Concerto

Concerto (pronounced kuhn-cher-toh or kawn-cher-taw (Italian))

(1) A composition for an orchestra and one or more principal instruments (ie soloists), usually in symphonic form. The classical concerto consisted typically of several movements, and often a cadenza.

(2) An alternative word for ripieno.

1519: From the Italian concertare (concert), the construct being con- + certō.  The Latin prefix con- is from the preposition cum (with) and certō is from certus (resolved, certain) +‎ -ō; the present infinitive certāre, the perfect active certāvī, the supine certātum.  Concerto grosso (literally “big concert”; plural concerti grossi) is the more familiar type of orchestral music of the Baroque era (circa 1600–1750), characterized by contrast between a small group of soloists (soli, concertino, principale) and the full orchestra (tutti, concerto grosso, ripieno). The titles of early concerti grossi often reflected their performance locales, as in concerto da chiesa (church concerto) and concerto da camera (chamber concerto, played at court), titles also applied to works not strictly concerti grossi.  Ultimately the concerto grosso flourished as secular court music.  Concerto is a noun; the noun plurals are concertos & concerti.

The origin of the Italian word concerto is unclear although most musicologists hold it’s meant to imply a work where disputes and fights are ultimately resolved by working together although the meaning did change over the centuries as musical traditions evolved.  Concerto was first used 1519 in Rome to refer to an ensemble of voices getting together with music although the first publication with this name for works for voices and instruments is by the Venetian composer Andrea Gabrieli (circa 1532-1585) and his nephew Giovanni Gabrieli (circa 1555-1612), a collection of concerti, dated 1587. Up to the first half of the seventeenth century, the term concerti was used in Italy for vocal works accompanied by instruments, many publications appearing with this title although initially, the Italian word sinfonia (from the Latin symphōnia, from the Ancient Greek συμφωνία (sumphōnía) was also used.  It was during the Baroque era the concerto evolved into a recognizably modern form.

Deep Purple and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Malcolm Arnold: Concerto for Group and Orchestra, 24 September 1969.

Although pop groups playing with orchestras is now not rare, there’s never been anything quite like Jon Lord’s (1941-2012) Concerto for Group and Orchestra, performed on 24 September 1969 at the Royal Albert Hall by Deep Purple and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Malcolm Arnold (1921-2006).  The work has been described as "the fusing of the the sound of an orchestra with that of a heavy metal band" but that's misleading because the composition was in no way an attempt to emulate something like the "jazz-rock fusion" which some were exploring and Lord would never have described the process in those terms; he was well-aware what he was doing was a musical juxtaposition.  Instead, thematically, his idea seems to have been something like musical streams, running usually in parallel but sometimes crossing, mingling for some passages.  It proved at the time a modest commercial success and in the twenty-first century there has been a revival of interest with many performances.  Structurally, it was a true concerto in three movements:

First Movement: Moderato – Allegro (19:23).  In Italian compositional use, moderato prescribes a rather slow movement but one executed in a sustained and (slightly) lively fashion.  Allegro can be either (1) a tempo mark directing a passage is to be played in a quick, lively tempo (faster than allegretto but slower than presto) or (2) an expressive mark indicating a passage is to be played in a lively or happy manner (not necessarily quickly).  In his first movement, Lord seems to have used the mark in the latter sense which was the established tradition.

Second Movement: Andante (19:11).  Andante is a a tempo mark directing a passage is to be played in a moderately slow tempo (faster than adagio but slower than moderato).

Third Movement: Vivace – Presto (13:09).  Vivace is an instruction to play at a brisk, lively tempo, the word from the Latin vīvācem (lively, vigorous) which hints its something about more than just speed.  Presto by contrast means just "quickly" (the tempo interpreted variously by conductors and their choice radically can change the character of a piece).

Cover of the original Tetragrammaton pressing of Deep Purple's second album The Book of Taliesyn (1968).

Although something very different from what most rock bands were doing in 1969, Lord's concerto really was a synthesis of some of the material two of the bands previous three albums, both of which contained threads in the tradition of the German classical music in which Lord had been trained.  Recorded during their early quasi-psychedelic period, the title of their second album had been borrowed from The Book of Taliesin (Llyfr Taliesin in the Welsh), a fourteenth century manuscript written in Middle Welsh which contains some five dozen poems, some pre-dating the tenth century while the third owed some debt to the seventeenth & eighteenth.  The Concerto for Group and Orchestra was very much in the vein of Deep Purple's early output but what was at the time unexpected was that less than a year after the performance, the band released the album In Rock, a notable change in musical direction and one decidedly not orchestral.  Prior to In Rock, Deep Purple's output had been eclectic with no discernible thematic pattern, a mix of influences from pop, blues and psychedelia, delivered with the odd classical flourish so suddenly to produce one of the defining albums of heavy metal was unexpected in a way the Concerto was not.  For the band however, it was the performance at the Royal Albert Hall which proved the anomaly, In Rock providing the template which would sustain them, through personnel changes and the odd hiatus, well into the twenty-first century.

Cover of the original Harvest pressing of Deep Purple's fourth album: Concerto for Group and Orchestra (1969).

