Dagmar (pronounced dag-mahr)
(1) The stage-name
adopted by Virginia Ruth "Jennie" Lewis (née Egnor; 1921-2001), a
star of 1950s US television (initial upper case).
(2) Slang
term for the symmetrically-paired bumper extensions used by a number of US
vehicle manufacturers and associated mostly with Cadillac 1946-1958 (initial
lowercase).
(3) In
the study of marketing, as DAGMAR, the acronym of Defining Advertising Goals
for Measured Advertising Results (usually all upper case).
(4) A
female given name from the Germanic languages and of Norse origin, in
occasional use since the last nineteenth century (initial upper case).
Pre-1000: A given name of Scandinavian origin, almost always female. It was the name of a queen of Denmark (1185–1212), a Czech by descent, originally Dragomíra (related to the contemporary Slovak Drahomíra), the construct being the Old Church Slavonic dorgb (dear) + mirb (peace), rendered in medieval Danish under the camouflage of dag (day) + már (maid). In Danish the meaning is listed as “day” and “glory” and it’s used also in Slovakia, Poland (Dagmara), the Netherlands, Estonia and Germany. The ultimate source was the the Old Norse name Dagmær, the construct being dagr (day) + mær (daughter; mother; maiden).
On first looking at the 1949 Cadillac, a borrowing of the motif of the tail fins and propeller hubs from the Lockheed P-38 Lightning (first flown in 1939 and built 1941-1945) does seem obvious but while it appears to be true of the fins, all contemporary evidence suggests the conical additions to the front bumper bar were intended by the stylist Harley Earl (1893–1969; then General Motors' (GM) vice president of design), to evoke the idea of a speeding artillery shells. In the twenty-first century, it may seem curious to use the imagery of military munitions in the marketing of consumer goods but that's the way things were once done. GM claimed also they afforded additional collision protection but given it wasn’t until the 1970s that regulations existed to require front and rear bumpers to be the same height, in many impacts, it’s likely they acted more like like battering rams used on medieval siege engines.
The bumper guards (later called over-riders) on the 1941 Cadillac
were neither novel nor unique but, being on a Cadillac, they were bigger and
shinier than many. Nor was the linking
bar unusual, offered by many manufacturers and emulated too by aftermarket
suppliers, used often as a mounting bracket for accessory head lamps.
A chromed pair, recognizably dagmaresque, made their debut in the 1942 model year, production of which began in September 1941. Just as stylists had drawn from earlier influences such as aeronautical streamlining and art deco architecture, Cadillac’s designers, although the US was not yet a belligerent in what was still a European war, picked up a motif from the military: the conical shape of the artillery shell, presumably to invoke the imagery of speed and power rather than destruction. One quirk of the early dagmars was that after the US entered the war in December 1941, the government immediately imposed restrictions on the use of certain commodities for consumer goods and this affected chrome plating so the last of much of the the 1942 production runs left the factory with painted bumpers. Automotive production for civilian sale in the US ceased on 22 February 1942, the manufacturing capacity converted rapidly to war purposes.
Although the administration had allowed car production to continue until April, most of the output was used to create a stockpile of over half a million cars and light trucks, made available for the duration of the war to those for whom the allocation was deemed essential. The sale of cars to private buyers was frozen from 31 December 1941 by Office of Production Management (OPM) although, upon application, local rationing boards could issue permits for cars to be delivered if the contract had been executed before 1 January.
