Rubicon

Rubicon (pronounced roo-be-kon)

(1) A river, some 50 miles (80 km) in length in northern Italy, flowing eastwards into the Adriatic.

(2) A point of no return expressed as crossing the Rubicon (sometimes not capitalized; both considered correct).

(3) A penalty in piquet by which the score of a player who fails to reach 100 points in six hands is added to his opponent's total.

The Latin rubicō was derived from the adjective rubeus (red).  The river's name was from rubicundus (ruddy) and was a reference to the color of the soil on its banks.  Two-thousand odd years later, the mining company Rio Tinto similarly picked up its name from the river where copper was first mined.  Rio Tinto in Spanish translates as "colored river", the color caused by copper deposits leeching into the waters.  The figurative phrase "cross (occasionally "pass") the Rubicon" meaning "take a decisive step" or "past the point of no return" is from the 1620s, a reference to the crossing in 49 BC, in defiance of Roman law, when Julius Caesar (100-44 BC; Roman general and dictator of Rome 49-44 BC) left his province to attack Pompey.

The die it is cast

A kind of Mason-Dixon Line from Antiquity, during the Roman republic, the Rubicon marked the boundary between the Roman province of Cisalpine Gaul and Italy proper, controlled directly by Rome to the south.  Governors of Roman provinces were granted an essentially absolute executive authority in their territory, the governor serving as general of the Roman army within his province.  Roman civil law specified that only elected consuls and praetors could hold such authority within Italy so any provincial governor entering Italy at the head of his troops forfeited his office was therefore no longer legally allowed to command troops.  It was more than an administrative point because exercising military authority without authority was a capital offense and this extended to the soldiers under command.  The point of the law was to prevent generals with political ambitions from marching on Rome with their own army.

2015 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon.

In 49 BC, Julius Caesar led a single legion over the Rubicon from Cisalpine Gaul to Italy to make his way to Rome; in doing this, he deliberately broke the law and made war inevitable.   Writers at the time noted Caesar paused on the northern bank and waited a while, attributing this delay to his contemplation of the enormity of what he was about to do; a general needs to think a bit before committing mutiny.  As described by Suetonius Tranquillus (circa 69–circa 128), as he crossed the Rubicon, Caesar uttered the famous phrase ālea iacta est (the die has been cast).  The phrase crossing the Rubicon has endured to refer to individuals or groups committing irrevocably to a risky or revolutionary course of action.  It means the point of no return, what’s done is done and can’t be undone.

Julius Caesar and the Crossing of the Rubicon (1493-1494) by Francesco Granacci (1469-1543).

An insight into the tastes of those who actually paid for art during the Renaissance, the imagery presented in Granacci's work would have been far removed from how Caesar, a practical military man at the head of a legion, would have done a river crossing into hostile territory.  The painting does though reflect the influences from the art of Antiquity, especially in the representation of armors.  Granacci  trained in Florence, with Michelangelo (1475–1564), in the workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio (circa 1448-1494), and the two then studied sculpture in the Medici garden at the Casino Mediceo di San Marco under the supervision of Bertoldo di Giovanni (circa 1420-1491).  One of the noted artists of the era and a long-time collaborator of Michelangelo, his best remembered work is probably the high altarpiece for the church of Sant'Apollonia, Florence (1530).

BeiBao Lindsay Lohan spare wheel cover on Jeep Wrangler Rubicon.

Caesar's swift military action forced the lawful consuls and a large part of the Roman Senate to flee Rome in fear, his subsequent victory in the civil war and takeover of the state ensuring punishment for the infraction would never be imposed.

Unique

Unique (pronounced yoo-neek)

(1) Existing as the only one or as the sole example; single; solitary in type or characteristics; the embodiment of unique characteristics; the only specimen of a given kind.

(2) Having no like or equal; unparalleled; incomparable.

(3) Limited in occurrence to a given class, situation, or area.

(4) Limited to a single outcome or result; without alternative possibilities:

(5) Not typical; unusual (modern non-standard (ie incorrect) English).

1595-1605: From the sixteenth century French unique, from the Latin ūnicus (unparalleled, only, single, sole, alone of its kind), from ūnus (one), from the primitive Indo-European root oi-no- (one, unique).  The meaning "forming the only one of its kind" is attested from the 1610s while the erroneous sense of "remarkable, uncommon" emerged in the mid-nineteenth and lives on in the common errors “more unique” and “very unique” although etymologists are more forgiving of “quite unique”, a favorite of the antique business where it seems to be used to emphasize the prized quality of "exquisiteness".  Unique is a noun & adjective, uniqueness, uniquity & unicity are nouns and uniquely is an adverb; the (rare) noun plural is uniques.  The comparative uniquer and the superlative uniquest are treated usually as proscribed forms which should be used only with some sense of irony but technically, while the preferred "more unique" and "most unique" might sound better, the structural objection is the same.

The Triumph Stag and its unique, ghastly engine

There was a little girl by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)

There was a little girl,
And she had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good
She was very, very good,
And when she was bad she was horrid.

The V8 engine Triumph built for the Stag between 1970-1978 was a piece of machinery not quite uniquely horrid but so bad it remained, most unusually for such an engine, unique to the Stag.  The only other post-war V8 engine to be produced in any volume which was used in a single model was the Fiat 8V (1952-1954) though with a run of 114 it was hardly mass produced.  The Ford Boss 429 (1969-1970) was only ever used in the Mustang (apart from two Mercury Cougars built for drag racing) but it was a variant of the 385 series engines (370-429-460) rather than something genuinely unique.  More common have been V8s which never actually appeared in any production car such as Ford's 427 SOHC (a variant of the FE/FT family (332-352-360-361-390-406-410-427-428; 1957-1976)) or the Martin V8, designed by Ted Martin (1922-2010) initially for racing but briefly envisaged for the French Monica luxury car project (1971-1975) until a sense of reality prevailed.  What is unique about the Triumph 3.0 V8 is that it's the one produced in the greatest volume which was used only in the one model.

