Giallo

Giallo (pronounced jah-loh (often pronounced in English-speaking use as gee-ah-lo)

(1) The industry (and later the public) term for a series of Italian mystery, crime and suspense novels, first published by Mondadori in 1929 and so-dubbed because of the giallo (yellow) hue used for the covers.  They were known as Mistero giallo (yellow mystery) and collectively as the racconti gialli “yellow tales”.  The term “giallo” is a clipping of Il Giallo Mondadori (Mondadori Yellow).

(2) By extension, an unsolved mystery or scandal (historic Italian use).

(3) By later extension, a genre of Italian cinema mixing mystery and thriller with psychological elements and, increasingly, violence.

(4) A film in this genre.

(5) In Italian, yellow. 

1930s (in English use): From the Italian giallo (yellow (although now used also of amber traffic signals)), from the Old French jalne (a variant of jaune), from the Latin galbinus (greenish-yellow, yellowish, chartreuse; effeminate (of men)) of unknown origin but possibly from galbanum, from the Ancient Greek χαλβάνη (khalbánē) (galbanum) (the resinous juice produced by plants of the genus Ferula), from the Hebrew חֶלְבְּנָה (ḥelbənāh), from the root ח־ל־ב (ḥ-l-b) (related to milk), from the Proto-Semitic ḥalīb- (milk; fat).  Over time, the term evolved in Italian language, undergoing phonetic and semantic shifts to become giallo.  As an adjective the form is giallo (feminine gialla, masculine plural gialli, feminine plural gialle, diminutive giallìno or giallétto) and as a noun it refers also to a (1) “a sweet yellow flour roll with raisins” in the Veneto) and (2) “Naples yellow”; the augmentative is giallóne, the pejorative giallàccio and the derogatory giallùccio.  The derived adjectives are nuanced: giallastro (yellowish but used also (of the appearance of someone sickly) to mean sallow); giallognolo (of a yellowish hue) & giallorosa (romantic (of movies)).  The yellow-covered books of the 1930s produced giallista (crime writer which is masculine or feminine by sense (giallisti the masculine plural, gialliste the feminine plural).  The verb ingiallire means “to turn yellow).  Giallo is a noun; the noun plural is giallos or gialli (the latter listed as rare).

In print: A Mondadori Edition.

Arnoldo Mondadori Editore (the Mondadori publishing house, founded in 1907 and still extant) first published their mystery, crime and suspense novels in editions with distinctive yellow covers in 1929.  Few were of local origin and almost all were translations into Italian of works written originally in English by US and British authors and not all were all of recent origin, some having appeared in English decades earlier.  Produced in a cheap paperback format, the giallos were instantly successful (triggering a secondary industry of swap & exchange between readers) and other publishing houses emulated the idea, down even to the yellow covers.  Thus “giallo” entered the language as a synonym for “crime or mystery novel” and it spread to become slang meaning “unsolved mystery or scandal”.  The use as a literary genre has endured and it now casts a wide net, giallos encompassing mystery, crime (especially murders, gruesome and otherwise), thrillers with psychological elements and, increasingly, violence.

In film: The modern understanding of the giallo movie is something like "horror with a psychological theme" and, depending things like the director's intent or the  target market, one or other element may dominate.  Historically, among critics there was a "hierarchy of respectability" in the genre which the psychological thriller tending to be preferred but in recent decades the have been landmark "horror movies" which have made the genre not exactly fashionable but certainly more accepted. 

The paperbacks were often best-sellers and film adaptations quickly followed, the new techniques of cinema (with sound) ideally suited to the thriller genre and these films too came to be called “giallos”, a use which in the English-speaking world tends to be applied to thriller-horror films, especially if there’s some bizarre psychological twist.  The film purists (an obsessive lot) will point out (1) the authentic Italian productions are properly known as giallo all'italiana and (2) a giallo is not of necessity any crime or mystery film and there’s much overlap with other sub-genres (the ones built about action, car-chases and big explosions usually not giallos although a giallo can include these elements.

Lindsay Lohan in I Know Who Killed Me (2007).  Neglected upon its release, IKWKM has since been re-evaluated as a modern giallo and has acquired a cult following, sometimes seen on the playbill of late-night screenings.

IKWKM may at times have been seriously weird but as a piece of film it was mild compared to the most notorious giallo: Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma (Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom) an Italian production directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922–1975) whose talents (and tastes) straddled many fields.  Often referred to as “Pasolini’s Salò”, it’s a film people relate to in the way they choose or the work imposes on them; at one level, it can be enjoyed as a “horror movie” and its depiction of violent sexual depravity is such that of the many strands of pornography which exist, Salò contains elements of most.  As a piece of art it’s polarizing with the “love it” faction praising it as a Pasolini’s piercing critique of consumerism and populist right-wing politics while the “hate it” group condemn it as two hours-odd of depictions of depravity so removed from any socio-political meaning as to be merely repetitiously gratuitous.

Salò poster.

