Snarge

Snarge (pronounced snn-arj)

(1) In military & civil aviation, slang, the remains of a bird after it has collided with an airplane (ie bird strike), originally of impacts with turbine engines but latterly applied also to residue left on wings, fuselages etc.

(2) By adoption, the remains of birds and insects left on the windscreens of trains, cars, motorcycle fairings etc,

Early 2000s (probably): A portmanteau word, a blend of sn(ot) + (g)ar(ba)ge.  Snot (used here in the usual sense of “mucus, especially that from the nose”) was from the Middle English snot & snotte, from the Old English ġesnot & snott, from the Proto-West Germanic snott & snutt, from the Proto-Germanic snuttuz (nasal mucus), from the same base as snout and related to snite.  It was cognate with the North Frisian snot (snot), the Saterland Frisian Snotte (snot), the West Frisian snotte (snot), the Dutch snot (snot), the German Low German Snött (snot), the dialectal German Schnutz (snot), the Danish snot (snot) and the Norwegian snott (snot).  Trans-linguistically, “snot” is commendably consistent and its other uses (a misbehaving (often as “snotty”) child; a disreputable man; the flamed-out wick of a candle all reference something unwanted or undesirable).  That said, snot (mucus) is essential for human life, being a natural, protective, and lubricating substance produced by mucous membranes throughout the body to keep tissues moist and act as a barrier against pathogens and irritants like dust and allergens, working to trap foreign particles; it also contains antimicrobial agents to fight infection.  So, when “out-of-sight & out-of-mind” it’s helpful mucus but when oozing (or worse) from the nostrils, it’s disgusting snot.

Garbage (waste material) was from the late Middle English garbage (the offal of a fowl, giblets, kitchen waste (though in earlier use “refuse, that which is purged away”), from the Anglo-Norman, from the Old French garber (to refine, make neat or clean), of Germanic origin, from the Frankish garwijan (to make ready).  It was akin to the Old High German garawan (to prepare, make ready) and the Old English ġearwian (to make ready, adorn).  The alternative spelling was garbidge (obsolete or eye dialect).  Garbage can be used of physical waste or figuratively (ideas, concepts texts, music etc) judged to be of poor quality and became popular in computing, used variously to mean (1) output judged nonsensical (for whatever reason), (2) corrupted data, (3) memory which although allocated was no longer in use and awaiting de-allocation) or (4) valid data misinterpreted as another kind of data.  Synonyms include junk, refuse, rubbish, trash & waste.  Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) used “Herr Garbage” as the name of the character who in The Great Dictator (1940) represented Dr Joseph Goebbels (1897-1975; Nazi propaganda minister 1933-1945).  Snarge is a noun and no derived forms have ever been listed but a creature which has become snarge would have been snarged and the process (ie point of impact) would have been the act of snarging.  Snarge is inherent the result of a fatality so an adjective like snargish is presumably superfluous but traces of an impact which may not have been fatal presumably could be described as snargelike or snargesque.

Dr Carla Dove at work in the Smithsonian's Feather Identification Laboratory, Washington DC.

The patronymic Dr Carla Dove (b 1962) is manager of the Feather Identification Laboratory at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC where she heads a team identifying the types or species of birds that collide with military and civil aircraft.  She calls snarge “a term of art” (clearly she’s of the “eye of the beholder” school) and notes that although the scientific discipline of using snarge to determine the species involved in bird strikes began at the Smithsonian in 1960, the term doesn’t seem to have been coined there and its origin, like much slang with a military connection, is murky.  Although a 2003 article in Flying Safety magazine is sometimes cited as the source of the claim the word was “invented at the Feather Identification Laboratory”, Dr Dove is emphatic the staff there “borrowed it” from preparators (the technicians who prepare bird specimens for display or other uses by museums).  It certainly seems to have been in general use (in its specialized niche in military & aviation and wildlife safety circles) by at least the early-to-mid 2000s and the zeitgeisters at Wired magazine were in 2005 printing it without elaboration, suggesting at least in their editorial team it was already establish slang.  So, it may long have been colloquial jargon in museums or among those working in military or civil aviation long before it appeared in print but there no documentary evidence seems to exist.