By April 1944, only some thirty-thousand new cars remained in the stockpile and the manufacturers received authorization to undertake preliminary work on experimental models of civilian passenger cars with the proviso there must be no interference with war work and limits were imposed on the resources allocated. At this stage, the invasion of mainland Europe had not happened and although progress on the atomic bomb was well-advanced, it was top-secret and not even tested so planning continued with the expectation conflict would continue into 1946 or even 1947. The war instead ended in August 1945 and that month, Cadillac finished its last M-24 tank, the production lines reverting to cars as soon as September. By the first week of October, car production was in full swing, the 1946 models essentially the 1942 range with a few detail differences. The dagmars were retained and re-appeared also on the 1947 line. Even by 1942 Americans had become accustomed to annual updates to the appearance of automobiles but such was the pent-up demand from the years of wartime restrictions that people in 1946-1947 queued to fill the order books for what were "new" versions of 1942 cars. In the special circumstances of the time the approach worked in a way recycling for 2016 crooked Hillary Clinton's failed candidacy for the 2008 nomination didn't work for the Democratic party.
Smaller and more agile, Studebaker was the first manufacturer with a genuinely new post-war range and reaped the benefits although there was some resistance to the modernist lines which seemed then so radical. GM was more conservative but nobody would mistake the 1948 Cadillacs for something earlier although while the bodies were new, the drive-train substantially was carried over. Tail-fins weren’t entirely new to cars because the aviation influence had been seen pre-war but this was the model which began Detroit’s tail-fin fetish which, although starting modesty, would grow upwards (and occasionally outwards) for more than a decade. Although inspired by the P-38 Lightning, the fins served no aerodynamic purpose, but unlike Mercedes-Benz’s later claim the fins on the 1959 Heckflosse were Peilstege (parking aids), Cadillac never bothered to suggest they were there to assist those reversing; at the front, a tribute to the Lockheed's twin propeller hubs seemed to compliment the fins. The fins were mostly admired but the big news for 1949 was the new overhead valve (OHV) V8 which marked the start of a power race which would run for almost a quarter century before environmental concerns, safety issues and the first oil crisis (1973-1974) wrote finis for such things for a generation.
In a manner echoing pre-war practice, the new 331 cubic inch (5.4 litre) V8 was actually smaller than its predecessor; that would not be the post-war trend and Cadillac’s V8s would grow to 500 cubic inches (8.2 litre) until reality bit in the 1970s and that reality did intrude on what was planned. When Cadillac introduced their 331 V8 in 1949 it was designed with expansion in mind, able to be enlarged to around 430 cubic inches (7.0 litres), a displacement expected not ever to be required, such had been the advances in efficiency of internal combustion engines compared with pre-war units. However, the American automobile became bigger & heavier while the highway network expanded, ushering in high-speed motoring, meaning the demand for more powerful engines grew too and by 1964, the Cadillac V8, then enlarged to 429 cubic inches (7.0 litres) had reached the end of its development potential and it was known both Chrysler and Ford would soon release V8s of even greater capacity. Accordingly, in late 1967 they trumped the Chrysler 440 (7.2) and Ford's 462 (7.6) with the Cadillac 472 (7.7), a block designed to be able to grow to a remarkable 600-odd cubic inches (circa 10 litres), the precaution taken to ensure the corporation was ready for whatever market trends or regulatory impositions (fuel economy standards weren't envisaged in an era of "cheap, limitless oil") might emerge. It was a shame because the Cadillac 429 was (by Detroit's seven litre standards) a compact and economical unit. As things transpired, after growing in 1970 to 500 cubic inches, progressively the behemoth was down-sized to 425 (7.0) and 368 (6.0) before being retired in 1984 when it was the last of the US "big block" V8s still in passenger car use. If Greta Thunberg (b 2003) thinks such things are bad now, she may be assured they used to be worse.
1949 Ford "single spinner" (left) & 1951 Ford "twin spinner" (right).
The industry’s inspiration certainly came originally from the military, influenced either by artillery and aviation. The first new Fords of the post-war years came to be known as “single spinners” and “twin spinners”, referencing the slang term for propeller and that use was a look back, jets, missiles & rockets providing designers with their new inspirations, language soon reflecting that.