Lord wasn’t discouraged by the restrained enthusiasm of the music press, describing critics as “…an archaic, if necessary, appendage to the music business” and pursued variations of the concept for the rest of his life.  The most noted was Windows (1974), a collaboration with German conductor and composer Eberhard Schoener (b 1938) which included Continuo on B-A-C-H (B-A-C-B# in musical notation), a piece which built on the unfinished triple fugue that closed Johann Sebastian Bach's (1685–1750) Art of the Fugue, written in the last years of his life.  Although not included with the original release on vinyl, the band did perform some of their other material just before the concerto began including a song which would appear on In Rock.  That was Child in Time, a long and rather dramatic piece with some loud screaming which must have been quite unlike anything which some of that night's older critics might previously have enjoyed and perhaps it affected them.  Unlike pop music’s fusions with jazz, attempts to synthesize with classical traditions never attracted the same interest or approbation, the critical consensus seemingly that while a cobbler could create a hobnail boot for a ballerina, most found it hard to imagine why.

Jon Lord with Mercedes-Benz 300 SL (W198, 1954-1963) Gullwing (1954-1957), photographed by Fin Costello, Los Angeles, 1975.

Plenty of folk did however see why and thirty years on, on 25 & 26 September 1999 the piece was again performed live at the Royal Albert Hall as the culmination of a concert with additional material.  The original score had been lost, compelling Lord and two collaborators to recreate by listening to recordings, synchronised with the video, the process said to be "challenging" even for professional musicians, one of whom was the piece’s composer.  Released on CD and DVD, interest was stimulated worldwide and Deep Purple embarked on a tour, performing the concerto in Japan, Europe and South America, in each location teaming with local orchestras.  Between then and his death in 2012, Lord was involved with almost a dozen performances around the world including one staged in Dublin with the RTÉ Concerto Orchestra, marking the 40^th anniversary.  Now in the public domain, musicians continue to explore the Concerto for Group and Orchestra, a piece which in 1969 most critics had dismissed as little more than a curiosity.

Lindsay Lohan in two-tiered deep purple dress, MTV Movie Awards, Universal City, Los Angeles, California, May 2008.

Musicologists working in the field of classical music focus much on the intricacy of a composition’s structure and in that they’re not quite analogous with structuralists in other disciplines but there’s intricacy too in the classification of works and they worked out while all concertos include a soloist and orchestra, not all works with soloist and orchestra are concertos.  The term “concerto” requires a certain arrangement of instrumentation but the word implies also specific musical form and structure. Although many modern forms of “popular” music have been derided as “formulaic”, conventions were followed also by classical composers and concertos tended to conform to a three-movement structure (fast–slow–fast), something exploited by the disruptive modernists of the twentieth century who wrote concertos which ignored all conventions, delighting some critics while appalling others; listeners (if sales on vinyl or optical disc are a guide) preferred to stick to the classics.

In those classics, the typical pattern was a first movement in the sonata-allegro form with a double exposition (ie the orchestra presenting a theme), followed by the soloist’s contribution which might include a cadenza (an extended passage showcasing the performer’s virtuosity).  The point about the “concerto” was that while a prominent voice, the soloist’s contribution was interpolated to emphasize their interplay with the orchestra (“in dialogue” as the critics sometimes put it) and in that, while often the central figure, the soloist was a part of the texture.  The point at which a piece becomes “a concerto” was of course influenced by the label the composer attached but the form sometimes transcended the tag, Beethoven’s Ludwig van Beethoven’s (circa 1770–1827) Fantasy for piano, vocal soloists, mixed chorus, and orchestra, Op. 80 (1808 and styled usually as Choral Fantasy), as the name suggests, includes solo contributions but was not called a “concerto” and Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) made much use of vocal soloists without troubling to call the compositions “concertos”.  At the margins, the definitions are fuzzy; Maurice Ravel’s (1875–1937) Tzigane (1924) was a piece for violin and orchestra (and very much a piece for a virtuosic violinist) but it’s classified as a rhapsody because the two elements don’t “interplay” as is demanded by a concerto and in the same vein, while oratorios and cantatas often include solo vocal lines, they augment the orchestral contribution rather than being “in dialogue”.

An improbable sextet: Deep Purple with Malcolm Arnold, London, 1969.  The sub-editor failed to correct the caption, Jon Lord standing second from left.  Left to right: percussionist Ian Paice (b 1948), keyboard player Jon Lord (1941-2012), conductor Malcolm Arnold (1921-2006), guitarist Richie Blackmore (b 1945), vocalist Ian Gillan (b 1945) and bassist Roger Glover (b 1945).

Until well into the twentieth century, critics and academics seemed untroubled whether structure matched label but, reflecting trends in other fields, there emerged the desire to apply clear taxonomies to what historically had been a fluid practice.  The argument was “if it sounds like a concerto it must be described as one” and in this there may have been some interest from the industry because the mass-production in the 1950s of long-playing (LP) records made viable the distribution (on sometimes as few as one or two records) of even the longer concertos which once might have demanded two dozen.  So, if the structure and function of a piece not so-named resembled that of a concerto and the soloist(s) played dominant, virtuosic roles in clear contrast to the orchestra, it made sense for publishers to seek to fit the work into familiar (and importantly, popular) categories.  Even in a case where intentions were made explicit, record labels preferred to “tidy up” the lists.  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s (1756–1791) Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola and Orchestra in E-flat major emerged from the composer’s experiments with the “sinfonia concertante” genre (blending elements of symphony & concerto), thus the hybrid (Concertante) label.  Despite that, in some publishers’ databases, it’s filed now among the concertos, reflecting an interest in things "doing what it says on the tin".