The Feather Detective: Mystery, Mayhem, and the Magnificent Life of Roxie Laybourne (2025) by Chris Sweeney.

The origin of the scientific discipline is however uncontested and the world’s first forensic ornithologist was the Smithsonian’s Roxie Laybourne (1910–2003).  In October, 1960, a Lockheed L-188 Electra flying as Eastern Airlines Flight 375 out of Boston Logan Airport had cleared the runway by only a few hundred feet when it flew into a flock of birds, the most unfortunate of which damaged all four engines, resulting in a catastrophic loss of power, causing the craft to nosedive into Boston Harbor, killing 62 of the 72 aboard.  Although the engines were turbo-props rather than jets, they too are highly susceptible to bird-strike damage.  At the time, this was the greatest loss of life attributed to a bird-strike and the FAA (Federal Aviation Authority) ordered all avian remains be sent to the Smithsonian Institution for examination.  There, Ms Laybourne received  the box of mangled bone, blood & feathers and began her investigation, her career taking a trajectory which would include not only the development of protocols designed to reduce the likelihood of bird strikes damaging airliners but also involvement with the USAF (US Air Force) & NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration).  Additionally, her work with the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) and various police forces proved forensic ornithology could be of use a diagnostic tool in crime-solving; her evidence helping to convict murderers, kidnappers and poachers.  In 2025, journalist Chris Sweeney published The Feather Detective: Mystery, Mayhem, and the Magnificent Life of Roxie Laybourne, a vivid telling of the tale of a woman succeeding in a world where feminism had not yet wrought its changes.

Snarge on the nosecone of a Cessna Citation, Eisenhower Airport, Wichita, Kansas, July 2021.  The dent indicates the point of impact, the airflow holding the corpse in place.  By the time of landing, the leaked body fluids had congealed to act as a kind of glue.

The study of aviation bird strikes is obviously a specialized field but snarge has come also to be used in the matter of insect deaths, specifically what has come to be called the “windscreen phenomenon” (also as “windshield phenomenon” depending on linguistic tradition).  What that refers to is the increasingly common instances of people reporting they are seeing far fewer dead insects on the windscreens of their cars, many dating the onset of the decline to the late 1990s and the most common explanations offered for this are (1) climate change, (2) habitat loss and (3) the increasing use (or potency) of pesticides.  Individual observations of one’s windscreen now tending to accumulate less snarge than in years gone by is of course impressionistic and caution must be taken not to extrapolate the existence of a global trend from one piece of glass in one tiny part of the planet: what needs to be avoided is a gaboso (the acronym for Generalized Association Based On Single-Observation (also as the derived noun & verb) which is the act of taking one identifiable feature of someone or something and using it as the definitional reference for a group (it ties in with logical fallacies).  However, the reports of increasingly snargeless windscreens were widespread and numerous so while that didn’t explain why it was happening, it did suggest that happening it was.

There was also the matter of social media platforms which have meant the volume of messages about a particular topic in the twenty-first century is not comparable with years gone by.  It’s simply impossible to calculate the extent to which these mass-market (free) platforms have operated as an accelerant (ie a force-multiplier of messaging) but few doubt it’s a considerable effect.  Still, it is striking the same observations were being made in the northern & southern hemispheres and the reference to the decline beginning in the late 1990s was also consistent and a number of studies in Europe and the US have found a precipitous drop in insect populations over the last three decades.  One interesting “quasi theory” was the improved aerodynamic efficiency of the modern automobile meant the entomological slaughter was reduced but quickly aeronautical engineers debunked that, pointing out a slippery shape has a “buffer zone” very close to the surface which means "bugs" have a greater chance of being sucked-in towards the speeding surface because of the differential between negative & positive pressure.  However, on most older vehicles, the “buffer zone” could be as much as 3 feet (close to a metre) from the body.  A bug heading straight for the glass would still be doomed but the disturbed air all around would have deflected a few

Lindsay Lohan with Herbie in Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005).