Television was the great cultural disrupter of the post-war years, creating first a national and eventually an internationally shared experience unimaginable in the diverse media environment of the twenty-first century. Television needed content and, beginning in 1949, some of it was provided by Dagmar. Ms Lewis adopted the persona of the "dumb blonde" but soon proved to be no airhead, becoming the star of the show on which she'd been hired as the supporting act, parlaying her fame to become one of the celebrities of the era. She was also impressively pneumatic which may have accounted for her popularity with at least some of the audience and the vague anatomical similarity to the Cadillac's chromed pieces quickly saw them nicknamed "dagmars". She was said to be amused by the connection, exploiting it whenever possible and Harley Earl's notion of speeding explosive shells was soon forgotten.
Art and Engineering: The automobile, the sweater, the "bullet" or "torpedo" bras and the cross-over of techniques from the structural to the decorative; from jet aircraft & rockets to fashion, in the 1950s, the industry had no shortage of inspiration and role models. Unfortunately, Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) didn't live to see the dagmars sprout from cars and while it may be assumed he'd have thought them worthy of analysis, probably he'd have conceded "sometimes a bumper is just a bumper".
For 1951, the dagmars not only grew but evolved stylistically from their bolt-on beginnings to become visually integrated with the bumper itself although, technically, they remained separate parts. The growth of the dagmar is illustrative of Charles Darwin's (1809-1882) theory of natural selection; beneficial mutations within the genetic code that aid an organism's survival will be passed to the next generation. The sales performance of the brand in the post-war years would proved Darwin correct, the increasing bulk of Cadillacs rewarded on the sales charts and for much of Cadillac’s next twenty-five years, bigger would be better. While the dagmars soon would reach an evolutionary dead-end and go extinct, for a (human) generation or more, size would continue to matter.
Whether or not Cadillac was influenced by the cultural impact of Ms Lewis isn’t documented but in one way the anthropomorphism became a little more explicit
in 1953, this time with uplift, supported still by the bumper but notably
higher. However, for 1953, the dagmars
also returned to their military roots with the addition of small stabilizer
fins so those seeking meaning in the metal should make of that what they will.
Cadillac slightly enlarged the tails fins for 1954 but abandoned the little fins on the dagmars, the shape returning not merely to something approximating Ms Lewis but hinting also at the bullet bra style so associated with the era. Why the dagmars dropped a cup size in 1954 isn't known but although it must at the time have seemed a good idea, the era's mantra of "never do in moderation what can be done in excess") soon prevailed. It was clear there was demand for something like the Eldorado but the stratospheric price of the exclusively bodied 1953 car had meant buyers were few. In 1954 Cadillac re-positioned the Eldorado as a blinged-up version of the regular-production line, enabling the price to be reduced by 35%; in response, sales almost quadrupled and almost immediately the thing was among the most profitable in the GM stable, something which encouraged over the years a number of “special edition” Eldorados with predictably fanciful names.
Peak dagmar was reached in 1955. Although techniques in steel fabrication existed to allow them further to grow, imagining such things can conceive of them only as absurd and there's no evidence in the GM archives that anything bigger was contemplated; from now on, they would have to evolve in another way. Such was the importance of the dagmar, to afford them additional space, the parking lamps were moved to a spot directly below the head lamps and 1955's uplift was quite explicit, the superstructure suggestive of the cantilever effect which underlay the structural engineering of the underwire bra. Pursuing the metaphor, this was definitely up a couple of cup sizes from the year before; while it’s hard to be exact, by 1955 Cadillac was well into the alphabet. Playboy magazine publisher Hugh Hefner (1926-2017) drove a 1955 Cadillac Series 62 convertible; amateur psychoanalysts may be inclinded to ponder on that.
Apparently now content with the shape of the protrusions, Cadillac may have realized that even by their standards the 1955 fittings may have been too big so slightly they were pruned and some attention was devoted instead to the surrounding details, the grill now with a finer texture and the parking lamps moved to lacunae cut into the bumpers. A novelty for 1956 was the option of the grill being embellished in gold as an alternative to the standard satin finish and the fins, although higher than the originals, remained restrained. That was not to last.