Allegro

Allegro (pronounced uh-ley-groh or uh-leg-roh or ahl-le-graw (Italian)).

(1) In music, a tempo mark directing that a passage is to be played in a quick, lively tempo, faster than allegretto but slower than presto.

(2) In music (more traditionally), an expressive mark indicating that a passage is to be played in a lively or happy manner, not necessarily quickly.

(3) In music, a piece or passage to be performed in this manner (an allegro movement).

(4) In printing & typography, as the font Allegro, a serif typeface released in 1936 (initial upper case).

(5) In the history of the internet's lists of "the worst cars ever made", British Leyland's Austin Allegro (1973-1982) (initial upper case).

(6) In Italian use, a male given name (initial upper case).

1625–1635: From the Italian allegro (lively; happy, cheerful (feminine allegra, masculine plural allegri, feminine plural allegre, superlative allegrissimo)), from the French allègre, from the Latin alacer (nominative alacer) (lively, cheerful, brisk) (from which English later picked up alacrity).  The Italian allegretto (diminutive of allegro) in musical composition is the instruction to be (brisk & sprightly but not so quick as allegro) was coined in 1740 explicitly for its technical purpose in music and the alternative form was the adverb allegro non troppo, the construct being allegro (fast) + non (not) + troppo (too much), thus understood as "play fast but not too fast".   As well as the native Italian and the English allegro, composers in many languages use the term including in French allegro (the post-1990 spelling allégro), the Greek αλέγρος (alégros) & αλλέγκρο (allégkro), the Norwegian allegro, the Portuguese allegro (the alternative spelling alegro), the Turkish allegro and the Persian آلگرو.  Allegro is a noun, adjective & adverb; the noun plural is allegros (Initial upper case if used of the cars of appropriately named Italian males).

Use as a musical term seems not to have been recorded until 1721.  Prior to that, since the early seventeenth century, English had used the word in the sense (brisk, sprightly; cheerful) picked up from Italian and Latin although the original spelling in English was aleger (lively, brisk) from Old French alegre, influenced by the Medieval Latin alacris.  What encouraged use was the adoption of the word (in its literal sense) by John Milton (1608–1674) who included the poem L'Allegro" in his collection Poems (1645); L'Allegro (The happy man) was a pastoral poem and critics regarded it as a companion piece for his Il Penseroso (The melancholy man), a work which in some ways anticipated the Romantic movement of the early nineteenth century.  The literary use extended to the term "allegro speech" (a relatively fast manner of speaking), once often used as a stage notation by playwrights although it seems now less common, replaced by terms better known to the young.  This fragment from Milton's L'Allegro is illustrative of the piece's rhythm and movement:

Haste thee nymph, and bring with thee
Jest and youthful Jollity,
Quips and cranks, and wanton wiles,
Nods, and becks, and wreathbd smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,
And love to live in dimple sleek;
Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter holding both his sides.
Come, and trip it as you go
On the light fantasric roe.

Lindsay Lohan merchandize on allegro.pl, a Polish e-commerce site. 

The site presumably settled on "allegro.pl" to convey the idea of speed (fast service, fast delivery etc).  Although the word allegro was never absorbed into the Polish language, because it appeared with such frequency in augmenting musical notation, it’s a familiar form throughout Europe.  Polish composer Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) used it as a title for Allegro de concert in A major, Opus 46 and his work also included three “allegro” movements: Allegro maestoso (the first movement of the Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, Opus. 11), Allegro vivace (the third movement of the Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, Opus 11) and Allegro vivace (the third movement of the Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Opus 21).  In an appalling example of an attempt at normative moral relativism, while on trial before the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at Nuremberg (1945-1946), Hans Frank (1900–1946; Nazi lawyer and governor of the General Government (1939-1945) in German-occupied Poland during World War II) suggested that in mitigation for his direct complicity in mass-murder, he should receive some credit for establishing the Chopin Museum in Krakow, something “the Poles had never done”.

Voraciously corrupt (even by Nazi standards), Frank was protected by virtue of his past service as Adolf Hitler’s (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) personal lawyer and remained in his palace until the military collapse of the General Government in 1945; under his rule, some four million were murdered.  Remarkably, he handed to the Allies dozens of volumes of his highly incriminating diaries and the IMT found him guilty under Count 2 (War Crimes) & Count 3 (Crimes Against Humanity), sentencing him to death by hanging.  His response to the sentence was to say: “I expected it, I deserved it”, adding: “A thousand years will pass and still this guilt of Germany will not have been erased.”  The latter sentiment he recanted while awaiting execution, suggesting the trial had provided something of a cleansing effect but at the time most regarded that as cynically as they noted the rediscovery of his long abandoned Roman Catholic faith.  Although power corrupted him and led him down a path to depravity, Frank never quite lost his respect for the idea of the rule of law and its fundamental importance in a civilized society but was not in his mind able to resolve the conflict between the legal mystique in which he’d been trained and the reality of the Führerstaat (Führer state) in which the word of Hitler was the law.  Frank did attempt to build a framework in which the many contradictions could be reconciled but soon was made to understand his mental gymnastics would (rightly) be thought mere legal sophistry and anyway be ignored by those in the state who held authority.  Awaiting trial, he told one interrogator Hitler’s lack of reverence for the law was the “one defect in this great man” and regretted he’d never been able to change the Führer’s view he “would not rest until Germans realize it is shameful to be a lawyer.”