Herbie was a 1963 Volkswagen Type 1 (Beetle, 1938-2003) and despite the curves which made it look streamlined, its measured Cd (drag coefficient) was typically around 0.48-0.50, some 8% worse than contemporary vehicles of comparable frontal area.  What that meant was its buffer zone would extend somewhat further than the “New Beetle” (1997-2011) which had a Cd between 0.38-0.41, again not as good as the competition because it was compromised by the need to maintain a visual link with the way things were done in 1938.  On the 1963 models (like Herbie) the flat, upright windscreen created significant drag and was obviously a good device for “snarge harvesting” but the later curved screen (introduced in 1973 with the 1303) probably didn’t spare many insects.

Dr Manu Saunders' graphic example of insect snarge on a windscreen during the 2010 "locust plague" in western NSW (New South Wales), Australia, April 2010.

Dr Manu Saunders is a Senior Lecturer in Ecology and Biology and the School of Environmental and Rural Science in Australia’s UNE (University of New England) and she pointed out that “anecdata is not scientific evidence” and just because anecdotes are commonly presented as “evidence of global insect decline” (the so-called “insectageddon”), that doesn’t of necessity make locally described conditions globally relevant.  The problem she identified was that although there have been well-conducted longitudinal studies of snarge on windscreens using sound statistical methods, all have used data taken from a relatively small geographical area while around the planet, there are more than 21 million km (13 million miles, (ie more than 80 round trips to the Moon) of “roads”).  Dr Saunders does not deny the aggregate number of insects is in decline but cautions against the use of one data set being used to assess the extent of a phenomenon with a number of causal factors.

Still snarge-free: The famous photograph of the 25 917s assembled for inspection outside the Porsche factory, Stuttgart, 1969.  The FIA’s homologation inspectors declined the offer to test-drive the 25 which was just as well because, hastily assembled (secretaries, accountants and such drafted in to help), some of were capable of driving only a short distance in first gear.

Fortunately for Porsche, in 1969, although the decline in global insect numbers may already have begun, they were still buzzing around in sufficient numbers to produce the snarge which provided the necessary clue required to resolve the problem of chronic (and potentially lethal) instability which was afflicting the first 917s to be tested at speed.  In great haste, the 917 had been developed after the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (the FIA; the International Automobile Federation and world sport's dopiest regulatory body) “relaxed” the rules which previously had set a threshold of 50 identical units for cars classified as Group 4 (5 litre (305 cubic inch)) sports cars, reducing this to a minimum of 25.  What that meant was Porsche needed to develop both a car and a twelve cylinder engine, both items bigger and more complex than anything they’d before attempted, things perhaps not overly challenging had the typical two years been available but the factory needed something which would be ready for final testing in less than half the time.  Remarkably, they accomplished the task in ten months.

Porsche 917 LH Chassis 001 in the livery of the IAA (Internationale Automobil-Ausstellung (International Automobile Exhibition)) used for the Frankfurt Motor Show.

The brief gestation period was impressive but there were teething problems.  The fundamentals, the 908-based space-frame and the 4.5 (275 cubic inch) litre air-cooled flat-12 engine (essentially, two of Porsche’s 2.25 (137 cubic inch) litre flat-sixes joined together) were robust and reliable from the start but, the sudden jump in horsepower (HP) meant much higher speeds and it took some time to tame the problems of the car’s behaviour at high-speed.  Aerodynamics was then still an inexact science and the maximum speed the 917 was able to attain on Porsche’s test track was around 180 mph (290 km/h) but when unleashed on the circuits with long straights where over 200 mph (320 km/h) was possible the early 917s proved highly unstable, the tail “wandering from side-to-side” something disconcerting at any speed but beyond 200 mph, frightening even for professional race drivers.