The title Salò is a reference to the film being set in 1944 in Republic di Salò (Republic of Salò (1943-1945)), the commonly used name for the Repubblica Sociale Italiana (Italian Social Republic), a fascist enclave set-up in Nazi-occupied northern Italy under the nominal dictatorship of Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & Prime-Minister of Italy 1922-1943) who Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) had ordered rescued from imprisonment after being deposed as Fascist prime-minister.  As a piece of legal fiction befitting its self-imposed role as Italy’s “government in exile”, Mussolini’s hurriedly concocted state declared Rome its capital but the administration never ventured beyond the region where security was provided by the Wehrmacht (the German military forces, 1935-1945) and the de facto capital was Salò (small town on Lake Garda, near Brescia).

Salò poster.

Although not in the usual filmic sense an adaptation, Pasolini’s inspiration was Les 120 Journées de Sodome ou l'école du libertinage (The 120 Days of Sodom, or the School of Libertinage), an unfinished novel by the libertine French aristocrat Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade (1740–1814) although the director changed the time and location of the setting (shifting the critique from monarchical France to Fascist Italy) and structurally, arranged the work into four segments with intertitles (static text displays spliced between scenes to give the audience contextual information), following the model of Dante’s (Dante Alighieri (circa 1265–1321)) Divina Commedia (Divine Comedy (circa 1310-1321)).  In little more than a month in 1785, the marquis wrote the text during his imprisonment in the Bastille and while the introduction and first part are in a form recognizably close to what they may be been prior to editing, the remaining three parts exist only as fragmentary notes.  After the revolutionary mob in 1789 stormed the Bastille (and was disappointed to find the Ancien Régime had so few prisoners) it was thought the manuscript had been lost or destroyed but, without the author’s knowledge, it was secreted away, eventually (in severely redacted form) to be published in 1904.

Salò poster.

The work describes the antics of four rich French libertine men who spend 120 days in a remote castle where, attended by servants, they inflict on 20 victims (mostly adolescents and young women) 600 of their “passions”, enacted in an orgy of violence and sexual acts as depraved as the author could imagine; it’s not clear how much of what he documented came from his imagination or recollections (the documentary evidence of what he did as opposed to what he thought or wrote is vanishing sparse) .  Like Pasolini’s film, as a piece of literature it divides opinion on the same “love it” or “hate it” basis and when in the post-war years it began to appear in unexpurgated form (over the decades many jurisdictions would gradually would overturn their ban on its sale) it attained great notoriety, both as “forbidden fruit” and for its capacity genuinely to shock and appal.  The stated purpose of the 1904 publication by a German psychiatrist and sexologist was it was had a utility as a kind of “source document” for the profession, helping them to understand what might be in the minds of their more troubled (or troublesome) patients.  It’s value to clinicians was it constituted a roll-call of the worst of man’s unbridled sexual fantasies and impulses to inflict cruelty, allowing a “filling-in of the gaps” between what a patient admitted and what a psychiatrist suspected, a process something like Rebecca West’s (1892–1983) vivid impression of Rudolf Hess (1894–1987; Nazi Deputy Führer 1933-1941) after observing him in the dock during the first Nuremberg Trial (1945-1946): “He looked as if his mind had no surface, as if every part of it had been blasted away except the depth where the nightmares live.”

Salò poster.

So for the profession it was a helpful document because uniquely (as far as is known), it documented the thoughts and desires which most repress or at least leave unstated although the awful implication of that was that wider publication may not be a good idea because it might “give men ideas and unleash the beast within”.  Certainly, it was one of literature’s purest expressions of a desire for a freedom to act unrestricted by notions such as morality or decency and while those possibilities would seduce some, most likely would agree with the very clever and deliciously wicked English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) who in Leviathan (1651) described life in such a world being “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”  De Sade was reportedly most upset at the loss of the manuscript he’d hidden within the Bastille but resumed writing and political activism under the First Republic (1789–1799) and in Napoleonic France (1799–1815) but his pornographic novels attracted the attention of the authorities which again imprisoned him but, after sexually assaulting youthful inmates he was diagnosed with libertine dementia and confined to lunatic asylums where, until his death in 1814, he continued to write and even stage dramatic productions, some of which were attended by respectable parts of Parisian society.

Salò poster.

Passolini followed De Sade in having his four central characters represent the centres of authority (the Church, the law, finance and the state) in Italy (and, by extension, Western capitalist states generally) and Salò genuinely can be interpreted as a critique of modern consumerism, the exploitative nature of capitalism and right-wing populism.  In setting it in the rather squalid vassal state Hitler set up to try to maintain the illusion of an ally being retained, Passolini made fascism a particular focus of his attack but the allegorical nature of the film, politely noted by most critics and historians has always been secondary to the violence and depravity depicted.  For some amateur psychologists, Salò was there to reinforce their worst instincts about Pasolini, their suspicion being it was an enactment of his personal fantasies and imaginings, a record in cellulose acetate of what he’d have done had he “been able to get away with it”.  Whether or not that’s though fair will depend on one’s background and the extent to which one is prepared to separate art from artist; as an artist, Pasolini to this day had many admirers and defenders.

Salò poster.