1955 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham Show car (left) and 1957 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham (right).
Longer to lengthen the lingerie link, the uplifted dagmars now gained padding (which were technically more like pasties given they didn't increase a dagmar's size), the rubber attachments actually quite a good idea given how far their chromed metal predecessors stuck out. Although obviously not at the time foreseen, the idea would be revived by some in the early 1970s as a quick, cheap solution to meet the new frontal-impact regulations and the rubber buffers must in 1957 have prevented some damage, both to victim and perpetrator. Predictably, they were quickly nicknamed “pasties”, a borrowing of the term used in the female underwear business to describe a stick-on attachment designed for purposes of modesty. The quad headlamps previewed on 1955 Eldorado Brougham Show car became lawful in many US states in 1957 (and soon all 48) and that meant the front end was becoming very busy with its array of circular shapes.
GM's corporate body for 1958 was released with the usually high expectations. However, not only was the a brief, though sharp, recession which affected sales but the ranges suffered stylistically against the sleek new Chryslers which more than any embodied the "longer, lower, wider" motif which would characterize the era. The Cadillacs were certainly longer in 1958, one aspect addressed in response to the perception the 1957 models had looked, remarkably, too short; a thing of relative proportions as well as absolute dimensions. Still padded, the dagmars moved towards the edges and the fins grew, losing the forward slope on some models which had contributed to the sense of stubbiness. What GM's designers looked at most longingly however were the Chrysler's sweeping tail-fins; they would respond.
Cadillac retired the dagmars for 1959; Darwinian natural selection again. (1) The dagmars, even if padded, did cause damage, both to themselves and whatever it was they hit (2) the adoption of the newly lawful quad headlamps in 1957-1958 created an opportunity for stylists render something new and (3) whatever may have be the linkage with women’s fashion, the old imagery of artillery shells or twin propellers was outmoded in the jet-age, the new inspiration being the twin-engined nacelle seen on the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress and the Convair B-36 Peacemaker, four of which Cadillac grafted on, two for the head lamps, two for the park lamps. Even in Detroit in the 1950s, to add a pair of dagmars to that lot might have been thought a bit much. As it was, probably few noticed or long lingered over their absence because it was the tail-fins and tail-lamps which drew the eye.
1948 Chrysler Newport Limousine (left), 1949 Chrysler Town & Country Convertible (centre) and M4 Sherman “Rhino” Tank (France, 1944, right).
However, from the 1940s to the 1960s the dagmar’s path wasn’t lineal. There’s nothing to suggest Chrysler had any sort of anthropomorphic mutation in mind when the corporation added a third bumper guard for the 1948 range (top left) and the rationale was probably nothing more than “more is better”, a philosophy which in Detroit would linger into the 1970s (the Pentagon has never quite abandoned the notion). For 1949 there was more still when a fourth bumper guard was added (top right), all now less dagmaresque and the range anyway made its debut some months before Ms Lewis first appeared on television. More than anything, the 1949 Chrysler’s impressive array recalled the front of the “rhino tank”, the American nickname for Allied tanks to which “tusks” had been added to allow the vehicles to “cut through” the hedgerows (the lines of thick shrubbery which separated parcels of land in the hinterland on which was fought much of the Battle of Normandy which followed the D-Day landings (6 June 1944)). Originally an ad-hoc battlefield modification fabricated with steel from the defensive devices the Germans had laid upon the beaches, most of the “Rhinos” had three, four or five “tusks” (or “prongs” as the British called them) but Chrysler were never tempted by five and no models left the factory with more than four bumper guards. Interestingly, although fond of fins, the corporation never jumped on the dagmar bandwagon.
Lycia Naff (b 1962) as the three breasted prostitute (left) in Total Recall (1990), the idea revived on the catwalk, Milan Fashion Week, 2018 (right).