On Mulsanne Straight, Le Mans: The slippery 917 LH (left) which proved "unsafe at high speed" (left) and the (slightly) slower 917 K (right) which, in the hands of experts), was more manageable.

The instability needed to be rectified because the 917 had been designed with "a bucket of Deutsche Marks in one hand and a map of the Le Mans circuit in the other" and these were the days before the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (International Automobile Federation and world sport's dopiest regulatory body)) started insisting chicanes be spliced into any straight where high speeds beckoned and the Mulsanne Straight at Le Mans was then an uninterrupted 6 km (3.7 mile) straight line.  There, the test results and slide-rule calculations predicted, the 917s would achieve in excess of 360 km/h (224 mph).  Serendipitously, physics and nature combined to show the team where the problem lay: After one alarming high speed run, it was noticed that while the front and central sections of the bodywork were plastered with bloodied snarge, the fibreglass of the rear sections remained a pristine white, the obvious conclusion drawn that while the airflow was inducing the desired degree of down-force on the front wheels, it was passing over the rear of body, thus the lift which induced the wandering.  Some rapid improvisation with pieces of aluminium and much duct tape (to this day a vital tool in the business) to create an ad-hoc, shorter, upswept tail transformed the behaviour and was the basis for what emerged from the factory's subsequent wind-tunnel testing as the 917 K (K for Kurzheck (short-tail).  The rest is history.

Dodge Public Relations announces the world now has "spoilers".  Actually they'd been around for a while but, as Dodge PR knew, until it happens in America, it hasn't happened.

What happened to the 917 wasn’t novel.  In 1966, Dodge had found the slippery shape of its new fastback Charger had delivered the expected speed on the NASCAR ovals but it came at the cost of dangerous lift at the rear, drivers’ graphically describing the experience at speed as something like “driving on ice”.  The solution was exactly what Porsche three years later would improvise, a spoiler on the lip of the trunk (boot) lid which, although only 1½ inches (38 mm) high, at some 150 mph (240 km/h) the fluid dynamics of the air-flow meant sufficient down-force was generated to tame the instability.  Of course, being NASCAR, things didn’t end there and to counter the objection the spoiler was a “non-stock” modification and thus not within the rules, Dodge cited the “safety measure” clause, noting an unstable car on a racetrack was a danger to all.  NASCAR agreed and allowed the device which upset the other competitors who cited the “equalization formula clause” and demanded they too be allowed to fit spoilers.  NASCAR agreed but set the height at maximum height at 1½ inches and specified they could be no wider than the trunk lid.  That left Dodge disgruntled because, in a quirk of the styling, the Charger had a narrower trunk lid than the rest of the field so everybody else’s spoilers worked better which seemed unfair given it was Dodge which had come up with the idea.  NASCAR ignored that objection so for 1967 the factory added to the catalogue two small “quarter panel extensions” each with its own part number (left & right); once installed, the Charger gained a full-width spoiler.

Dynamometer

Dynamometer (pronounced dahy-nuh-mom-i-ter)

(1) A device for measuring mechanical force or muscular power (ergometer).

(2) A device for measuring mechanical power, especially one that measures the output or driving torque of a rotating machine.

1800–1810: A compound word, the construct being dynamo + meter.  Dynamo was ultimately from the Ancient Greek δύναμις (dúnamis; dynamis) (power) and meter has always been an expression of measure in some form and in English was borrowed from the French mètre, from the Ancient Greek μέτρον (métron) (measure).  What meter (also metre) originally measured was the structure of poetry (poetic measure) which in the Old English was meter (measure of versification) from the Latin metrum, from the Ancient Greek metron (meter, a verse; that by which anything is measured; measure, length, size, limit, proportion) ultimately from the primitive Indo-European root me- (measure).  Although the evidence is sketchy, it appears to have been re-borrowed in the early fourteenth century (after a three hundred-year lapse in recorded use) from the Old French mètre, with the specific sense of "metrical scheme in verse”, again from the Latin metrum.  Metre (and metre) was later adopted as the baseline unit of the metric system.  Dynamometer is a noun; the noun plural is dynamometers.