Three weeks before Salò’s predictably controversial premiere, at the age of 53, Pasolini was murdered, his brutally beaten body found on a beach; a 17 year old rent-boy (one of many who had passed through Passolini’s life) confessed to being the killer but decades later would retract that statement.  The truth behind the murder still isn’t known and there are several theories, some sordid and some revolving around the right-wing terrorism which in Italy claimed many lives during the 1970s.  What the director’s death did mean was he never had a chance to make a film more explicit than Salò and in may be that in the Giallo genre such a thing would not have been possible because the only thing more shocking would have been actual “snuff” scenes in which people really did die, such productions legends of the darkest corners of the Dark Web although there seems no evidence any have ever been seen.  What Pasolini would have done had he lived can’t be known but he may not have returned to Giallo because, in the vein, after Salò, there was really nowhere to go.

Yellow as a color

Lamborghinis in Giallo Fly, clockwise from top left: 1969 Miura P400 S, 1973 Jarama 400 GT, 1988 Jalpa and 1976 Countach LP400 Periscopio,  A solid yellow color first offered by Lamborghini on the Miura in 1968, Giallo Fly translates literally as "yellow fly" but is best understood in English as “Fly Yellow” with the “fly” element used not as a noun (ie the annoying insect) but in the way Italians use the English adjective “fly” with the sense of “flashy, stylish, eye-catching”.  That sentiment must have been in the mind of the Jalpa owner who had the wheels also finished in Giallo Fly, the factory never that committed to monochromaticity. 

Publicity shot for Lamborghini LP500 Countach, 1971.

The Lamborghini LP500 Countach prototype which, on debut, made such an impact at the 1971 Geneva Show Salon, is sometimes listed as being painted in Giallo Fly but it was really a different mix, listed in the factory archives as Giallo Fly Speciale.  The lines are now essentially "supercar orthodoxy" but in 1971, although not wholly novel, they seemed other-worldly.  In 1974, the car was destroyed in a crash test at England’s MIRA (Motor Industry Research Association) facility but in 2021 an almost exact replica was built by Polo Storico (the factory’s historical centre), the paint exactly re-created.  Despite the impression which lingered into the 1980s, giallo was never the “official” color of Lamborghini, but variations of the shade have become much associated with the brand and in the public imagination, the factory’s Giallo Orion probably has become something of a signature shade.  When Lamborghini first started making cars in the early 1960s (it was a manufacturer of tractors!) no official color was designated but the decision was taken to use bold, striking colors (yellow, orange, and a strikingly lurid green) to differentiate them from Ferraris which then were almost twice as likely than today to be some shade of red.

Lamborghini factory yellows, 2024.

Over the years, the factory’s palette would change but the emphasis on bright “energetic” hues remained.  Customers are no longer limited to what’s in the brochure and, for a fee, one’s Lamborghini can be finished in any preferred shade, a service offered also by many manufacturers although Ferrari apparently refuse to “do pink”.  An industry legend is that according to Enzo Ferrari’s (1898-1988) mistress (Fiamma Breschi (1934-2015)), when the original Ferrari 275 GTB (1964-1968) appeared in a bright yellow, it was to be called Fiamma Giallo (Flame Yellow) but Commendatore Ferrari himself renamed it to Giallo Fly (used in the sense of “flying”) which he thought would be easier to market and he wasted to keep a word starting with “F”.  Both Ferrari and Lamborghini at times have had Giallo Fly in their color charts.

Ferrari Enzo (Tipo F140, named after the company's founder: Commendatore Enzo Ferrari (1898-1988)) in Giallo Modena.

Not everybody is fond of yellow cars but there are those who either overlook or like the hue because in January 2026 a 2003 Ferrari Enzo in Giallo Modena realized at auction almost US$18 Million, making it the most expensive Enzo ever across the block.  Record-setting prices for Ferraris are far from unusual but this Enzo nearly tripled the model’s previous mark of US$6.26 million set in 2023.  The sale was achieved at the Mecum Kissimmee event and although observers noted the thing “ticked every box” on the collector car clipboard, the price exceeded all expectations.  Among the many boxes ticked were:

Low mileage (649 miles (1044 km).
Matching numbers: (Serial # 135262; Engine # 79700; Gearbox # 280; Body # 108).
1 of 400 built (2002-2004), 127 of which were delivered in the US.
1 of 36 finished Giallo Modena (paint code DS 4305) 11 of which were delivered in the US.
Factory custom Rosso and Giallo “Daytona style” seats in leather with stitched Enzo Ferrari signature.
Schedoni luggage set.
Ferrari Classiche certified with Red Book.
A number of unique features installed by the factory including polished engine bay braces and body-color lower trim & rear diffuser panel (rather than the usual black).

All original paperwork including window sticker, bBooks, manuals & tools along with a binder of photographs, supplementary documentation and a car cover.

