963) 250 GTO with LM Berlinetta-style body & 3 x (1964) Series II 250 GTO).  The GTOs in the hands of collectors command extraordinary prices, chassis 4153GT in June 2018 realizing US$70 million in a private sale whereas an immaculately crafted replica of a 1962 version by Tempero (New Zealand) was listed for sale at US$1.3 million (no NFT required).  The Tempero cars are acknowledged to be better built than any original GTO although that is damning with faint praise, those who restore pre-modern Ferraris wryly noting that while the tough drive-trains were built with exquisite care, the assembly of the coachwork could verge on "shoddy".  Indeed, when the head of one restoration company was asked if a vintage Ferrari exactly could be replicated the answer was it was doubtful "...because none of our staff can weld that badly.",   Even less exalted machinery, though actually more rare still, like the 1971 Plymouth Hemi Cuda convertible (only 12 of which were built) also illustrate the difference for there are now considerably more clones / replicas / recreations etc than ever there were originals with the price difference typically a factor of ten or more.