The Triumph 3.0 V8

Engine schematic. 

Problem 1: Some strange decisions were taken by British Leyland and many associated with the Stag’s engine are among the dopiest.  The engineering strategy was to create a family of engines of different size around common components which would enable the development of four, six and eight cylinder units with capacities between 1.5-4 litres, (75-245 cubic inches), the part-sharing offering some compelling economies of scale.  Done properly, as many have often done, it’s sound practice to create a V8 by joining two four-cylinder units but it’s unwise to using exactly the same bottom-end components for both.  Strictly speaking, because the V8 came first, the subsequent fours were actually half a V8 rather than vice-versa but the fact remains the bottom-end construction was more suited to the smaller mill; the bearings were simply too small.

Stagnant.  Blockages and corrosion by chemical reaction.

Problem 2: A second cause of engine trouble was the choice of materials. The block was made from iron and the heads from aluminum, a common enough practice even then but a combination new to Triumph owners and one demanding the year-round use of corrosion-inhibiting antifreeze, a point not widely appreciated even by the somewhat chaotic dealer network supporting them.  Consequently, in engines where only water was used as a coolant, the thermite reaction between iron and aluminum caused corrosion where the material were joined, metallic debris coming lose which was distributed inside the engine; the holes formed in the heads causing gaskets to fail, coolant and petrol mixing with lubricating oil.

Problem 3. The engine used a long, single row, roller-link timing chain which would soon stretch, causing the timing between the pistons (made of a soft metal) and the valves (made of a hard mental) to become unsynchronized.  There are “non-interference” engines where this is a nuisance because it causes things to run badly and “interference” engines where the results can be catastrophic because, at high speed, valves crash into pistons.  The Stag used an “interference” engine.

Engine schematic.  Note the angles of the head-studs.

Problem 4: There was a bizarre arrangement of cylinder head fixing studs, half of which were vertical in an orthodox arrangement while the other half sat at an angle. The angled studs, made from a high-tensile steel, were of course subject to heating and cooling and expanded and contracted at a different rate to the aluminum cylinder heads, the differential causing premature failure of the head gaskets.  It must have seemed a good idea at the time, the rationale being it made possible the replacement of the head gaskets without the need to remove the camshafts and re-set the valves and that is a time-consuming and therefore expensive business so the intention was fine but defeated by physics which should have been anticipated.  Nor did the thermal dynamics damage only head gaskets, it also warped the aluminum heads, the straight studs heating differently than the longer splayed studs which imposed the side loads that promoted warping.  As a final adding of insult to injury, the long steel studs had a propensity solidly to fuse with the aluminum head and, because they sat at dissimilar angles, it wasn’t possible simply to saw or grind the top off the offending bolt and pull of the head.

Problem 5: The head failures would have been a good deal less prevalent had the company management acceded to the engineers’ request to use the more expensive head gaskets made of a material suited to maintaining a seal between surfaces of iron and aluminum.  For cost reasons, the request was denied.

Triumph Stag engine bay.

Problem 6: Despite the under-hood space being generous, instead following the usual practice of being mounted low and belt-driven, at the front of the engine, the water pump was located high, in the valley between the heads and was gear driven off a jackshaft.  This, combined with the location of the header tank through which coolant was added, made an engine which had suffered only a small loss of coolant susceptible to over-heating which, if undetected, could soon cause catastrophic engine failure, warped cylinder heads not uncommon.  Because, when on level ground, the water pump sat higher than the coolant filling cap, unless the car was parked at an acute angle, it wasn’t possible to fill the system with enough fluid actually to reach the water pump.    It seems a strange decision for a engineer to make and the original design blueprints show a belt-driven water pump mounted in a conventional manner at the front of the block.

It transpired that Saab, which had agreed to purchase a four cylinder derivative of the modular family, had to turn the slant four through 180^o because, in their front-wheel-drive 99, the transmission needed to sit at the front and, space in the Swedish car being tight, there would be no room between block and bulkhead for a water pump and pulley to fit.  So, dictated by necessity, the pump ended up atop the block, suiting both orientations and driven by the same shaft that drove the distributor and oil pump (and would have driven the mechanical metering unit for the abortive fuel injection).  Aside from the issues with coolant, the drive mechanism for the pump brought problems of its own, the early ones proving fragile.  As if the problems inherent weren’t enough, Triumph made their detection harder, locating the coolant temperature sender in one of the cylinder heads.  On the modular fours, with one head, that would be fine but the Stag’s two heads didn’t warp or otherwise fail in unison.  One head could be suffering potentially catastrophic overheating yet, because the sensor was in the as yet unaffected other, the temperature gauge would continue to indicate a normal operating level.  That’s the reason just about every fluid-cooled engine with multiple heads has the sender placed in the water pump.  To compound the problem, the four and eight used the same specification water pump, which, while more than adequate for the former, should have be uprated for the latter.

Problem 7: This was the eventually nationalized British Leyland of the 1970s, a case study, inter alia, in poor management and ineptitude in industrial relations.  Although the pre-production engines were cast by an outside foundry and performed close to faultlessly in durability-testing, those fitted to production cars were made in house by British Leyland in a plant troubled by industrial unrest.  Quality control was appalling bad, lax manufacturing standards left casting sands in the blocks which were sent for the internal components to be fitted and head gaskets were sometimes fitted in a way which restricted coolant flow and led to overheating.

The lineage of the Stag

Michelotti's show car, 1966.

It was a pity because but for the engine, the Stag proved, by the standards of the time, relatively trouble-free, even the often derided Lucas electrical equipment well behaved.  The story began in 1965 when Italian designer Giovanni Michelotti (1921–1980) had requested a Triumph 2000 sedan, a model he’d styled and which had been on sale since 1963.  Michelotti intended to create a one-off convertible as a promotional vehicle to display at the 1966 Geneva Motor Show and Triumph agreed, subject to the company being granted first refusal on production rights and, if accepted, it would not appear at the show.  The donor car sent to Turin was a 1964 saloon which, prior to being used as a factory hack, had been one of the support vehicles for Triumph’s 1965 Le Mans campaign with the Spitfire.  Driven to Italy for Michelotti to cut and shape, the result so delighted Triumph they immediate purchased the production rights and the Stag was born.  Briefly called TR6, the Stag name was chosen, somewhat at random, as the original project code but was retained when it was preferred to all the suggested alternatives; unlike the engine, the name was right from day one.