1962 Ferrari 250 GTO in Bianco Speciale.

Only time will tell whether the Enzo's sale price will be an outlier or prove part of what’s claimed to be “a trend” in which was part of a larger trend in which the rarest and most desirable of the later model “analog” Ferraris are beginning to rival the historical dominance of the pre-modern (pre 1973) cars.  It can be hard to pick a “trend” from “a phase the market is going through” and was interesting was the sale at the same auction for US$38.5 million of the most analog of all Ferraris: a 1962 250 GTO.  The GTO was notable for being the only one of the three-dozen odd made (there a different ways of calculating the build but most NRS (normally reliable sources) quote 36) finished in Bianco Speciale and thus “the only white 250 GTO”; while US$38.5 million is a lot of money, expectation had been it may be bid well over US$50 million.  The car had a solid but not exceptional period history and it was thought the genuine uniqueness of the paint may nudge things quite high (a 250 GTO has sold for over US$70 million) but as well as the vagaries of the supply & demand, factors influencing the result were thought to be (1) the non-original engine and (2) it being RHD (right-hand drive).  Still, it’s a 250 GTO and at that price may yet prove a bargain.

1967 Ferrari 275 GTB/4 NART Spider (Chassis #09437) in Giallo Solare (left), Lady Gaga (the stage-name of Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta (b 1986)) in Rodarte dress at the Elton John AIDS Foundation Academy Awards Viewing Party, Los Angeles, March 2022 (centre) and 2010 Ferrari 599 SA Aperta (chassis #181257) in Giallo Lady Gaga (right).

Factory paint tag: Giallo Lady Gaga.

Ferrari over the decades have offered many shades of yellow including Ardilla Amarillo, Ardilla Amarillo Opaco, Giallo Dino, Giallo Fly, Giallo Kuramochi, Giallo Lady Gaga, Giallo Libano, Giallo Modena, Giallo Montecarlo, Giallo Montecarlo Opaco, Giallo My Swallow, Giallo Nancy, Giallo Senape, Giallo Solare, Giallo Triplo Strato & Yellow Olive Magno Opaco and one suspects the job of mixing the shades might be easier than coming up with an appropriately evocative name.  One color upon which the factory seems never to have commented is Giallo Lady Gaga which seems to have been a genuine one-off, applied to a 599 SA Aperta, one of 80 built in 2010.  The car is seen usually in Gstaad, Switzerland and the consensus is it was a special order from someone although quite how Lady Gaga inspired the shade isn’t known.  As a color, it looks very close to Giallo Solare, the shade the factory applied to the 275 GTB/4 NART Spider used in the Hollywood film The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) which was re-painted in burgundy because the darker shade worked better for the cinematographer.  The car had come second in class in the 1967 Sebring 12 Hours (with two female drivers) and was one of only two of the ten NART Spiders will aluminium coachwork.

Coat of arms of the municipality of Modena in the in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy (left), cloisonné shield on 1971 Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona Berlinetta in Giallo Dino (centre) (the band of silver paint across the nose appears on the early-build Daytonas fitted with the revised frontal styling (the acrylic headlight glass covers used between 1968-1970 were banned by US regulations) and stick-on badge on 1975 Dino 308 GT4 in Rosso Corsa (right).  Not all approve of the stickers (unless applied by the factory) and although they seem to be dying off, there are pedants who insist they should never appear on Dinos made between 1967-1975 (which were never badged as Ferraris).

Lindsay Lohan in a yellow piece from Stella McCartney's (b 1971) Spring 2025, the New York Post's Alexa magazine, 5 December, 2024.  The closest match to this color on Lamborghini's chart would be Giallo Spica.

Just as yellow came to be associated with Lamborghini, red is synonymous with Ferraris and in 2024, some 40% are built in some shade of red, a rate about half of what was prevalent during the 1960s.  The most famous of Ferrari’s many reds remains Rosso Corsa (racing red) and that’s a legacy from the early days of motor sport when countries were allocated colors (thus “Italian Racing Red”, “British Racing Green” etc) and yellow was designated for Belgium and Brazil.  On the road and the circuits, there have been many yellow Ferraris, the first believed to been one run in 1951 by Chico Landi (1907-1989) a Brazilian privateer who won a number of events in his home country and the Belgium teams Ecurie Nationale Belge and Ecurie Francorchamps both used yellow Ferraris on a number of occasions.  If anything, yellow is at least “an” official Ferrari color because it has for decades been the usual background on the Ferrari shield and that was chosen because it is an official color of Modena, the closest city to the Ferrari factory, hence the existence of Giallo Modena.

Monochrome

Monochrome (pronounced mon-uh-krohm)

(1) A painting or other object in a single color (or different shades of a single color) (now rare).

(2) The art or technique of producing such a painting or drawing.

(3) A “black-and-white” photograph or transparency (an image reproduced in tones of gray).

(4) By analogy, something devoid of any distinctive or stimulating characteristics; bland or colourless.

(5) In ceramics, a ceramic glaze of a single colour; an object so glazed.