The modern meaning of dynamometer (measuring the power of engines) dates from 1882 and is short for dynamo-machine, from the German dynamoelektrischemaschine (dynamo-electric machine), coined in 1867 by its inventor, the German electrical engineer Werner Siemans (1816-1892). Dynamometers, almost universally referred to as dynos, are machines which simultaneously measure the torque and rotational speed (RPM) of an engine or other rotating prime-mover so specific power outs may be calculated.  On modern dynamometers, measures are displayed either as kilowatts (kW) or brake-horsepower (bhp).

Evolution of the Turbo-Panzer

Porsche 917 Flat 12 being run on factory dynamometer, Stuttgart, 1969.

During the last hundred years odd, the rules of motor sport have been written by an alphabet soup of regulatory bodies including the AIACR, the CSI, the FISA and the FIA and these bureaucrats have made many bad decisions, tending often to make things worse but every now and then, as an unintended consequence of their dopiness, something really good emerges.  The large displacement cars of the mid-1960s contested sports car racing in one of the classic eras in motorsport.  Everyone enjoyed the competition except the rule-making body (the CSI, the Commission Sportive Internationale) which, on flimsy pretexts which at the time fooled nobody, changed the rules for the International Championship of Makes for the racing seasons 1968-1971, restricting the production cars (of which 50 identical units had to have been made) to 5.0 litre (305 cubic inch) engines with a 3.0 litre limit (183 cubic inch) for prototypes (which could be one-offs).  Bizarrely, the CSI even claimed this good idea would be attractive for manufacturers already building three litre engine for Formula One because they would be able to sell them (with a few adaptations), for use in endurance racing.  There’s no evidence the CSI ever asked the engine producers whether their highly-strung, bespoke Formula One power-plants, designed for 200 mile sprints, could be modified for endurance racing lasting sometimes 24 hours.  Soon aware there were unlikely to be many entries to support their latest bright idea, the CSI relented somewhat and allowed the participation of 5.0 litre sports cars as long as the homologation threshold of 50 units had been reached.  A production run of 50 made sense in the parallel universe of the CSI but made no economic sense to the manufacturers and, by 1968, entries were sparse and interest waning so the CSI grudgingly again relented, announcing the homologation number for the 5.0 litre cars would be reduced to 25.

The famous photograph of the 25 917s assembled for the CSI’s inspection outside the Porsche factory, Stuttgart, FRG (Federal Republic of Germany, the old West Germany, 20 April, 1969.

This attracted Porsche, a long-time contestant in small-displacement racing which, funded by profits from their increasingly successful road-cars, sought to contest for outright victories in major events rather than just class trophies.  Porsche believed they had the basis for a five litre car in their three litre 908 which, although still in the early stages of development, had shown promise.  In a remarkable ten months, the parts for twenty-five cars were produced, three of which were assembled and presented to the CSI’s homologation inspectors.  Pettifogging though they were, the inspectors had a point when refusing certification, having before been tricked into believing Ferrari’s assurance of intent actually to build cars which never appeared.  They demanded to see twenty-five assembled, functional vehicles and Porsche did exactly that, in April 1969 parking the twenty-five in the factory forecourt, even offering the inspectors the chance to drive however many they wish.  The offer was declined and, honor apparently satisfied on both sides, the CSI granted homologation.  Actually, it was just as well the offer to take the 25 for a run was declined because so hurriedly had many of the 917s been assembled (it was such a rush secretaries, accountants and such were press-ganged to help) that many could only be started, put in first gear and driven a few metres.  Thus, almost accidently, began the career of the Porsche 917, a machine which would come to dominate whatever series it contested and set records which would stand for decades, it’s retirement induced not by un-competitiveness but, predictably, by rule changes which rendered it illegal.  

917LH (Langheck (long tail)), Le Mans, 1969.