Michelotti's pre-production styling sketch for a cabriolet version of the Triumph 2000, 1967.  The concept was remarkably close to the production version.

The styling too turned out to be just about spot-on.  The partially concealed headlights, then a fashionable trick many US manufacturers had adopted, was thought potentially troublesome and abandoned but the lines were substantially unchanged between prototype and production.  There was one exception of course and that was the most distinctive feature, the B-pillar mounted loop which connected to the centre of windscreen frame, creating a T-section.  This wasn’t added because of fears the US Congress was going to pass legislation about roll-over protection; that would come later and see European manufacturers produce a rash of “targas” (a kind of roll-bar integrated into the styling as a semi-roof structure) but Triumph’s adaptation was out of structural necessity.  Based on a sedan which had a permanent roof to guarantee structural integrity, Michelotti’s prototype had been a styling exercise and no attempt had been made to adapt the engineering to the standards required for production.  Although the platform had be shortened, a sedan with its roof cut of is going to flex and flex it did, shaking somewhat if driven even at slow speeds in a straight line on smooth surfaces; with any change to any of those conditions, vibration and twisting became much worse.  The T-top not only restored structural integrity but was so well-designed and solidly built the Stag’s torsional stiffness was actually better than the sedan and unlike Triumph's long running TR range (TR2-TR6, 1953-1976 (the TR7-TR8 (1975-1981) a different platform)), there was no scuttle shake.

Given the platform and styling was essentially finished at the beginning, the initial plan the Stag would be ready for release within two years didn’t seem unreasonable but it took twice that long.  Perhaps predictably, it was the engine which was responsible for much of the delay, combined with the turmoil and financial uncertainty of a corporate re-structure.  Triumph had since 1960 been part of the Leyland group (a profitable bus and truck manufacturer) and until 1968 enjoyed much success as their car-making division.  However, in 1968, under some degree of government coercion, a large conglomerate was formed as British Leyland (BL) and Triumph was absorbed into BL's Specialist Division as a stable-mate to Rover and Jaguar-Daimler.

Jaguar & Daimler: V8s, V12s and missed opportunities

Daimler 2.5 V8.

What became the Stag's engine imbroglio was interlinked with the merger because with the great coming-together, BL had on the books, in development or production, one V12 engine and five V8s, an indulgence unlikely to survive any corporate review.  Jaguar-Daimler, the most substantially semi-independent entity within the conglomerate, were adamant about the importance of the V12 to their new model ranges and the point of differentiation it would provide in the vital US market.  They were notably less emphatic about their V8s.  Within the company, there had long been a feeling Jaguars should have either six or twelve cylinders, any V8 a lumpy compromise for which there’d never been much enthusiasm.  Additionally, the Jaguar was more of a compromise than most.  Based on the V12 it was thus in a 60^o configuration and so inherently harder to balance than a V8 using an orthodox 90^o layout.  Development had been minimal and Jaguar was happy to sacrifice the project, doubtlessly the correct decision.

1961 Jaguar Mark X.

Less inspired was to allow the anti-V8 feeling to doom the hemi-head Daimler V8s.  Built in 2½ litre (2,548 cm³ (155 cubic inch)) and 4½ litre (4,561 cm³ (278 cubic inch)) displacement, both were among the best engines of the era, light, compact and powerful, they were noted also for their splendid exhaust notes, the only aspect in which the unfortunate Stag engine would prove their match.  Jaguar acquired both after merging with (ie taking over) Daimler in 1960 and created a popular (and very profitable) niche model using the smaller version but the 4½ litre was only ever used in low volume limousines, barely two-thousand of which were built in a decade.  Both however showed their mettle, the 2.5 comfortably out-performing Jaguars 2.4 XK-six in the same car and in some measures almost matching the 3.4, all to the accompaniment of that glorious exhaust note.  The 4.6 too proved itself in testing.  When, in 1962, engineers replaced the 3.8 XK-six in Jaguar’s new Mark X with a 4.6, it was six seconds quicker to 100 mph (162 km/h) and added more than 10 mph (16 km/h) to an already impressive top speed of 120 mph (195 km/h).  The engineers could see the potential, especially in the US market where the engines in the Mark X’s competition was routinely now between six-seven litres (365-430 cubic inches) and increasingly being called upon to drive power-sapping accessories such as air-conditioning.  As Mercedes-Benz too would soon note, in the US, gusty sixes were becoming technologically bankrupt.  The engineers looked at the 4.6 and concluded improvements could be made to the cylinder heads and the design would accommodate capacity increases well beyond five litres (305 cubic inches); they were confident a bigger version would be a natural fit for the American market.

Internal discussion paper for Jaguar XK-V8 engine, Coventry, UK, 1949.

Curiously, it could have happened a decade earlier because, during development of the XK-six, a four cylinder version was developed and prototypes built, the intent being to emulate the company’s pre-war practice when (then known as SS Cars) a range of fours and sixes were offered.  This continued in the early post-war years while the XK was being prepared and the idea of modularity appealed; making fours into sixes would become a common English practice but Jaguar flirted also with an XK-eight.  While the days of straight-eights were nearly done, trends in the US market clearly suggested others might follow Ford and offer mass-market V8s so, in 1949, a document was circulated with preliminary thoughts outlining the specification of a 4½ litre 90^o V8 using many of the XK-four’s components including a pair of the heads.  There things seemed to have ended, both four and eight doomed by the success and adaptability of the XK-six and there's never been anything to suggest the XK-eight reached even the drawing-board.  Work on the prototype four did continue until the early 1950s, the intention being to offer a smaller car which would fill the huge gap in the range between the XK-120 and the big Mark VII saloon but so quickly did the XK-six come to define what a Jaguar was that it was realized a four would no longer suit the market.  Instead, for the small car, a small (short) block XK-six was developed, initially in two litre form and later enlarged for introduction as the 2.4; with this, the XK-four was officially cancelled by which time the flirtation with the eight had probably already been forgotten.  For decades thereafter, Jaguar would prefer to think in multiples of six and, having missed the chance in the 1960s to co-op the Daimler 4.6, it wouldn’t be for another thirty years that a V8 of four-odd litres would appear in one of their cars.