Nor is there any evidence Dutch film director Paul Verhoeven (b 1938) was familiar with the 1948 Chrysler when he conceived the three-breasted sex worker in Total Recall (1990), played by Lycia Naff (b 1962) although his first thoughts were apparently 1949ish because in an interview with The Ringer, the director explained he originally wanted four: “I know that some women had, let’s say, not two nipples, but they have four nipples. Like a dog, whatever. That’s what they have. They exist, basically, and I’ve seen the medical photos when I was at university. And I knew that. I wanted four nipples and breasts, with big breasts and smaller breasts underneath. And [special effects specialist] Bob Bottin (b 1959), I think, felt that it was too realistic for the film. And basically that three breasts would be more, let’s say, in the style of the whole movie.” Now we know.
Translatable motifs: The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress and the 1959 Cadillac.
Built between 1952-1962, the B-52 has been in service under 14 presidents and has seen several generations of airplanes come and go; when first it flew, Joe Biden (b 1942; US president 2021-2025) was nine, Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021 and since 2025) was six and crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013) was five (though even then probably already lying about her age). No longer used for its original purpose which was to overfly Russian & Chinese targets, dropping gravity bombs, the platform has proved adaptable and been subject to a number of upgrades and revisions, new generations of engines (quieter, more economical and less polluting) fitted and some modern materials integrated to replace the some of the period steel & aluminium. The most obvious updating however is that the B52s still in service are hybrids in that they're a mix of analogue and digital, the flight controls, weapons systems and other avionics reflecting in some cases almost all of the technical generations of the last sixty-odd years. It’s not impossible some may still be in service in 2052, a century after the first flight. In most ways, the B-52’s design has proved more durable than the 1952 Cadillac.
Translatable motifs: The Convair B-36 Peacemaker and the 1959 Cadillac.
The nacelles of aircraft engines provided Cadillac with a rich source of inspiration and if they couldn't decide between propellers and jets, some aircraft offered both. The earliest of Messerschmitt's prototype twin-jet ME-262s were equipped also with a propeller driven by a Jumo 210 engine, a necessity for the test-pilots given the unreliability of the early jets and many manufactures adopted the approach for their prototypes. For some aspects, Cadillac settled on one which, unusually, combined both propulsion systems in a mass-produced model: the Convair B-36 Peacemaker (1946-1954) a transitional airframe which straddled the two eras and was one of the earliest strategic bombers designed specifically as a delivery system for nuclear weapons. With a greater payload even than the B-52, in its final configuration the B-36 was powered by a remarkable ten engines, six radial propeller units and four jets which lent the B-36 its slogan within Strategic Air Command (SAC): "six turnin' and four burnin' ". However, the propellers were in an unusual pusher configuration, facing the opposite direction from the usual practice so it would have been a challenge to continue the tribute to Ms Lewis. Instead, for 1959 Cadillac "mixed and matched": the B-52's twin nacelles at the front, the B-36 lending its lines to the tail lamps at the rear.
She may neither have noticed nor cared that Cadillac deleted the dagmars on the 1959 range but Jayne Mansfield anyway brought her own when she bought a 1959 Eldorado convertible. As a marketing ploy, the two-door hardtops had for some time been called the "Eldorado Seville" while the companion convertible was the "Eldorado Biarritz". The dagmars may have gone but it's for the "twin bullet" tail-lamp assemblies that the 1959 range is remembered; while not the tallest fins on the era (the 1961 Imperials taking that dubious award by just under an inch (25 mm)), they probably were the most extravagant. Also, despite the number of pink 1959 Cadillacs now in existence, none ever left the factory painted thus, a rose-colored exterior hue offered in only 1956. It was that Elvis Presley (1935-1977) owned a pink Cadillac and the use of the phrase in popular culture (song & film) that made the trend a thing although his car was a 1955 Fleetwood Sixty Special which was originally blue with a black roof. The roof was later re-sprayed white but people adopting the motif usually go all-pink.