The Allegro typeface by German graphic artist Hans Bohn (1891–1980)

Although book burning infamously was associated with the era, much publishing was still done in Germany during the 1930s and the centre of the industry was Frankfurt.  In 1936, the city’s Ludwig & Mayer type foundry released the Allegro typeface which was in the tradition of Didone style which became popular in the nineteenth century but influenced also by art deco designs which had flourished during the inter-war years (1919-1939).  A serif design which relied for its impact on the alternation of thick and thin strokes, it used breaks in the letter where thin strokes might be expected, hinting at the style of stencils with a touch of the inclination associated with calligraphy.  It was a popular typeface for decorative purposes such as book jackets or headings of musical notation but, very much a display font, it worked well only above a certain point size and thus was used at scale, almost exclusively for titles.

The Ford Allegro

Ford Allegro concept cars: 1963 (left & centre) and the 1967 Allegro II (right).

Ford’s Allegro was a concept car developed between 1961-1962 which was well-received during its time on the show circuit, viewers much taken by the dramatic interior which included a cantilever-arm, movable steering wheel with an electronic memory unit and adjustable pedals, features which would appear in production cars within a decade.  Built on the unibody platform of the compact Falcon which had been introduced in 1959, it was powered by a V4 manufactured by Ford’s European operation in Cologne, FRG (Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany; the old West Germany, 1949-1990).  Noting the use in music, the company settled on the “Allegro” name to convey the idea of “brisk and lively performance” but company documents confirm the team responsible for such things pondered “Avventure” and “Avanti” before settling on “Allegro”.  The more obviously speculative Allegro II was displayed in 1967 and a number of the design motifs from both would appear on subsequent Fords as well as Chevrolet’s Vega (1970-1977) and second generation Camaro(1970-1981).

The Austin Allegro

Aesthetic success & failure: The Alfa-Romeo Alfasud (left) and the Austin Allegro (right).

Often featured (usually with several other products of British Leyland in the 1970s) in lists as among the worst cars ever made, the Austin Allegro was in production between 1973-1982 and actually sold in respectable numbers for most of that time although at only a third the rate of its remarkably popular predecessor (ADO16, the Morris 1100/1300 and its five badge-engineered siblings (Austin, MG, Wolseley, Riley & Vanden Plas).  One much criticized aspect of the Allegro was the appearance; it was thought a bloated blob in an era of sharp-edges and wedges and the critique does illustrate just how narrow can be the margin between success and failure in the execution of a concept.  The Alfa Romeo Alfasud (1971-1983 (variants of the original produced until 1989)) adopted essentially the same shape and dimensions yet was praised as an elegant and well-balanced design.  Seen in silhouette, the shapes are similar yet in the metal, the detail differences, a mere inch (25 mm) or two here and there or a subtle change in an angle or curve and one emerges lithe, the other ponderous.

Harris Mann’s 1968 conceptual sketch for the Allegro project.

The Allegro’s portly appearance wasn’t the original intent.  Tasked with designing a replacement for ADO16, the stylist Harry Mann (1938-2023) sketched a modernist wedge, designed to accommodate what was at the time an advanced specification which included all-independent hydraulic suspension, front wheel drive, disk brakes and crucially, new, compact engines.  Mann however began the project while employed by BMC (British Motor Corporation of which Austin was a part) but by the time substantive work on the Allegro began, BMC had been absorbed into the Leyland conglomerate, a sprawling entity of disparate and now competing divisions which, if agonizingly reorganized, might have succeeded but such were the internal & external obstacles to re-structuring that, coupled with political turmoil and the economic shocks of the 1970s, it staggered to failure, something the later nationalization could only briefly disguise.  Mann’s team learned the clean-lined wedge would have to be fattened-up because, not only were the old, tall, long-stroke engines to be re-used but the new units to be offered as options were bulkier still.

If installed at an angle (which would have demanded some re-engineering but would have been possible), that might have been manageable but what was not was the decision to use the corporate heater unit, developed at an apparently extraordinary cost; it could be installed just one way and it was a tall piece of machinery.  Allegro production ended in 1982 but what its appearance of all those "worst car ever" lists tends to obscure is it wasn't a commercial failure.  Although it sold only about a third the volume of its predecessor (the ADO16 ranges) which was for most of the 1960s the UK's best-selling car (and an export success, especially in New Zealand), the Allegro existed in a much more competitive market.  Essentially, the Allegro was nearly a very good car and had it been produced by an outfit less inept than British Leyland, it'd probably now be better-remembered.  While it's now sometimes dismissed as "all agro" ("agro" a slang form of "angry", the phrase meaning something like "nothing but trouble"), in its time the Allegro sold well and enjoyed a better than average reliability record.