1954 prototype Jaguar 9 litre military V8.

That didn't mean in the intervening years Jaguar didn't build any V8s.  In the early 1950s, while fulfilling a contract with the Ministry of Supply to manufacture sets of spares for the Rolls-Royce Meteor mark IVB engines (a version of the wartime Merlin V12 made famous in Spitfires and other aircraft) used in the army's tanks, Jaguar was invited to produce for evaluation a number of V8s of "approximately 8 litres (488 cubic inches)".  Intended as a general purpose engine for military applications such as light tanks, armored cars and trucks, what Jaguar delivered was a 9 litre (549 cubic inches), 90^o V8 with double overhead camshafts (DOHC), four valves per cylinder and a sealed electrical system (distributors and ignition) to permit underwater operation, thereby making the units suitable also for marine use.  With an almost square configuration (the bore & stroke was 114.3 x 110 mm (4.5 x 4.33 inches)), the naturally aspirated engine exceeded the requested output, yielding 320 bhp (240 kw) at 3750 rpm and either five or six were delivered to the ministry for the army to test.  From that point, it's a mystery, neither the military, the government nor Jaguar having any record of the outcome of the trials which apparently didn't proceed beyond 1956 or 1957; certainly no orders were placed and the project was terminated.  At least one one of the V8s survived, purchased in an army surplus sale it was as late as the 1990s being used in the barbaric-sounding sport of "tractor-pulling".  Later, Jaguar enjoyed more success with the military, the army for some years using a version of the 4.2 litre XK-six in their tracked armored reconnaissance vehicles, the specification similar to that used when installed in the Dennis D600 fire engine.             

Jaguar V12 in 1973 XJ12.  So tight was the fit in the XJ's engine bay, even the battery needed its own cooling fan.

Jaguar’s management vetoed production of the Daimler 4.6 on the grounds (1) there was not the capacity to increase production to what be required for the volume of sales Jaguar hoped the Mark X would achieve and (2) the Mark X would need significant modifications to permit installation of the V8.  Given that Daimler’s production facilities had no difficulty dramatically increasing production of the 2.5 when it was used in the smaller saloon body and a number of specialists have subsequently noted how easy it was to fit some very big units into the Mark X’s commodious engine bay, it’s little wonder there’s always been the suspicion the anti-V8 prejudice may have played a part.  Whatever the reasons, the decision was made instead to enlarge the XK-six to 4.2 litres and missed was the opportunity for Jaguar to offer a large V8-powered car at least competitive with and in some ways superior to the big Americans.  The Mark X (later re-named 420G) was not the hoped-for success, sales never more than modest even in its early days and in decline until its demise in 1970 by which time production had slowed to a trickle.  It was a shame for a design which was so advanced and had so much potential for the US market and had the V8 been used or had the V12 been available by the mid-1960s, things could have been different.  The unfortunate reputation the twelve later gained was because of lax standards in the production process, not any fragility in the design which was fundamentally sound and it would have been a natural fit in the Mark X.  So the Daimler 4.6 remained briefly in small-scale production for the limousines and the 2.5 enjoyed a successful run as an exclusive model under the hood of the smallest Jaguar (as well as the footnote of the SP250 roadster), a life which would extend until 1969.  Unfortunately, the powerful, torquey, compact and robust 2.5, which easily could have been enlarged to three litres, wasn’t used in the Stag.  More helpfully, even if capacity had been limited to 2.8 litres (170 cubic inches) to take advantage of the lower taxation rates applied in Europe, the Daimler V8 would have been more than equal to the task.

Crossing the Rubicon

Fuel-injected 2.5 litre Triumph six in 1968 Triumph TR5.

The Triumph six was essentially an enlarged version of an earlier four.  Released also in 1.6 & 2.0 capacities and used in the 2000/2500, Vitesse, GT6 & TR5/6, the fuel-injection was adopted only for the some of the non-US market sports cars and the short-lived 2.5 PI saloon and because of the reliance on the US market, TVR, which used the engine in the 2500M, in all markets, offered only the twin-carburetor version certified for US sale in the TR-250.  Apart from those fitted with never wholly satisfactory Lucas mechanical fuel-injection, with roots in a tractor engine, the pushrod Triumph six was not an advanced powerplant but it was highly tuneable and something the Stag's V8 never was: robust and reliable.  Although it sounds (and would have been) anachronistic, Triumph would have been better advised to take the old four and create a 3.0 litre straight-eight with the power take-off in the centre.  Even with carburetors (certainly for the US market) it would have been unique (in a good way) and doing that while adding a few inches to the nose would have been a simpler and cheaper task than what was done.  A straight-eight Stag would also have reached the market earlier.      

Triumph tried using the fuel-injected 2.5 litre straight-six already in development for the TR5 (TR-250 in North America) but the rorty six was a sports car engine unsuited to the grand tourer Triumph intended the Stag to be and thus was born a 2.5 litre V8, part of a modular family.  Another innovation was that the V8 would use the Lucas mechanical fuel-injection adopted for the long-stroke six and this at a time when relatively few Mercedes-Benz were so equipped.  However, while the power output met the design objectives, it lacked the torque needed in a car of this nature, and the high-revving nature wasn’t suited to a vehicle intended to appeal to the US market where it was likely often to be equipped both with air-conditioning and automatic transmission; the decision was taken to increase capacity to three litres.  Because the quest was for more torque, it might be thought it would be preferred to lengthen the stroke but, for reasons of cost related to the modularity project, it was decided instead to increase the bore to a very over-square 86.00 x 64.50 mm (3.39 x 2.52 inches).  Despite this, the additional half-litre delivered the desired torque but the coolant passages remained the same so an engine with a capacity twenty percent larger and an increased swept volume, still used the already hardly generous internal cooling capacity of the 2.5.  It was another straw on the camel’s back.