The radomes, paired and singular: 1959 Cadillac Cyclone (XP-74) concept car (left) and North American F-86-50-NA Sabre (right).
However, although Cadillac abandoned the use of dagmars in their 1959 models (a rare example of restraint that year), just to remind people what they were missing, simultaneously they toured the show circuit with the Cadillac Cyclone (XP-74) concept car, an example of how far things had come from Ford's "twin spinners" a decade earlier. Although it was powered by the corporation’s standard 390 cubic inch (6.5 litre) V8, there was some adventurous engineering including a rear-mounted automatic transaxle and independent rear suspension (using swing axles, something far from ideal but not as bad as it sounds given the grip of tyres at the time) but few dwelt long on such things, their attention grabbed by features such as the bubble top canopy (silver coated for UV protection) which opened automatically in conjunction with the electrically operated sliding doors. This time the link with military aviation was quite explicit, the black dagmars actually functional radomes like those familiar on the F-86-D Sabre, containing the radar-controlled proximity sensors used electronically to alert the driver with an audible signal and warning light should an automobile or other approaching object be detected. The system apparently worked although it would have been too expensive to offer as an option. In 2024, such systems are produced by the million at low-cost and are standard equipment on many vehicles.
Trends in one industry do get picked up in others and it can be difficult to work out who is being influenced by whom, cause and effect sometimes amorphous. Like the tailfin fad, the dagmar era came and went during the first generation of "the affluent society", a brief, chromed moment during which excess could be enjoyed without guilt although, even at the time, there were critics, some of whom probably were dissenters who actually bought the big Cadillacs, Lincolns and Imperials. Whether being in the avant-garde of dagmar trends much influenced buying patterns is doubtful because the Cadillac, Lincoln & Imperial crowd tended to be a tribal lot and conquest sales happened at scale only if some thing genuinely innovative (like the 1955 & 1957 Imperials) appeared and even then, Cadillac owners were seen as a breed apart; a separate population. Only about one thing did probably most concur: everybody likes boobs.
Not only Cadillacs
1958 Lincoln Continental Mark III Convertible.
Ford's 1958 Lincoln Continental was a reasonable technical achievement, being at the time the largest vehicle of unitary construction ever built and in convertible form it remains the longest the industry made since World War II (1939-1945). It was also a failure in the market which went close to dooming the Lincoln brand and the reasons for that included the sheer size of the things (there were many garages, even in the affluent society's more respectable places, in which one simply wouldn't fit) and the appearance, a mashup of lines, curves and scallops which made some speculate each part may have been designed by a different committee, all working is isolation. Ponderously, the body survived for three seasons during which Lincoln apparently couldn't decide about dagmars; after appearing in 1959, they were deleted the next year, only to return for the range's swansong in 1960. Clearly, Lincoln lacked Cadillac's passion.
1960 Lincoln Continental Mark V Executive Limousine.
The size did however come in handy when building limousines. The black car (above) was leased by Ford to the White House for an annual (US$500) fee and was the one presidents used for personal journeys around Washington DC. Replaced during Lyndon Johnson's (LBJ, 1908–1973; US president 1963-1969) administration as part of the periodic updating of the White House fleet, it was sold by public tender as just another used car. There wasn't then the same sensitivity attached to objects associated with events and the 1961 Lincoln Continental convertible in which John Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; US president 1961-1963) was assassinated was, after being repainted black (it was originally midnight blue), fitted with a permanent roof and titanium armor plating and returned to the White House car pool where it served until 1977, an unsentimental pragmatism probably unthinkable now. Although their own extravagances were hardly subtle, the fins on Fords, Lincolns and even Edsels never reached the heights or were bent to shape the contortions GM and Chrysler pumped out. To their eternal credit, Lincoln didn't add dagmars to the memorable 1961 Lincoln; there would have been an absurd clash with the severe lines.