1655-1665: From the Medieval Latin monochrōma (painting or drawing done in different tints of a single color) from the Ancient Greek μονόχρωμος (monókhrōmos or monokhrōmatos) (of the one colour), the construct being μόνος (mónos) (one; single; alone), from the primitive Indo-European root men- (small, isolated) + χρῶμα (khrôma) (genitive khrōmatos) (colour; complexion, skin).  In Classical Latin, the most-used form was monochromos (literally “having one color”).  The sense it’s understood in photography dates from 1940 when (presumably almost instantly), the verbal shorthand became “mono”, exactly the same pattern of use when the need arose to distinguish between color printers and those using only black consumables.  The word was used as an adjective after 1849 although monochromatic (of one color, consisting of light of one wavelength and probably based either on the French monochromatique or the Ancient Greek monokhrōmatos) had been used thus since at least 1807 (presumably it pre-dated this because the adverb monochromatically is documented since 1784.  The alternative forms are both self-explanatory: unicolour used usually single solids and monotint, rare and used mostly as a technical term in art-production where, properly, it describes a reproduction of a multi-color image using just shades of a single color.  Monochrome is a noun & adjective, monochromat, monochromacy, monochromaticity, monochromaticity, monochromator, monochromy & monochromist are nouns, monochromic is an adjective and monochromatically is an adverb; the noun plural is monochromes.

Monochromic images of Lindsay Lohan smoking.

The classic mono laser printer of the late twentieth century: Hewlett-Packard LaserJet III (1990) in the HP Museum.

In the narrow technical sense, a monochromic image is composed of one colour or values of one colour (technically also called a monotint).  In modern use, a linguistic paradox exists because an image consisting of just one colour (eg red, yellow, blue etc) is not usually described as monochrome yet most images rendered in multiple gradations of gray-scale (just about any image described as black & white) almost always are.  For most purposes, in casual use, monochrome versus colour is a binary describing both the devices used in the production process and the output.  There’s also a scientific quirk.  Monochromatic light is electromagnetic radiation of a single frequency but, no source of this exists because that would demand a wave of infinite duration which the laws of physics don’t permit.

In fashion, the monochromatic is a place on the continuum of tonality, the effect at its most dramatic when tied to a model’s skin-tone, hair and eye-color.  In truth, what matters most is sometimes less how she appears in the flesh than how well the effect translates to photographs, something complicated by certain combinations suffering under natural light and suited only to artificial environments.  For that reason, when the most uncompromising monochrome ensembles are seen, there’s always the suspicion filters and post-production have played a part.

Lindsay Lohan at the Christian Siriano Fall 2023 show, New York Fashion Week, February 2023.

Slurring effortlessly into the auburn hair, the satin two-piece used shades of copper, burnt orange and peach, the spectrum not disturbed by anything intrusive, a shimmering peach-infused copper eye shadow with flared lashes blended by chocolate eye pencil, a luminescent focus achieved with satin glossed lips while apricot blush and bronzer was applied with an austerity which many should emulate; all part of the monochromatic moment.

Lamborghinis in Giallo Fly, clockwise from top left: 1969 Miura P400 S, 1973 Jarama 400 GT, 1988 Jalpa and 1976 Countach LP400 Periscopio,  A solid yellow color first offered by Lamborghini on the Miura in 1968, Giallo Fly translates literally as "yellow fly" but is best understood in English as “Fly Yellow” with the “fly” element used not as a noun (ie the annoying insect) but in the way Italians use the English adjective “fly” with the sense of “flashy, stylish, eye-catching”.  That sentiment must have been in the mind of the Jalpa owner who had the wheels also finished in Giallo Fly, the factory never that committed to monochromaticity.

Monospecchio

Monospecchio (pronounced mon-oh-spec-kjo)

The Italian for “one mirror”, a descriptor applied to the early production (1984-1987) Ferrari Testarossas (1984-1991).   

1984: The construct was mono- + specchio.  Mono was from the Ancient Greek, a combining form of μόνος (monos) (alone, only, sole, single), from the Proto-Hellenic mónwos, from the primitive Indo-European mey- (small).  It was related to the Armenian մանր (manr) (slender, small), the Ancient Greek μανός (manós) (sparse, rare), the Middle Low German mone & möne, the West Frisian meun, the Dutch meun, the Old High German muniwa, munuwa & munewa (from which German gained Münne (minnow).  As a prefix, mono- is often found in chemical names to indicate a substance containing just one of a specified atom or group (eg a monohydrate such as carbon monoxide; carbon attached to a single atom of oxygen).  The Italian specchio (mirror, table, chart) was from the Vulgar Latin speclum, a syncopated form of the Classical Latin speculum, the construct being speciō +‎ -culum.  Speciō (observe, watch, look at) was from the From Proto-Italic spekjō, from the primitive Indo-European spéḱyeti which was cognate with the Ancient Greek σκέπτομαι (sképtomai), the Avestan (spasyeiti), and the Sanskrit पश्यति (páśyati).  The suffix –culum was (with anaptyxis) from the Proto-Italic -klom, from the primitive Indo-European -tlom, from -trom.  Despite the resemblance, ōsculum and other diminutive nouns do not contain this suffix which was used to form some nouns derived from verbs, particularly nouns representing tools and instruments.

1957 Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa in Rosso Corsa.