1976 Triumph TR7 coupé (left) and 1980 Triumph TR8 convertible (right).  It is wholly emblematic of British Leyland that just as the TR8 had become a good car with much unexplored potential, production ceased. 

Mann didn’t forget his 1968 sketch and when the opportunity later came to design a new sports car, his wedge re-appeared as one of the cars which most represented the design ethos of the 1970s: The Triumph TR7 (1974-1981) & TR8 (1977-1982) which weren't quite trouble-free but which sold quite well and, as the TR8 (which used the 3.5 litre (215 cubic inch) Rover V8), represented something in which the potential of the original was finally realized but it was too late for by then the disaster that was British Leyland had eaten itself.  

1960 Plymouth Fury four-door hardtop (left), 1974 Austin Allegro 1750 Sport Special (centre) and 2024 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 coupe (right).

The Allegro is remembered also for a steering wheel which was neither circular yet not exactly square.  Dating back decades, the idea wasn’t novel and such things had in the early 1960s appeared of a few American cars but, fitted to the Allegro, it attracted much derision, something not diminished by Leyland’s explanation it afforded "an ideal view of the instruments".  Leyland also attracted the scorn of mathematicians when they called the shape “quartic” on the basis of it being “a square with rounded corners”.  However, technically, a quartic is “an algebraic equation or function of the fourth degree or a curve describing such an equation or function” while sqound (a portmanteau word, the construct being sq(uare) + (r)ound) is the ultimate niche word, the only known use by collectors of certain Chevrolet C4 Corvettes (1984-1996), describing the shift in 1990 from round to “a square with rounded corners” taillights.  Mathematicians insist the correct word for a "square with rounded corners" is "squircle" (in algebraic geometry "a closed quartic curve having properties intermediate between those of a square and a circle"), the construct being squ(are) +c(ircle).

Few etymologists (and certainly no lexicographers) appear to have listed sqound as a "real" word but it's of minor interest because as a rare example of a word where "q" is not followed by "u"; such constructs do exist but usually in the cases where initialisms have become acronyms such as Qantas (Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services).  Such words do appear in English language texts but they tend to be foreign borrowings including (1) qat (or khat) (a plant native to East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, often chewed for its stimulant effects, (2) qi (a term from Chinese philosophy referring to life force or energy), qibla (the direction Muslims face when praying, towards the Kaaba in Mecca and (4) qiviut (the soft under-wool of the musk-ox, valued when making warm clothing).  For a while, Leyland pretended to ignore the pedants but within a year replaced the wheel with a conventional circular design.  Whatever the name, variations of the shape have since become popular with high-end manufacturers, Ferrari, Aston-Martin, Lamborghini and others all pursuing non-circular themes and one is a feature of the latest, mid-engined, C8 Chevrolet Corvette in which, unlike the despised Allegro, it's much admired.

How to make an Allegro look worse: 1976 Vanden Plas 1500, the variant coming too late to receive the quartic wheel.  The consensus among testers was the best place to enjoy a Vanden Plas 1500 was sitting inside, amid the leather and walnut, most readers drawing the inference that was because one wouldn't have to look at the thing.  One less charitable scribe described it as "mutton dressed up as hogget". 

In another sign of the times, unlike ADO16, one basic vehicle which was badge-engineered to be sold under six brands (Austin, Morris, Riley, Wolseley, MG & Vanden Plas with the Italian operation Innocenti among the overseas builders, some of which added "modernized" front and rear styling), the only variation of the Allegro was a luxury version by in-house coach-builder Vanden Plas (although there were Belgium-built Allegros and Leyland's Italian operation produced some 10,000 between 1974-1975 as the Innocenti Regent), laden with leather, cut-pile carpeting and burl walnut trim including the picnic tables so beloved by English coach-builders.  It didn't use the Allegro name and has always elicited condemnation, even from those who admired the Vanden Plas ADO16, presumably because the traditional upright grill attached to the front suited the earlier car's lines whereas the version which had to be flattened to fit the Allegro's pinched, pudgy nose was derided as coming from the hand of a vulgarian.  Still, there's clearly some appeal because the Vanden Plas cars have the highest survival rate of all Allegros and now enjoy a niche (one step below the GDR's (Deutsche Demokratische Republik (German Democratic Republic; the old East Germany, 1949-1990) Trabant (the infamous "Trabbi")) on the bottom rung of the collector car market.  One thing which may disappoint collectors is the Vanden Plas 1500 & 1750 (1974-1982) never used the "quartic" steering wheel although a photograph of one so-equipped did appear in the early brochures, printed before the decision in mid-1974 to replace it with a conventional (circular) design.  The photograph was of what the the industry calls a "final pre-production prototype", a common practice.

Leyland's other misadventure in 1973: The P76     

The antipodean Edsel: 1973 Leyland P76 Super V8.

Although 1973 was the last “good year” for the “old” UK economy and one during which British Leyland was looking to the future with some optimism, the corporation’s troubles that year with steering wheels were, in retrospect, a harbinger.  In addition to the Allegro, also introduced in 1973, on the other side of the planet, was the P76, a large (then a “compact” in US terms) sedan which Leyland Australia hoped would be competitive with the then dominant trio, GMH’s (General Motors Holden) Holden, Ford’s Falcon and Chrysler’s Valiant, the previous attempts using modified variants of UK models less than successful although the adaptations had been both imaginative and achieved at remarkably low cost.  Whatever the hope and dreams, publicly, Leyland Australia kept expectations low, claiming the target was nothing more than a 10% market share and the initial reception the P76 received suggested this might more than be realized, the consensus of press reports concluding the thing was in many aspects at least as good as the opposition and in some ways superior, the country’s leading automotive periodical that year awarding the V8 version the coveted CotY (Car of the Year) trophy.  