1963 Ford Galaxie 500XL convertible (G-Code 406 Tri-power).
Notably, GM's other divisions rarely tried to match Cadillac in the size, lift and projection of dagmars, Buick the most committed though other manufacturers, albeit spasmodically, would use the theme. Mercury and Packard offered them on various models between 1953-1956 and Chevrolet's were modest and often rubber-padded. That idea was picked up by Ford in the early 1960s, their final A-cup fling on the 1963 Galaxie; perhaps as a sign of the times, uniquely, they were offered only as an optional extra. In a distinctly un-dagmaresque way, a pair appeared also on the rear bumper and were obviously there genuinely to offer some modest protection against the damage which might be suffered in low-impact events such as those suffered in car parks. The insurance industry had already noted the disproportionately large costs they were incurring fixing damage suffered while parking and, hiring more lobbyists (ie those who traded "campaign financing" for laws), were planning their own strategy.
Clockwise from top left: 1974 Jaguar XKE (E-Type), 1974 Triumph TR6, 1978 Triumph Spitfire and 1973 Dodge Monaco.
There was no suggestion of anything organically Darwinian about the sudden addition of ungainly blocks of rubber to certain US-market cars in the early 1970s. They were a consequence of the lobbying efforts of the insurance industry proving more effective in having the congress pass legislation imposing "bumper standards" than were those of the car industry to delay or prevent their introduction. Presumably also, the "donations" of the insurance industry were both greater and better "packaged". Some US manufacturers bolted them on as a stop-gap solution while the engineering was done to create the "railway-sleeper" bumpers to comply with the next year's tougher standards while some British sports cars would see out their final years so disfigured. A few were built on platforms designed in the 1950s which either couldn’t be adapted or were so close to end-of-life the economics were not compelling. The quick and dirty solution produced what proved to be distinctly non-anthropomorphic dagmars, this time made almost entirely of padding so predictably dubbed “falsies”. Awkward looking though they were, worse was to come; some of the solutions used to meet the rules were truly ghastly, a few of which lasted well into the 1980s. It was Ronald Reagan (1911-2004; US president 1981-1989) who, as part of the war his administration waged on regulations and red tape, ended the growth of the bumper bars he called "battering rams".
Sabrina,
the English Dagmar
Television
penetrated most of the Western world during the 1950s and in an era of
generally (though not without the odd hiccup) rising prosperity, the sets
became increasingly ubiquitous in domestic households. The content however was much more regionally
specific than would become the trend in succeeding decades. While production centres in the UK did
distribute some of their product elsewhere (and not only in the
English-speaking world), by volume and cultural influence the US were by far
the most successful, much of what was seen on many screens was locally
produced, something easier to achieve in an era when 24 hour TV was not yet a
thing and it was industry practice to repeat broadcasts with some
frequency. Additionally, there were
often “local content” requirements (quotas) which were industry protection
trade barriers erected obsessively to save viewers from what even then was
understood as “cultural imperialism”. Although that phrase had been used even prior
to World War I (1914-1918), it wasn’t until it appeared in Mass Communications and American Empire (1969) by US sociologist Herbert
Schiller (1919–2000) that it would become part of the mainstream language of
critical theory. However, not only was
the particular phenomenon of American cultural influence well documented in the
1950s, it was also appreciated that television would be a force like no previous
form of distribution, a concept Dr Schiller also discussed as “packaged consciousness”, an idea later
refined as “encapsulated cultural
hegemony”.
But in the
1950s, more cultural references than now were regionally specific, although
international trade (globalization had actually been well underway before World War I (1914-1918) and its aftermath of decades imposed an
intermission) meant objects spread and in fields like architecture something
like an “international style” had emerged.
So, the dagmars on the cars made it to Europe but, without Ms Lewis
appearing of screens, the nickname didn’t come into use. Except for Detroit’s cars, not many examples
of the classic dagmar bumpers were seen but England did have Norma Ann Sykes
(1936–2016), better known by her stage name: Sabrina.