The 250 Testa Rossa was created because rule changes for the 1958 season imposed a 3.0 litre displacement limit, rendering the 3.8 Litre 315 S obsolete.  A 250 Testa Rossa sold in a private sale in 2014 for a reported US$39.8 million, exceeding somewhat the US$16.39 million one achieved at auction in 2011.  The (testra rossa literally “red head” in Italian) was a revival of one the factory had last used on the 1954 500 TR, the visual link to the name the red paint applied to the engines' camshaft covers.  The 250 Testa Rossa was part of the team which contributed to Scudaria Ferrari winning the the 1957 World Sportscar Championship. 

BB & BB:  Ferrari 365 GT4 BB (left) on display at the 1971 Turin Motor Show and Brigitte Bardot, supine, with classic (socks) zettai ryouiki, 1968 (right).

Appearing also in Formula One and sports car racing, between 1973-1996 Ferrari used a flat-12 in a number of road cars.  Pedants insist the engines, rather than being "boxers", were really 180^o V12s ("flattened V12" in the engineer's slang) because of a definitional distinction related to the attachment and movement of internal components; the external shape is essentially identical but the factory was in general a bit loose with the nomenclature on which purists like to insist.  The first of the road-going flat-12 Ferraris was the 365 GT4 BB (1973-1984), the “BB” long thought to stand for Berlinetta Boxer but Road & Track in 2018 noted RoadRat's publication of an interview with the BB’s designer, Leonardo Fioravanti (b 1938) who admitted it was named after Brigitte Bardot simply because the staff in Ferrari's design office were as besotted with the hauntingly beautiful Mademoiselle as engineers (not all of them men) everywhere.  She was at the time the world's most famous sex symbol and in the pre-TokTok era, that was quite something; "Berlinetta Boxer" was just the factory's cover story (later confirmed on the Ferrari website) and undeniably there's some similarity in the pleasing lines of the two.  Until then "Berlinetta Boxer" was the orthodoxy although there must have been enough suspicion about for someone to speculate the origin might be bialbero, (literally "twin shaft"), a clipping of bialbero a camme in testa (double overhead camshaft (DOHC)) which was from the slang of Italian mechanics.

1975 Ferrari 365 GT4 BB in Verde Germoglio with satin black lower panels over Nero leather.

The Italian berlinetta translates as “little saloon” and is the diminutive of berlina (sedan) and the 365 GT4 BB in no way resembled a saloon, small or large, Ferrari using the word to describe a two-seat car with a closed cockpit (convertibles are Spiders or Spyders), referred to by most as a coupé.  Nor was the Ferrari’s flat-12 technically a boxer, the boxer configuration one where each pair of opposed pistons move inwards and outwards in unison, the imagery being that of a pugilist, ritualistically thumping together their gloves prior to a bout.  The Ferrari unit instead used the same arrangement as a conventional V12, each pair of pistons sharing a crankpin whereas as true boxer has a separate crankpin for each piston.  This is one practical reason why boxer engines tend not to have many cylinders, the need for additional crankpins adding to weight & length.  Thus the earlier flat-16s, the Coventry Climax FWMW (1963-1965) intended for Formula One and the unit Porsche developed in 1971 for the Can-Am and tested in chassis 917-027 weren't boxers although bulk was anyway a factor in both proving abortive, Porsche instead turbo-charging their flat-12 and Coventry Climax giving up entirely, the FWMW (two flattened V8s joined together) having never left the test-bench.  Despite it all, just about everybody calls the 365 GT4 BB “the Boxer” and its engine a “flat-12”, the factory clearly unconcerned and while cheerfully acknowledging the technical differences, their documents refer to it variously as “boxer”, “180^o v12”, “flat-12” and “boxer-type” engine.

1985 Ferrari Testarossa “monospecchio-monodado” in Rosso Corsa over Beige leather.  The early cars were fitted with centre-lock magnesium-alloy wheels, chosen for their lightness but, responding to feedback from the dealer network, as a running-change during 1988, these were substituted for units with a conventional five-bolt design.  The centre-lock wheels were called monodado (one nut) while the five lug-types were the cinquedado (five nut) and because of the time-line, while all the monospecchio cars are also monodado, only some of the monodaddi are monospecchi.

When first shown at the Paris Motor Show in 1984, two features of the Testarossa which attracted much comment were the distinctive strakes which ran almost from the front of the door to the radiator air-intakes ahead of the rear wheel arch and the single, high-mounted external mirror (on the left or right depending on the market into which it was sold).  The preferred term is the native “monospecchio” (one mirror) although in the English speaking-world it has also been called the “flying mirror", rendered sometimes in Italian as “specchio volante” (a ordinary wing mirror being a “specchietto laterale esterno” (external side mirror), proving most things sound better in Italian.  The unusual placement and blatant asymmetry of the monospecchi cars annoyed some and delighted others, the unhappy more disgruntled still if they noticed the vent on right of the front spoiler not being matched by one to the left.  It was there to feed the air-conditioning’s radiator and while such offset singularities are not unusual in cars, many manufacturers create a matching fake as an aesthetic device: the functionalists at Ferrari did not.

Monospecchio: Lindsay Lohan selfies, one mirror at a time.