The answer to the question nobody asked: 44 gallon drum in a P76 boot.  In fairness, the marketing gimmick was a device to illustrate the car had "a bigger boot than the competition" rather than an indication many buyers routinely (if ever) carted such a thing but it soon became a matter of ridicule.

Unfortunately, the circumstances of 26 June 1973 when the P76 was launched didn’t last, the first oil crisis beginning some four months later which resulted in a spike in the price of oil which not only suddenly dampened demand for larger cars but also triggered what was in the West then the most severe and longest-lasting recession of the post-war years.  Some basic design flaws and indifferent quality control contributed to the debacle which is now remembered as the Australian industry’s Edsel and in October 1974 production of the P76 ended; Leyland closed its Australian manufacturing facilities, never to re-open.  Not even the much-vaunted ability of the P76 effortlessly to carry a 44 (imperial) gallon (53 US gallon; 205 litre) drum in its trunk (boot) had been enough to save the outpost of the old empire.

1973 P76 with the original (sharp-edged) steering wheel (left) and the later version, designed for the Force 7 (right) which was fitted also to the Targa Florio version released to celebrate a P76 setting the fastest time on the stage of the 1974 London–Sahara–Munich World Cup Rally held on the historic Targa Florio course in Sicily (in the rally, the P76 finished a creditable 13^th).  The steering wheel was one of many flaws which were planned to be rectified (or at least ameliorated) in the "facelifted" version scheduled for 1975 but, before the end of 1974, the decision had been taken in London to axe the entire Leyland Australia manufacturing venture.    

Given the geo-political situation, rampant inflation and troubled industrial relations of the time, the P76’s steering wheel is really just a footnote in the sad tale but, like the Allegro’s “quartic” venture it was emblematic of the self-inflicted injuries to which Leyland would subject itself, both in the UK and its antipodean offshoot.  When the P76 made its debut in 1973, there was some comment that the steering wheel’s boss had a horn-pad in the shape of a boomerang, emphasizing its credentials as a locally developed product, but what was criticized was the rim which had bizarre, concave cross-section, meaning a quite sharp edge faced the driver, leaving an impression on the palms of the hands after only a few minutes driving.  The industry legend is the shape was a consequence of the typist (second wave feminism hadn't yet left the bookshelves and arrived in boardrooms so in 1973 it remained SOP (standard operating practice) to wherever possible "blame the woman") who prepared the final specification-sheet having mixed up “concave” & “convex” but even if true it’s remarkable such an obvious design-flaw wasn't rectified at the prototype stage.

Some have doubted the veracity of the story but such things do happen including in space.  The problems of the HST (Hubble Space Telescope, 1990) were a famous example and on 23 September, 1999, NASA (the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration) lost the US$125 million Mars Climate Orbiter spacecraft after its 286-day journey to Mars and that was a time when US$125 million was still a lot of money.  There was of course the inevitable review which found the craft’s directional thrusters had, over the course of several months, been incorrectly fired because the control data had been calculated in incorrect units.  The contractor (Lockheed Martin, responsible for the calculations) was sending data in Imperial measures (pounds) to NASA, while NASA's navigation team, expecting metric units, interpreted the numbers as Newtons.  As far as is known, neither contractor nor agency attempted to blame a typist.

1974 Leyland Force 7V.

Compounding the error on an even grander scale, Leyland even planned to release a P76 coupé.  Of the 60-odd built, only 10 of the prototype Force 7V coupés survived the crusher and although it offered the novelty of a practical hatchback, the styling was ungainly and the execution expensive (no external panels shared with the sedan, then the standard practice for such variants).  However, what was more critical was the very market segment for which it was intended was close to extinction and the five vehicles intended as its competitors (Ford's Falcon Hardtop & Landau, Holden's Monaro coupé and Chrysler's Valiant Hardtop & Charger) would be all dropped from production by 1978.  Even had the range survived beyond 1974, success would thus have seemed improbable although the company should be commended for having intended to name the luxury version the Tour de Force (from the French and translated literally as "feat of strength"), the irony charming although En dépit de tout (In spite of everything) might better have captured the moment.  Industry historians have long concluded that even had the P76 survived, the Force 7 would have been a short-lived failure.     

Seriously, the New Zealanders did, by at least the hundreds.

One darkly amusing footnote in the dismal decline and fall of the P76 is that between 1971-1976, Rover's highly regarded 3500 (P6B, 1968-1977) was assembled from CKD (completely knocked down) packs at the NZMC (New Zealand Motor Corporation) plant in Nelson, some 2,400 finished cars shipped to Australia.  To an economist that probably sounds an unexceptional trans-Tasman commercial transaction but in return, NZMC received from Leyland Australia CKD packs of P76 V8s to an equivalent NZ$ value.  Most concluded the Australians got the better part of the deal although the P76 is now a fixture in the lower reaches of the local collector market where they sell for rather more than 3500s so there's that.