It was also another delay and, within Leyland, questions were being raised about why a long and expensive programme was continuing to develop something which, on paper, appeared essentially to duplicate what Leyland then had in production: Rover’s version of the small-block Buick V8 which they’d much improved after buying the rights and tooling from General Motors.  Already used to much acclaim in their P5B and P6 saloons, it would remain in production for decades.  The Rover V8 did seem an obvious choice and quite why it wasn’t adopted still isn’t entirely certain.  One story is that the Triumph development team told Rover’s chief engineer, by then in charge of the Stag project, that the design changes associated with their V8 were by then so advanced that the Rover V8 “wouldn’t fit”.  While it seems strange an engineer might believe one small V8 wouldn’t fit into a relatively large engine bay which already housed another small V8, he would later admit that believe them he did.

Tight fit: Ford 289 (4.7) V8 in 1967 Sunbeam Tiger Mark II.  A small hatch was added to the firewall so one otherwise inaccessible spark plug could be changed from inside the cabin.

It actually wasn’t a wholly unreasonable proposition because to substitute one engine for another of similar size isn’t of necessity simple, things like cross-members and sump shapes sometimes rendering the task impossible, even while lots of spare space looms elsewhere and a similar thing had recently happened.  In 1967, after taking control of Sunbeam, Chrysler had intended to continue production of the Tiger, then powered by the 289 cubic inch (4.7 litre) Windsor V8 bought from Ford but with Chrysler’s 273 cubic inch (4.4 litre) LA V8 substituted.  Unfortunately, while 4.7 Ford litres filled it to the brim, 4.4 Chrysler litres overflowed; the small-block Ford truly was compact.  Allowing the Tiger to remain in production until the stock of already purchased Ford engines had been exhausted, Chrysler instead changed the advertising from emphasizing the “…mighty Ford V8 power plant” to the correct but less revealing “…an American V-8 power train”.

1973 Triumph Stag.

It may have been, in those perhaps kinder times, one engineer would believe another.  However, years later, a wrinkle was added to the story when, in an interview, one of the development team claimed what was said was that they felt the Rover V8 was “not a fit” for the Stag, not that “it wouldn’t fit”, an amusing piece of sophistry by which, it was said, they meant the characteristics of the engine weren't those required for the Stag.  That may have been being economical with the truth: any engineer looking at the specifications of the Rover unit would have understood it was highly adaptable and so for decades it proved to be, powering everything from the Land Rover to executive saloons and high-performance sports cars.

More plausible an explanation was competing economics.  Triumph was projecting a volume of between twelve and twenty-thousand a year for the Stag and, within the existing production facilities Rover could not have satisfied the demand in addition to their own expanding range, soon to include the Range Rover, added to which, an agreement had been reached to supply Morgan with engines for the +8 which would revitalize their fortunes.  The Morgan deal was for a relatively small volume but it was lucrative and the success of the +8 was already encouraging interest from other manufacturers.  So, with Triumph already in the throes of gearing up to produce their modular engines and Rover said to be unable to increase production without a large capital investment in plant and equipment, the fateful decision to use the Triumph engine was taken.

1974 Triumph Stag in magenta.  Some of the shades of brown, beige, orange and such used in the 1970s by British Leyland are not highly regarded but some were quite striking.

This was the critical point, yet even then it wasn’t too late.  Although Jaguar were emphatic about shutting down Daimler’s V8 lines and converting the factories to XJ6 production, it would have been possible to move the tooling and resume building a 2.5, 2.8 or 3.0 Daimler V8 for the Stag.  Rover had found managing a shift of some tooling across the Atlantic not too onerous a task so trucking stuff a few miles down the road should have been possible.  Ironically, Triumph argued their OHC V8 was a more modern thing than the then decade-old pushrod Daimler which, they suggested, wouldn’t be able to be adapted to upcoming US emission regulations and thus would have a short life.  Given the success of many in coaxing pushrod V8s through decades of US regulations, that probably wasn’t true but it had all become irrelevant; the decision had been taken to pursue Triumph’s modular option.  At least a decision had been taken that was final, unlike some British Leyland decisions of the era but it did mean the Stag’s introduction was further delayed.

1973 Triumph Stag.

Eventually, the Stag was launched in the summer of 1970 to a positive if not rapturous reception.  There was criticism of weight of the hardtop and the fabric roof not being as easy to us as the brochure suggested but most contemporary journalists seemed to enjoy the drive although some were disappointed with the lack of power; the wonderful exhaust note and rakish lines perhaps promising more but this was a relatively heavy four-seat grand tourer, not a sports-car.  Still, it would touch 120 mph (190 km/h) and its acceleration, brakes and handling were all at least comparable to the competition and, among that completion, it was close to unique.  A small-capacity V8, four-seat convertible with a choice of manual or automatic transmissions and all-independent suspension was a tempting specification in 1970; to get the same thing from Mercedes-Benz would cost more than three times as much.  Of course Stuttgart would probably have suggested their buyers got something more than three times as good, a not unreasonable point at the time and, given the prices at which 280SE 3.5 cabriolets now trade, the Germans appear to have been conservative in their three-fold estimate.  But it was value for money and had some nice touches, a heated rear window when that was a novelty in removable hard tops, a clever (and influential) multi-function display of warning lights and even, though curiously discordant, the option of wire wheels.