The regulatory environment in various jurisdictions was a matter of great significance in the Testarossa’s development.  None of the versions of the Berlinetta Boxer had ever been certified for sale in the US which had been Ferrari’s most lucrative market and a core objective was for the Testarossa to be able easily to meet the current & projected regulations in places like the US and EU (European Union) where rules were most strict.  The number of Boxers which privately had been imported into the US to be subjected to the so-called “federalization” process was an indication demand there existed for a mid-engined, 12 cylinder Ferrari.

1985 Ferrari Testarossa “monospecchio-monodado” in Rosso Corsa over Beige leather.  On left-hand-drive (LHD) cars the asymmetric mirror and intake for the air-conditioner's radiator were both on the left; on right-hand-drive (RHD) models the mirror shifted to the other side.

One piece of legislation which soon attracted attention was the EU’s stipulations about “full rearward visibility” in the side-view mirrors.  With conventionally shaped automobiles this is usually unchallenging for designers but the Testarossa had a very wide, ascending waist-line and the sheer size of the rear bodywork was necessitated by the twin radiators which sat behind the side-strakes.  As the team interpreted the rule, the elevation of the mirror was the only way to conform but the bureaucrats proved untypically helpful, not changing the rule but providing an interpretation which would make possible the installation of the mirror at the traditional level.  That alone may have been enough to convince the factory to change but there had also been complaints, many from the US, that the monospecchio restricted the vision of oncoming traffic and many missed having a passenger-side mirror, remarking too on the difficulties found when trying rapidly to adapt to the placement, few owners using a Testarossa as their only car.  Thus was taken the decision to phase in the fitting of dual mirrors, mounted in a conventional position at the base of the A pillars.  Shown at the 1986 Geneva Motor Show, the first examples of the new arrangement were those built for European sale, a handful bound for the US revised initially in 1987 with a single, low-mounted mirror before later gaining the same dual arrangement as those sold in Europe.

1958 MGA Twin Cam Roadster with central, dash mounted mirror.  In the era, side-mirrors tended to be factory options, dealer-fitter or from the after-market.

Historically, there was nothing unusual about a car having only a driver's side mirror and while that fitting wasn't common until the 1950s, it would not be for some two decades after that before, in the West, two became (more or less) standard.  Prior to that, on passenger vehicles, it wasn't uncommon for a passenger's side mirror to be seen only on vehicles used for towing.  The usefulness of mirrors had been understood in the early days of motoring and, three-quarters of a century before the debut of the Testarossa, had been controversial, US racing driver Ray Harroun (1879–1968) fitting one to the Marmon Wasp with he would win the inaugural Indianapolis 500 (1911).  The fitting of a rear-view mirror was not against the rules but what Harroun did was use it as a substitute for the observer (styled the “riding mechanic”) who race regulations required to be seated alongside the driver.  His argument prevailed and the observers, victims of technological change, began to vanish from the closed circuits although to this day (variously as mechanics, co-drivers, navigators etc) they remain a part of long-distance events on public roads.

An earlier monospecchio: 1964 Maserati 5000 GT (103-062) by Allemano with dash-mounted rear-view mirror and driver's side “bullet” door mirror.  Between 1959-1966, 34 Maserati 5000 GTs were built, 22 by Allemano, 4 by Touring, 3 by Fura, 2 by Monterosa, 1 by Bertone, 1 by Ghia and 1 by Scaglietti (Pininfarina).  As far as is known, the Allemano 103-062 was the only one factory-fitted with a side-mirror and because these are now museum pieces rarely driven on the road, restorers tend to remove from 5000 GTs any after-market mirrors.

The Cartoon Network's Powderpuff Girls (2016-2019, left) and their inspiration, Stratton Art Deco style Poppy Flower Powder compact (1970s, centre & right (on doily)).

Women are of course better acquainted with mirrors than (most) men and even though phones now include a “mirror app” (ie the front facing camera), many still carry in the apparently compulsory handbag a “compact” (a slim folding case (the internal side of the lid featuring a mirror) containing a powder-puff and pressed face-powder (finely milled powder compressed into what appears a solid cake form but is not chemically a solid in the rigid sense but rather a mechanically bound aggregate of particles)).  Compact carrier (and holder of the world's first WSR (water speed record) & the women's world LSR (land speed record)) Dorothy Levitt (1882–1922) well understood the value of a mirror and in her book The Woman and the Car: A Chatty Little Handbook for All Women who Motor or who Want to Motor (1906) she recommended her fellow “motorinas” always to keep in some convenient spot a small hand-mirror which should be “held aloft from time to time” to afford a view of what lay behind.  In the UK, fixed mirrors began to appear on automobiles in 1914 and manufacturers used various placements including the now familiar mounting at the top-centre of the windscreen as well as on the dashboard, in the middle of the bonnet (hood), on the fenders and on the door.  While a mirror of some type was in some cases required by law (usually on the dash or above), not until well into the post-war years would regulators get interested in door mirrors.  Beginning in the 1970s, many door mirrors visually became “A-pillar mirrors” after the Mercedes-Benz R107 (1971-1989) popularized the new location.