There seems no publicly available record of how many CKD packs were shipped to New Zealand but a fully-assembled, ADR (Australian Design Rules) compliant 3500 would have had a higher book value than a CKD pack P76 of any specification so, given the retail pricing at the time, a ratio between 3-4:1 may be a reasonable guess, the labor component in any assembly a substantial part of the calculated value.  That means it must have been a partial exchange because however calculated, 650 CKD packs of P76s would be only a fraction the value of 2400 complete P6s.  During the mid 1970s, the NZ$-Aus$ exchange rate bounced between (roughly) 1.10-1.22 so, depending on contractual terms, that may also have influenced the two-way volumes.  By the mid-1970s the Bretton Woods system (1944-1973) of fixed exchange rates was over but Western countries still set rates in a system called a “managed float”, periodically using a “basket” of currencies (US$ the benchmark; cross-rates from the basket).  “Managed float” sounds an oxymoron but the process wasn’t wholly different from modern practice (the interplay of forex markets and central bank interventions).

GQ Magazine (British edition), September 1995.  GQ stands for “Gentleman's Quarterly” but perhaps, by the 1990s, there was some irony in the title.

While it may be unfair, the P6-P76 exchange may be compared with the “Seriously, would you trade her in for Paula Yates?” caption which appeared on the September, 1995 cover of the British edition of the periodical GQ, used for a photograph of an alluringly posed Helena Christensen.  The piece was a comment on the news Australian singer Michael Hutchence (1960–1997) had “traded in” Danish supermodel Helena Christensen (b 1968 and his long-time girlfriend) for English media personality Paula Yates (1959–2000), the unsubtle implication being Ms Christensen was rather more attractive than Ms Yates, GQ's view apparently a woman's desirability should be determined on no other basis.  There are reasons the grimier end of English journalism gained its reputation.  

Paula Yates.

Many might make a similar point between the Rover P6 and the Leyland P76 although, like the two women, the pair do share some fundamental DNA, both V8s based on the original aluminium unit developed by GM (General Motors) for BOP (the corporation’s Buick, Oldsmobile & Pontiac divisions); not wholly suited to US use, GM produced the 215 cubic inch (3.5 litre) V8 only between 1960-1963 before selling the rights and tooling to Rover.  GM would come to regret that decision but nevertheless got good value from the design, similar engines with iron blocks used between 1964-1980 although the greatest benefit came from a V6 derivative which, in various forms in places around the world, was in continuous production between 1964-2008.  Best remembered as the long-serving “3800”, the V6 proved one of Detroit’s most robust, reliable and easily serviced engines.  For the P6, Rover used the original 3.5 litre configuration (although the company made the first of their many improvements) while Leyland Australia created a “tall deck” block and achieved a 4.4 litre (269 cubic inch) displacement with a perfectly square bore & stroke (both 88.9 mm (3.5 inch)).  Had the rest of the car been up to the standard of the 4.4, the P76 may have succeeded.

Helena Christensen.

Introduced in 1963 as the Rover 2000 (with a unique 2.0 litre (121 cubic inch) in-line four-cylinder engine), the P6 was one of the outstanding products of the post-war British car industry (genuinely, despite the perceptions of some, there were a few fine machines) with an advanced specification in a conveniently sized package.  It was the first ECotY (European Car of the Year) and all it needed was more power (a flirtation with enlarging the 2.0 to a 2.5 litre (151 cubic inch) in-line five aborted), that deficiency in 1968 addressed with the release of the 3500, the range in 1971 augmented by the 3500S (unrelated to the automatic 3500S sold briefly in the US) with a four-speed manual gearbox, the revised configuration making these P6s genuine 125 mph (200 km/h) cars.  Although by then a nearly decade-old platform, the 3500S impressed testers with it pace, the usual competence of the de Dion rear suspension and brakes which were state of the (pre-ABS) art; the fuel gauge also attracted comment, praised for its unusual accuracy.  Regrettably, the P6's fine platform was under-exploited although the Swiss coach-builder Graber was among several which built nicely-executed coupés & cabriolets while in England there were the inevitable estates (station wagons) although the latter were not ascetically pleasing because of the need to follow the slope of the roof-line.  Along with much of the UK industry, Rover rather lost its way after the high water mark of the 3500.  

The Alfa Romeo Alfasud

The fate of many Alfasuds.

Sea water played a part in the story of the Alfasud.  The Alfasud name (the construct being Alfa + sud) was an allusion to it being produced in a newly built factory in the Naples region, the decision taken after financial inducements were offered by the government, anxious to do something about the levels of unemployment and lack of economic development in the south of the country.  The Italian sud (south) was from the French sud, from Old English suþ, from Proto-Germanic sunþrą.  As a plan it made sense to politicians and economists but, industrial relations being what they were at the time, the outcome was less than ideal.    