Sabrina in some characteristic poses.
Sabrina’s
early career was as a model, sometimes in various stages of undress, but it was
when in 1955 she was cast as a stereotypical “dumb blonde” in a television
series she achieved national fame. On
stage or screen, she remained a presence into the 1970s but without
great critical acclaim although the University of Leeds did confer an honorary
D.Litt (Doctor of Letters) for services to the arts so there was that. What was of course noticed was her "presence" and as well as the unusual fittings to the nose of the Reliant Sabre, the
“sabrina” moniker was applied to parts of equipment on machinery as varied as
heavy trucks and Royal Air Force (RAF) fighter jets.
There was also a “sabrina” engine, or more correctly its cylinder head. For various reasons, it wasn’t easy for European manufacturers to pursue the path to power and performance by adopting the American approach of big displacement so they chose the alternative: greater specific efficiencies & higher engine speeds. In Italy, as early as 1954 Alfa Romeo had proved the once exotic double overhead camshaft (DOHC) configuration was viable in relatively low-cost, mass-production machines and even in England, MG’s MGA Twin Cam had been released, short-lived though it was. Triumph’s sports cars had enjoyed much success, both in the marketplace and on racetracks but their engines were based on one used in a tractor and while legendary robust, it was tuneable only up to a point and that point had been reached, limiting its potential in competition. The solution was a DOHC head atop the old tractor mill and this the factory prepared for their racing team to run in the 1959 Le Mans 24 Hour classic, naming the car in which it was installed the TR3S, suggesting some very close relationship with the road-going TR3 although it really was a prototype and a genuine racing car.
The Le Mans campaigns with the sabrina Engine: TR3S (1959, left), TRS (1960, centre) and the TRS team crossing the line in formation for what was a "staged photo-opportunity", none of the cars having completed the requisite number of laps to be classified a "finisher" (1960, right). In 1961, all three went the distance, taking the "Teams Prize".
Triumph
used the sabrina engine for three consecutive years at Le Mans, encountering
some problems but the reward was delivered in 1961 when all three cars
completed the event with one finishing a creditable ninth, the trio winning that year’s team prize. Satisfied the engine was now a reliable
power-plant, the factory did flirt with the idea of offering it as an option in
the TR sports cars but, because the differences between it and the standard
engine were so great, it was decided the high cost of tooling up for mass
production was unlikely to be justified, the projected sales volumes just not
enough to amortize the investment.
Additionally, although much power was gained by adding the DOHC Hemi head,
the characteristics of its delivery were really suited only to somewhere like
Le Mans which is hardly typical of race circuits, let alone the conditions
drivers encounter on the road. As a
footnote in Triumph’s history, it was the second occasion on which the factory
had produced a DOHC engine which had failed to reach production. In 1934 the company displayed a range-topping
version of their Dolomite sports car (1934-1940), powered by a supercharged two
litre (121 cubic inch), DOHC straight-8.
The specification was intoxicating and the lines rakish but, listed at more
than ten times the price of a small family car, it was too ambitious for the
troubled economy of the 1930s and only three were built.
When viewing the casing containing the gears and timing chains running from the bottom-end to the front camshaft bearings, one can see why Sabrina rapidly would have entered the mind of an engineer. Apparently it began with a chance remark at the assembly bench but nobody could think of a more appropriate description so the official project name it became, the original "20X" soon forgotten. Anatomically, the engineers were of course about right because the front sectional view of the sabrina engine’s internals do align with what Dr Vera Regitz-Zagrosek (b 1953; Professor of Cardiology at the University of Zurich), describes as “the bikini triangle”, that area of the female human body defined by a line between the breasts and from each breast down to the reproductive organs; it’s in this space that is found all the most obvious anatomical differences between male & female although the professor does caution that differences actually exist throughout the body, down to the cellular level.