1968 Toyota 2000GT (1967-1970) with fendā mirā.

Some jurisdictions however not only mandated twin mirrors but also their placement, cars produced for the JDM (Japanese domestic market) were between 1952 and 1983 required to have a matching set of フェンダーミラー (fendā mirā (an adaptation of the US -English “fender mirror”, known in the UK as “wing mirrors”.)) and these sat about mid-way between the base of the A-pillar and front bumper bar.  They provided a good rearward view but did have the disadvantage of not being easily adjustable by a driver although some very expensive models were fitted with small electric motors for remote control.  The law was in 1983 liberalized only because Western manufacturers had argued the refusal to allow the door-mounted mirrors (which had by then long been elsewhere the standard) was a “non-tariff trade barrier”.  This was one foreign intrusion into Japanese life which attracted no complaint, JDM consumers overwhelmingly choosing the door mirrors when offered the option and soon the fendā mirā were phased-out, pleasing the manufacturers who no longer had to have different fittings for their RoW (rest of the world) production.

Fendā mirā old and new in Tokyo taxi livery: Toyota Crown Comfort (left) and Toyota JPN (right).  As well as the white gloves, one tradition which has been inherited by the new taxis is the use of "car doilies" (more correctly antimacassars).

The one exception was the taxi fleet and even now, fendā mirā continue to be fitted to most JDM vehicles built for the taxi market because not only do they provide a wider vista, they also protrude less from the body, something of some significance in the crowded traffic plying the often narrow roads in Japanese cities; for taxi drivers, every saved millimetre can be precious.  Sociologists explain the there is also a cultural imperative, the fender mirrors allowing customers to feel a greater sense of privacy because drivers can use the mirrors without turning their head toward the passenger seat; such a glance could be misconstrued and face could be lost.  Traditionalists, some Japanese taxi drivers still wear the white gloves the companies once required but technological change may threaten the fendā mirā because Nissan no longer produces its traditional sedan for the taxi market and while since 2017 the hybrid Toyota JPN (with fendā mirā) has become the taxi of choice, some operators are using the company's Prius and its shape really permits only door mirrors.  Despite Nissan withdrawing from the market, in the US the slang "Datsun mirrors" still is used to describe the type and there is a small but dedicated cult which retro-fits fendā mirā for that "authentic" Japanese look.   

1989 Ferrari Testarossa "doppiospecchio-cinquedado" in Giallo over Nero leather.

The distinctive side strakes were added because of a unique FRG (Federal Republic of Germany, the old West Germany) regulation which specified the maximum dimensions of apertures, the purpose said to be to prevent a child's head from entering such an opening during an accident.  Thus the fins but as well as meeting the rules, they were designed to take advantage of the properties of fluid dynamics, the air-flow being made less "wavy" and thus reducing turbulence, two vertical fins added to direct lateral air-flow directly into the radiators.  The engineering of the strakes was sound and most thought them aesthetically well-executed but they created such a stir that unfortunately, on both side of the Atlantic, a number of imitators quickly rendered usually fake versions in fibreglass, gluing them to Jaguars, BMWs, Mercedes-Benz and such.  Almost all were applied to cars with front-mounted radiators but this was the 1980s and a subset of the market was receptive.

Caveat emptor: 1986 Ferrari Testarossa in Rosso Corsa over Nero leather in "volante doppiospecchio-monodado" trim.

Being Ferraris with a certain cachet, the monospecchio cars attract additional interest and inevitably there is fakery and folklore.  There exists the odd early Testarossa with either double-high or double-low (doppiospecchio) mirrors but these are assumed to be modifications installed either by dealers or owners and there was at a time, a lot of it about.  It wasn’t a simple job, requiring one or two mirrors, window frames and support assemblies and thus always cost somewhere in four figures but, like those who once converted their now precious 1963 split-window Chevrolet Corvettes to 1964’s single piece of glass lest they be thought driving last year’s model, there were those who didn’t wish to look outdated (ironically, the 1963 coupés are now among the more coveted of the breed and there are later C2 coupés which were at some point "backdated").

Monospecchio: Apart from its special status in the Testarossa ecosystem, it may be the planet's only example of a "famous rear-view mirror".

Also, with over 7,000 sold, the Testarossa was, by Ferrari’s standards at the time, almost mass-produced and in the aftermath of the severe recession of the early 1990s a glut emerged which for years depressed prices; originality not then the fetish it would later become, sometimes ill-advised modifications became uncommon.  Still, the factory was known to accommodate special requests from good customers so if a doppiospecchio with high mounts does show up, accompanied with the vital proof of authenticity, it would add a notch of desirability.  In the 1980s, such things were less structured than today with Ferrari's "personalization programme" allowing buyers "create their very own bespoke car assisted by our team of experts" and it's not unusual to see used models advertised with some emphasis of just how many additional thousands (which can be a US$ number in six figures) were spent.  Market support for Ferrari’s flat-12 ecosystem (Boxer, Testarossa & 512 TR) is now healthy and, while not matching the buoyancy of the pre-1973 cars (and certainly not the 206 & 246 Dinos which all but the most pedantic now accept as "Ferraris"), operates well into US$ six figures, the quirk of the monospecchio cars making them much fancied.