1974 Triumph Stag interior (manual o/d).

All concluded that driving one was a pleasant, if not especially rapid, experience but owning a Stag proved frequently nightmarish, all because of that unique engine.  Before many months had elapsed it was clear there were problems and, despite years of fixes and adjustments, the inherent design faults proved just too embedded in the mechanical DNA.  A change to the Rover V8 might, even then been the answer for the Stag otherwise suffered from little but by the early 1970s, Leyland was in dire financial straits, chronically under-capitalized and without any appetite to invest in a small volume product with an uncertain future.  Perhaps the earlier failure by Facel Vega to rescue the doomed Facellia by replacing the interesting but fragile French engine with a dreary but reliable Volvo unit played on their minds.  An upgraded automatic transmission, improvements to the cooling system and other detail changes to the engine were pursued and even an inconspicuous re-style was thought to warrant a “Mark 2” tag but the reputation never recovered.

Quixotic derivations were built but never pursued.  There were a couple of clumsy-looking prototype GT6-esque (the GT6 was a successful fastback version of the Spitfire roadster which used a the 2.0 litre straight-six in place of the smaller car's 1.3 litre four) hatchbacks which excited little interest and in 1972 Ferguson Research adapted two using their all-wheel-drive and anti-lock brake systems made famous on the Jensen FF; said to work most effectively, both still exist in private hands but there's nothing to suggest even limited production was ever contemplated.  In seven years, 25,877 Stags were built, 6,780 of which were exported but only 2,871 Americans were persuaded, a disappointment in a market of which much had been hoped.

End of the line: 1978 Triumph Stag.

The Stag however has enjoyed an extraordinary afterlife for something once thought a fragile failure.  Seduced by the style, the surprising practicality and the intoxicating burble of the exhaust, the survival rate has been high and most still run the Triumph V8 rather than the Rover V8, Ford V6 or any of the small-block Detroit V8s to which not a few owners once resorted.  Modern additions improve the experience too, five speed manual transmissions have been fitted, mostly to cars not equipped with the desirable overdrive and there's a popular and well-executed conversion to a four-speed ZF automatic which many describe as transformative.  There can be few engines which have for so long inspired owners to devote so much energy to rectifying the defects the factory never fixed.  High strength timing chains, external water pumps, improved radiators, better bearings and (the once rejected) correct head gaskets are now available, the consensus being that properly sorted and maintained by the book, it’s a solid, reliable engine, just not one which can be tolerate the sort of neglect Detroit's V8s of the era famously would endure with little complaint.

The Stag, November 2023 (the date stamp 21/8/2024 presumably wasn't caught during the pre-production process).

The Stag is the student newsletter of Reddam House Sydney, an independent, co-educational, non-denominational, day school, located in the leafy (Sydney code for “rich”) suburb of Woollahra.  An encouragingly professional example of student journalism, the content appears to reflect the generation's interest in popular culture (film, fashion, music, sport etc), climate change, consumer tech products and progressive politics (including the now obligatory trigger-warnings).  The writers take a few youthful liberties with conventions of formal English but that lends the publication an accessible, conversational tone.

Trope

Trope (pronounced trohp)

(1) In art and literature, any literary or rhetorical device, as metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony, that consists in the use of words in other than their literal sense and which tends to become a motif.

(2) In rhetoric, a figure of speech in which words or phrases are used with a non-literal or figurative meaning, such as a metaphor.

(3) In geometry, a tangent space meeting a quartic surface in a conic or the reciprocal of a node on a surface (archaic).

(4) In music, a short cadence at the end of the melody in some early music; a pair of complementary hexachords in twelve-tone technique.

(5) In the rituals of Judaism, a chanting (cantillation) pattern, or one of the marks that represents it.

(6) In medieval Christianity (and preserved in the rituals of certain factions in Roman Catholicism), either a phrase or verse added to the Mass when sung by a choir or a phrase, sentence, or verse formerly interpolated in a liturgical text to amplify or embellish.

(7) In Athenian philosophy, any of the ten arguments used in scepticism to refute dogmatism.

(8) In Santayanian philosophy, the principle of organization according to which matter moves to form an object during the various stages of its existence.

(9) In metaphysics, a particular instance of a property, as contrasted with a universal.

1525–1535: From the Latin tropus (a figure of speech (in rhetoric)) from the Ancient Greek τρόπος (trópos) (a turn, direction, course, way; manner, fashion; a mode in music; a mode or mood in logic (in rhetoric, "a turn or figure of speech)) and related to τροπή (tropḗ) (solstice; trope; turn) and τρέπειν (trépein) (to turn).  Root was the primitive Indo-European trep (to turn), related also to the Sanskrit trapate (is ashamed, confused, literally "turns away in shame") which Latin picked up trepit (he turns), the Latin adoption in the figurative.  The meaning is now understood as something more diffuse but technically, in rhetoric, a trope was "a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is used in a sense other than the usual definition".  In English, the word is found often in combined form (such as heliotrope) and occurs also in concrete nouns that correspond to abstract nouns ending in -tropy or -tropism.  Trope is a noun & verb, troper, tropist, tropology & tropism are nouns and tropey is an adjective; the noun plural is tropes.

When younger, Lindsay Lohan's signature trope was playing dual roles (The Parent Trap (1998), Freaky Friday (2003) and I Know Who Killed Me (2007).  During her “troubled starlet” phase, she became emblematic of the “downward spiral” trope.  In 2022, she appeared in Falling for Christmas, Netflix's latest take on the "Christmas movie trope".  Although the scripts for tropes have long followed an algorithm, the studios are said now to be using a predictive form of artificial intelligence (AI) to hone the generation of whatever should have the most audience appeal.  The screen-writers (most of whom drive cars and use other products manufactured using processes in which machines substantially have displaced the human labor content) are are unlikely ultimately to succeed in keeping AI out of their profession and, in the medium term, their future may lie in the creation of the quirky and bizarre but in the economy, that's a niche.  For the formulaic stuff (most commercial cinema), the studios are likely to find the AI path "better, cheaper, faster" and the history of US industrial relations suggests these imperatives will prove irresistible.               