The ten month gestation was impressive but there were teething problems.  The fundamentals, the 908-based space-frame and the 4.5 (275 cubic inch) litre air-cooled flat-12 engine, essentially, two of Porsche’s 2.25 (137 cubic inch) litre flat-sixes joined together, were robust and reliable from the start but, the sudden jump in horsepower (HP) meant much higher speeds and it took some time to tame the problems of the car’s behaviour at high-speed.  Aerodynamics was then still an inexact science and the maximum speed the 917 was able to attain on Porsche’s test track was around 180 mph (290 km/h) but when unleashed on the circuits with long straights where over 210 mph (338 km/h) was possible the early cars could be lethally unstable.  The first breakthrough in aerodynamic dynamic was serendipitous.  After one high speed run during which the driver had noted (with alarm) the tendency of the rear end of the car to “wander from side to side”, it was noticed that while the front and central sections of the bodywork were plastered with snarge (squashed insects), the fibreglass of the rear sections was a pristine white, the obvious conclusion drawn that while the airflow was inducing the desired degree of down-force on the front wheels, it was passing over the rear of body, thus the lift which induced the wandering.  Some improvisation with pieces of aluminium and much duct tape to create an ad-hoc, shorter, upswept tail transformed the behaviour and was the basis for what emerged from more extensive wind-tunnel testing by the factory as the 917K for Kurzheck (short-tail).

Porsche 917Ks, the original (rear) and the updated version with twin tail-fins, Le Mans, 1971.

The 917K proved a great success but the work in the wind tunnel continued, in 1971 producing a variant with a less upswept tail and vertical fins which bore some resemblance to those used by General Motors and Chrysler a decade earlier.  Then, the critics had derided the fins as “typical American excess” and “pointlessly decorative” but perhaps Detroit was onto something because Porsche found the 917’s fins optimized things by “cleaning” the air-flow over the tail section, the reduction in “buffeting” meaning the severity of the angles on the deck could be lessened, reducing the drag while maintaining down-force, allowing most of the top-speed earlier sacrificed in the quest for stability to be regained.

The Can-Am: A red Porsche 917/10 ahead of an orange McLaren M8F Chevrolet, Laguna Seca, 17 October 1971.  Two years to the day after this shot was taken, the first oil shock hit, dooming the series.

The engine however had been more-or-less right from day one and enlarged first to 4.9 litres (300 cubic inch) before eventually reaching the 5.0 limit at which point power was rated at 632 HP, a useful increase from the original 520.  Thus configured, the 917 dominated sports car racing until banned by regulators.  However, the factory had an alternative development path to pursue, one mercifully almost untouched by the pettifoggers and that was the Canadian-American Challenge Cup (the Can-Am), run on North American circuits under Group 7 rules for unlimited displacement sports cars.  Actually, Group 7 rules consisted of little more than demanding four wheels, enveloping bodywork and two seats, the last of these rules interpreted liberally.  Not for nothing did the Can-Am come to be known as the “horsepower challenge cup” and had for years been dominated by the McLarens, running big-block Chevrolet V8s of increasing displacement and decreasing mass as aluminium replaced cast iron for the heaviest components.

The abortive Porsche flat-16.

In 1969, the Porsche factory dynamometer could handle an output of around 750 bhp, then thought ample but even 635 bhp wouldn’t be enough to take on the big V8s.  For technical reasons it wasn't feasible further to enlarge the flat-12 so Porsche built a flat-16 which worked well enough to exceed the capacity of the factory's dynamometer beyond its limit; the new engine was allocated a notional rating rated of 750 because that was the point at which the machine's graduations ended.  Such a thing had happened before, resulting in an anomaly which wasn’t for some years explained.  In 1959 Daimler released their outstanding 4.5 litre (278 cubic inch) V8 but their dynamometer was more antiquated still, a pre-war device unable to produce a reading beyond 220 bhp so that was the rating used, causing much surprise to those testing the only production model in which it was installed, the rather dowdy Majestic Major (DQ450 saloon & DR450 limousine, 1959-1968).  In either form the Majestic Major was quite hefty and reckoned to enjoy the aerodynamic properties of a small cottage yet it delivered performance which 220 bhp should not have been able to provide, something confirmed when one was fitted to a Jaguar Mark X (1961-1970 and badged 420G from 1967) for evaluation after Jaguar absorbed Daimler.  The V8 Mark X effortlessly out-performed the six cylinder version (rated at a perhaps optimistic 265 bhp.  Unfortunately, Jaguar choose not to use the Daimler V8 in the Mark X, instead enlarging the XK-six, dooming the car in the US market where a V8 version would likely have proved a great success.