In one aspect, the Allegro and Alfasud (1971-1989) were wholly un-alike, the latter infamous for its propensity to rust, a trait shared with many mass-produced Italian cars of the era, the only consolation for Alfasud owners being the contemporary Lancia Beta (1972-1984) suffered even more.  The Alfasud's rust-resistance did improve over the years but it remained a problem until the end of production and the industry story has always been that in the barter economy which was sometime conducted between the members of the EEC (European Economic Community (1957), the Zollverein that would evolve into the EU (European Union (1993)) and those of the Warsaw Pact (the alliance between the USSR and the satellite states within Moscow's sphere of influence which essentially duplicated the structure of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 1949), Italian manufactured goods were exchanged for Russian steel which reputedly was re-cycled but anyway turned out to be of poor quality and essentially porous.  The story certainly is a good fit for the narrative of mal-administration and corruption that was Italy in the 1970s but subsequent research has revealed it to be a myth, the sheet metal used in the Neapolitan factory at Pomigliano d’Arco where Alfasuds were made the same stuff Alfa Romeo used in the facility at Arese in Milan where the Giulia range was produced and its reputation for resisting rust was above average.  The evidence suggests all the steel used by the company's local operations came from the state owned Taranto steel mills and intriguingly, the factories south & north all used the same paints and the ovens & paint booths were a decade-odd newer in Naples.

Variations on the Alfasud theme: The Sprint (1976-1989, left) and Giardinetta (station wagon or estate-car) (1975-1980, right).

Given all that, the startlingly premature corrosion surprised many within Alfa Romeo and in 1977 a project-team was formed to investigate the causes and it was afforded some urgency given the reputational damage being suffered by the whole company (ie profits were suffering).  Having determined the core components (paint & steel) weren't to blame, the engineers deconstructed the production process including the system of movement (how the partially completed cars proceeded from start to finish).  What the team found was that while the electrophoresis baths at Pomigliano were state of the art, the inexperienced (and sometimes indifferently-minded) workforce operated them without adequate supervision and quality control, something exacerbated by the chronically bad labor relations, the factory beset by rolling strikes which meant unpainted bodies were often sitting for days.  In the humid climate of the south, condensation gathered, many cars already rusting even before eventually receiving a coat of paint and that the plant was less than 10 miles (16 km) from the coast and prevailing winds blew from the sea added to the problem, the unpainted Alfasuds often for days sitting unpainted accumulating salty moisture.

1983 Alfa Romeo Alfasud Ti Quadrifoglio Verde (Green Cloverleaf), one of the industry's longer model names and clipped usually to "Alfasud QV".

The team's findings resulted in a change to the production process for the revised Series 2 Alfasuds launched in December 1977.  The critical parts of the bodyshell now used "Zincrometal" (steel coated with a primer) which was a mix of chromium, zinc and an organic bonding resin, baked at 160°C (320°F) and that was as good a system as anything then used in the European industry.  As a added precaution, a polyurethane foam was injected into the body's boxed sections with a flexible plastic sealant applied at the seams to prevent moisture intrusion.  That had the added benefit of reducing noise vibration & harshness (NVH) while adding only a little extra weight.  Unfortunately, the tests the engineers conducted to prove the design was waterproof relied on perfectly applied sealant at the junctions but the poor quality control continued so many seams were improperly sealed which meant the foam acted as a moisture store, making the problem worse.  By contrast, whatever its other faults (and there were a few), the Allegro resisted rust like few cars built anywhere during the era, the body-engineering sound and that 1970s British Leyland paint thick and durable.  In the years that followed, many would criticize the sometimes lurid and even sickly shades but as a protective coating, it did the job.

Ultimate Alfasud: The Giocattolo (left), the world's best Alfa Romeo Sprint which included the world’s best tool kit (right).  Unrelated to either, Il giocattolo (the Toy, 1979) was an Italian film noir from the Anni di piombo (Years of Lead) era, directed by Giuliano Montaldo (1930-2023).

The much admired coupé variant of the Alfasud was sold as the Alfasud Sprint (1976-1983) and Sprint (1983-1989); it proved rather more rust resistant.  It was subject to continuous product improvement and fitted with progressively bigger and more powerful engines although none were larger than 1.7 litres (104 cubic inches) which limited its use in competition to events where outright speed mattered less than balance and agility.  The handling was about as good as FWD (front wheel drive) then got and in events such as hill climbs the things are competitive even today.  However, rising to the challenge, between 1986-1989, an Australian company solved the two problems afflicting the Sprint (FWD & lack of power).  Thus the Giocattolo (a play on the Italian word meaning “toy”), a batch of 15 built in the Queensland coastal town of Bundaberg before the economic downturn (remembered locally as "the recession we had to have", the then treasurer's (Paul Keating (b 1944; Prime Minister of Australia 1991-1996)) rationalization of why it was essential to kill off the inflation which had become entrenched in the mid 1970s) ended the fun.  The Giocattolo was fitted with a mid-mounted 304 cubic inch (5.0 litre) Holden V8, driving the rear wheels through a ZF five-speed transaxle, the combination yielding a top speed of 160 mph (257 km/h), a useful increase of 40 mph (65 km/h) over the fastest of the factory's Sprints.  As impressive as the mechanical specification was, the Giocattolos are remembered also for the unusual standard feature of a 375 ml bottle of Bundaberg Rum (the region's most famous product which began as a way to use a waste-product of sugar-cane processing) and two shot glasses as part of the toolkit.  Many who worked on Italian cars probably thought they deserved a drink so it was a good idea but these days, a company would risk being cancelled for such a thoughtful inclusion.