The Stage Five Clinger Trope

Most sources cite origin of the Stage 5 Clinger trope as the movie Wedding Crashers (2005) although there are claims it merely popularized the use; without earlier citations however, the trope’s origin appears to be the movie.  As a technical point, a stage one clinger isn’t initially labelled as such, the term applied retrospectively after syndrome is diagnosed.  If men are smart or lucky, they’ll recognize this by stage two but some men are so stupid they don’t realize until stage four.  While in movie there was no discussion of stages other than “5”, by implication five was most extreme and memes soon fleshed out 1-4:

Stage 1 Clinger: She seems fine

First date goes well, she’s attentive, interested, even gets the drinks sometimes and she makes breakfast.  Afterwards, text messages are fun and flirtatious.

Stage 2 Clinger: Hunter and game

The text messages become frequent, the first hint of the lure / engage / trap strategy of the lone hunter.  SMSs start out OK which lulls you into a false sense of security.  Before long, a few messages have been exchanged, most of which have required you to agree with her about innocuous stuff like the weather or today’s traffic.  Then, she’ll suggest a second date and extract a commitment to a specific time/date/place.  That will be soon.       

Stage 3 Clinger: Manoeuvres

Second date not something you’ll wish to repeat.  Bit creepy, how much she knew about you, clearly adept at mining the web.  To escape, you agree to third date while finding pretext to avoid confirming time.  Within hours, text messages become frequent to the point of nuisance.  Check Facebook and you’ll see she’s friended everyone you know.  Ignore SMS and eventually it goes quiet… for about an hour.  Then she phones.  Third date will not be possible to avoid, the illusion you’ll use it to end things still something you convince yourself to believe.  The S3C stage can frequently be the point of no return.  Acquaint yourself with the tale of Julius Caesar (100-44 BC; Roman general and dictator of Rome 49-44 BC) crossing the Rubicon and ponder.      

Stage 4 Clinger: The circling vulture

By stage four, clinging has slurred effortlessly into stalking and S4C is likely to send your mother flowers on her birthday and attempt at avoidance will prompt texting and calling from other phones.  Those who drive are even more of a threat because, where you go, she can follow so you’ll run into her in the most improbable places, and usually she’ll suggest taking advantage of the coincidence by going to lunch, dinner or whatever else might be close.  No matter how studiously you watch the rear-vision mirror, she’ll hunt you down and find you. 

Stage 5 Clinger: Thrill of the kill

At this point, her life is scheduled around your own, even to the point where she may now work in the same building, expects to have lunch together every day and a drink after work whenever possible.  When you try to avoid these, emotional meltdowns ensue, the only way to avoid a scene being to agree.  Many of your friends start asking you out as a couple and tell you you’re lucky because she’s wonderful.  She’s been to their dinner parties where she talks about your plans together.  Stage five clinger can also be APC ("actual psycho-chick", the two not synonymous but there’s frequent overlap).  Pursuing another relationship in an attempt to dissuade her brings its own problems, the S5C-APC will spray-paint CHEATER on either their car or yours (in red; unless car is red, then she’ll use black).  At this point, faking your own death begins to look like good tactic.

Crooked Hillary (b 1947) and Bill Clinton (b 1946) in the rain at the formal dedication of the William J Clinton Presidential Center, Little Rock, Arkansas, November 2004.  Cling on and no matter what, never let go.

The significance of dividing the path of the clinger into stages is it’s vital to extricate yourself from their clutches during the earliest stage possible; it needs to be remembered progression can be rapid, some clingers so adept at the art they're able to skip one or even two stages.  The longer delayed the excision, the harder it becomes and if allowed to reach the later stages, you may be stuck with her forever and for that, you can’t blame her: you're trapped and it's all your fault; you have only yourself to blame.

Zigzag

Zigzag (pronounced zig-zag)

(1) A line, course, or progression characterized by sharp turns first to one side and then to the other.

(2) One of a series of such turns, as in a line or path (typically in a repeating “Z-like” pattern.

(3) Proceeding or formed in a zigzag:

(4) In sewing, dressmaking etc, a pattern or stitches in this shape.

(5) In military use (land, sea & air), to move or manoeuvre in a zigzaging motion, usually as a form of evasion.

(6) In figurative use, something performed in a non-lineal way, characterized by frequent changes, often in response to external influences such as criticism.

(7) As “zigzag rule”, a rule composed of light strips of wood joined by rivets so as to be foldable, all the opening and closing parts being in parallel planes.

(8) In World War I (1914-1918) US military slang, a slang term for “someone drunk”.

1712: From the mid-seventeenth century French zigzag which replaced the earlier ziczac, from the German zickzack, from the Walloon ziczac, a gradational compound based on Zacke (tack) (familiar in English use as the “zigzagging technique” used in yachting).  It’s thought the coining of the original may have been influenced by the letter “Z” which appears twice, a “Z” able to be interpreted as a representation of a “zigzag movement”.  Less supported among etymologists is the alternative theory the German Zickzack was from Zacke (point; tooth; prong; jagged projection).  The earliest known use in German was to describe military siege approaches, a use adopted (by analogy) by early English landscape architects (then known as “gardeners”) to the layout of appropriately shaped paths in parks.  It was used as an adjective from the mid eighteenth century, the first appearing in 1774.  The brand of cigarette paper (a favorite of many stoners because the glue was said to make joints “easier to roll”) was first sold in 1909.  The adjectival use is common in fabric design and dressmaking, the zigzag pattern widely used.  In sewing, a zigzag stitch is one of the standard set in sewing machines, used usually to finish edges, the attachment to create such stitches known as a zigzagger.  The hyphenated spelling zig-zag is common.  Zigzag is a noun, verb adjective & adverb; zigzaggedness & zigzagger are nouns and zigzagged & zigzagging are verbs; the noun plural is zigzags.

ZIG is used as an acronym for a number of purposes including (1) zoster immune globulin (a globulin fraction of pooled plasma from patients who have recovered from herpes zoster and used prophylactically for immuno-suppressed children exposed to varicella and therapeutically to ameliorate varicella infection), (2) a general-purpose imperative, statically typed, compiled programming language intended as a modern successor to the C language and is (3) the abbreviation of Zimbabwe Gold, the official national currency of Zimbabwe since April 2024; it began in October 2023 as a gold-backed digital token in October 2023.  ZAG is the International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) code for Zagreb International Airport, Croatia and to describe Zymosan-Activated Granulocytes (a type of white blood cell (granulocytes) that have been stimulated by exposure to zymosan, a polysaccharide derived from the cell walls of yeast species like Saccharomyces cerevisiae).