The Can-Am: Porsche 917/10, Riverside, 1972.

Estimates at the time suggested the Porsche flat-16 delivered something like 785 bhp which in the Can-Am would have been competitive but the bulk rendered it unsuitable, the longer wheelbase necessitated for installation in a modified 917 chassis having such an adverse effect on the balance Porsche instead resorted to forced aspiration, the turbocharged 917s becoming known as the turbopanzers.  Porsche bought a new dynamometer which revealed they generated around 1100 bhp in racing trim and 1580 when tuned for a qualifying sprint.  Thus, even when detuned for racing, the Can-Am 917s typically took to the tracks generating about the same HP as the early Spitfires, Hurricanes and Messerschmitt which in 1940 fought the Battle of Britain.  Unsurprisingly, the 917 won the Cam-Am title in 1972 and 1973, the reward for which was the same as that earlier delivered in Europe: a rule change effectively banning the thing.  Still, when interviewed, one Porsche engineer admitted the new dynamometer "cost a boatload of money" but he was reported as seeming "pleased with the purchase." so there was that.

The widow-maker: 1975 Porsche 930 with the surprisingly desirable (for some) “sunroof delete” option.

The experience gained in developing turbocharging was however put to good use, the 911 Turbo (930 the internal designation) introduced in 1975 originally as a homologation exercise (al la the earlier 911 RS Carrera) but so popular did it prove it was added to the list as a regular production model and one has been a permanent part of the catalogue almost continuously since.  The additional power and its sometimes sudden arrival meant the times early versions were famously twitchy at the limit (and such was the power those limits were easily found), gaining the machine the nickname “widow-maker”.  There was plenty of advice available for drivers, the most useful probably the instruction not to use the same technique when cornering as one might in a front-engined car and a caution that even if one had had a Volkswagen Beetle while a student, that experience might not be enough to prepare one for a Porsche Turbo.  When stresses are extreme, the physics mean the location of small amounts of weight become subject to a multiplier-effect and the advice was those wishing to explore a 930's limits of adhesion should get one with the rare “sunroof delete” option, the lack of the additional weight up there slightly lowering the centre of gravity.  However, even that precaution may only have delayed the delaying the inevitable and possibly made the consequences worse, one travelling a little faster before the tail-heavy beast misbehaved.

In what may have been a consequence of the instability induced by a higher centre of gravity, in 2012 Lindsay Lohan crashed a sunroof-equipped Porsche 911 Carrera S on the Pacific Coast Highway in Santa Monica, Los Angeles.

The interaction of the weight of a 911’s roof (and thus the centre of gravity) and the rearward bias of the weight distribution was not a thing of urban myth or computer simulations.  In the February 1972 edition of the US magazine Car and Driver, a comparison test was run of the three flavours of the revised 911 with a 2.3 litre (143 cubic inch) (911T, 911E & 911S) engine and the three were supplied with each of the available bodies: coupé, targa & sunroof coupé, the latter two with addition weight in the roof.  What the testers noted in the targa & sunroof-equipped 911s was a greater tendency to twitchiness in corners, something no doubt exacerbated in the latter because the sliding panel’s electric motor was installed in the engine bay.  Car and Driver’s conclusion was: “If handling is your goal, it's best to stick with the plain coupe.”  She anyway had some bad luck when driving black German cars but clearly Ms Lohan should avoid Porsches with sunroofs.