Lindsay Lohan with Kim Kardashian (b 1980) with strategically placed “gash” in dress.

The feature may be described as either a “zig” or “zag” because the terms are interchangeable.  However, were there to be two connected gashes which assume opposite directions: that would be a “zigzag”.  While the nature of the formation of the words “zig” & “zag” is not unique, it is unusual in that, dating from the late eighteenth century, both were extractions: back-formation from “zigzag”.  A notable quirk of zig & zag is that interchangeably they can be used to mean the same thing yet when used in the same sentence, they mean “to move in opposite directions”.  In separate use, it thus matters not whether one says “she zigged around” or “she zagged around”; the meaning is the same.  Used together however, the rule is strict: she will always be described as “zigzagging” and never “zagzigging”.  Zigzag is often intended to be humorous and when applied to politicians it’s a way of saying they are “being evasive” or “flip-flopping”.

Lindsay Lohan wearing a Tolani zig zag scarf (given it was winter, the piece should probably be described as a “muffler”) in the style made famous by the Italian fashion house Missoni, New York, November 2007.

Founded in 1953 by Ottavio (1921-2013) and Rosita (b 1931) Missoni, the house became well-known during the 1960s for their vibrant and colorful knitwear, the signature motif of which was a distinctive zigzag pattern.  The technology which made the garments possible was not new, the Missoni’s “re-discovering” the long discarded “Rachel” machines traditionally used to create the shawls worn in the south of Italy, devices which permitted an almost infinite variation of lines and styles within a given design; such things were of course possible using other machinery but the versatile Rachels allowed changes to be integrated into the production line process, making possible economies of scale not available to other manufacturers; all that was required was a quick juggling of the assembly’s array of multi-colored points and what would emerge was fabric with horizontal and vertical lines in a rainbow of colors.  Ottavio Missoni did acknowledge the stylistic debt owed, once saying: “For a thousand years, the Incas have been copying my knit sweaters…”

A swatch of Missoni's signature zigzag.

The event which made Missoni famous was at the time thought scandalous although, given what these days is worn on catwalks and red carpets, it seems quaint indeed.  After their first, well-received, catwalk show in 1966, Missoni was invited to the event held in Florence’s Pitti Palace in April 1967 and it was only during last-minute rehearsals Rosita Missoni became aware the shape and color of the models’ bras were clearly visible, distracting attention from the unique zigzagging patterns which were the brand’s signature.  With no time to arrange a fix like skin-toned bodysuits, her solution was for the models to remove their bras; that solved the problem but replaced one distraction with another, the assembled pack of photographers most impressed because, under venue’s unusually bright lights, the pieces became transparent.  Since dubbed “The Battle of the Bras”, at the time not all thought the look “appropriate” but it generated much publicity and was one of the reasons Milan would in the late 1960s emerge as one of the world’s fashion capitals, the photographers following the Missonis back to Milan.  The couple weren’t invited to the next year’s Pitti Palace show but Vogue, Marie Claire, Elle, and Harper's Bazaar all provided generous coverage and the Rubicon had been crossed, Yves Saint-Laurent (1936–2008) in 1968 displaying the “see-through” look.  Since then, it’s never gone away.

PLA Shenyang J-8II (left) and USN Lockheed EP-3E ARIES II (right)

The phrase “he zigged when he should have zagged” came into common use in the mid-twentieth century and is believed to have been popularized by radio sports commentators who needed something “graphical” to paint a “word picture” of why a football player had been tackled.  The origin is thought to be sardonic military humor and a euphemism for “he was killed while attempting an evasive maneuver”.  An example of “he zigged when he should have zagged” was the fate of the unfortunate Lieutenant Commander (shao xiao) Wang Wei (1969-2001) of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy of the PRC (People’s Republic of China), killed when his Shenyang J-8II interceptor (a Chinese knock-off of the old Soviet-era MiG 21) collided with a US Navy Lockheed EP-3E ARIES II signals reconnaissance aircraft (a development of the old P-3 Orion).  The affair became known as the “Hainan Island Incident” because the damaged EP-3 was forced to land on the Chinese territory of Hainan Island, the ensuring diplomatic spat played out over the next ten days, resolved by the US ambassador to Beijing handing to the PRC’s foreign minister the “Letter of the two sorries”; US surveillance flights have continued and the PLA is now more cautious in its shadowing.  US pilots noted the dark linguistic coincidence of the name “Wang Wei” being pronounced “wong way”.

Jewish Museum Berlin (2001), overhead view (left), exterior (centre) and interior (right).

Designed by US architect Daniel Libeskind (b 1946) and opened in 2001, Berlin’s Jewish Museum is noted for the “zigzag” theme reflected in its floor plan, exterior surfaces and interior detailing.  The “gashes”, a recurring motif, are integral to the design and described as “voids”, deep, empty spaces which “cut their way” through the building, serving as symbols representing the absence, loss, and emptiness left by the Holocaust.  The architect’s idea was to evoke a sense of disorientation & fragmentation, recalling the often disrupted history of the Jewish people in Germany (the Holocaust only the most severe of the pogroms suffered).  According to the museum, the voids are intended to summon in visitors periods of reflection, silence, and remembrance; a recall of what irrevocably has been lost.  In terms of design & effect, one of the most celebrated voids is the "Memory Void" in which houses the installation Shalekhet (Fallen Leaves) by Israeli painter & sculptor Menashe Kadishman (1932–2015), constructed with thousands of metallic faces spread across the floor.  On these, visitors walk, producing a haunting sound many report as “intensifying the emotional experience”.  Voids are not unusual in museums, galleries and other exhibition spaces but unlike some, those in the Jewish Museum contain no exhibits, reminding visitor of the void in Jewish culture rent by the Holocaust.