Allegro

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Ford Allegro

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

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

The Austin Allegro

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Leyland's other misadventure in 1973: The P76     

The antipodean Edsel: 1973 Leyland P76 Super V8.

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

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

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

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

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

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

1974 Leyland Force 7V.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Paula Yates.

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

Helena Christensen.

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

The Alfa Romeo Alfasud

The fate of many Alfasuds.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Semaphore

Semaphore (pronounced sem-uh-fawr or sem-uh-fohr)

(1) A “line-of-sight” apparatus (mechanical, hand-held or activated and now even electronic) for conveying information by means of visual signals (typically flags or lights, the positions of which are changed as required).

(2) Any of various devices for signaling by changing the position of a light, flag or other identifiable indicator.  Historically, a common use of “semaphore” was as a noun adjunct (also called a noun modifier or attributive noun) including “semaphore flag”, “semaphore chart”, “semaphore operator etc.

(3) A codified system of signaling, especially a system by which a special flag is held in each hand and various positions of the arms denoting specific letters, numbers etc.  It remains part of Admiralty signals training.

(4) In biochemistry (as semaphoring), any of a class of proteins that assist growing axons to find an appropriate target and to form synapses.

(5) In biology (as semaphoront), an organism as seen in a specific time during its ontogeny or life cycle, as the object of identification or basis for systematics.

(6) In botany (as semaphore plant), a synonym for the telegraph plant (Codariocalyx motorius), a tropical Asian shrub, one of the few plants capable of rapid movement and so named because the jerking motions of the leaves recalled in observers the actions of the arms of Admiralty signallers and the name dates from the Raj.

(7) In programming, a bit, token, fragment of code, or some other mechanism which is used to restrict access to a shared function or device to a single process at a time, or to synchronize and coordinate events in different processes, the thread increments the semaphore to prevent other threads from entering the critical section at the same time.

(8) In figurative use (in human and animal behavior), certain non-verbal communications, used consciously and unconsciously, the concept often explored as a literary device.

(9) To signal (information) by means of semaphore

1814: From the French sémaphore, the construct being the Ancient Greek, σῆμα (sêma) (mark, sign, token) + the French -phore (from the Ancient Greek -φόρος (-phóros), the suffix indicating a bearer or carrier) and thus understood as “a bearer of signals”.  The Greek –phóros was from pherein (to carry), from the primitive Indo-European root bher- (to carry).  The verb was derived from the noun.  Semaphore is a noun & verb, semaphorist, semaphoront & semaphorin are nouns, semaphored is a verb, semaphoring is a verb & adjective, semaphoric & semaphorical are adjectives and semaphorically is an adverb; the noun plural is semaphores.  The noun semaphorism is non-standard but is used in behavioral linguistics to describe patterns of language used to convey meaning in a “coded” form which can be deconstructed for meaning only by sender and receiver.  The form semaphoreology seems not to exist but if anyone ever makes a discipline of the study of semaphore (academic careers have been built from more improbable origins), presumably there will be semaphoreologists.

Chart of the standard semaphore alphabet (top left), a pair of semaphore flags (bottom left) and Lindsay Lohan practicing her semaphore signaling moves (just in case, should the need arise); this is the letter “N”.

Semaphore flags are not always red and yellow, but the colors are close to a universal standard, especially in naval and international signalling.  There was no intrinsic meaning denoted by the use of red & yellow, the hues chosen for their contrast and visual clarity, something important in maritime environments or other outdoor locations when light could often be less than ideal although importantly, the contrast was sustained even in bright sunshine.  Because semaphore often was used for ship-to-to ship signalling, the colors had to be not only easily distinguishable at a distance but not be subject to “melting” or “blending”, a critical factor when used on moving vessels in often pitching conditions, the operator’s moving arms adding to the difficulties.  In naval and maritime semaphore systems, the ICS (International Code of Signals) standardized full-solid red and yellow for the flags but variants do exist (red, white, blue & black seem popular) and these can be created for specific conditions, for a particular cultural context or even as promotional items.

L-I-N-D-S-A-Y-space-L-O-H-A-N spelled-out in ICS (International Code of Signals) semaphore.  One can't tell when this knowledge will come in handy.

Early automobiles were sometimes fitted with mechanical semaphore signals to indicate a driver’s intention to change direction; these the British called “trafficators” (“flippers” in casual use) and they were still being fitted in the late 1950s, by which time they’d long been illuminated to glow a solid amber.  What the mechanical semaphores did was use the model of the extended human arm, used by riders or drivers in the horse-drawn age to signal their intentions to others and although obviously vulnerable to damage, the devices were at the time a good solution although the plastics used from the 1930s were prone to fading, diminishing the brightness.  When electronics advanced to the point where sequentially flashing turn indicators (“flashers”) cheaply could be mass-produced the age of the semaphore signal ended although they did for a while persist on trucks where they were attached to the exterior of the driver’s door and hand activated.

Hand-operated semaphore signal on driver's door of RHD (right-hand-drive) truck (left), an Austin A30 with electrically-activated semaphore indicating impending leftward change of direction (centre) and electrically-activated right-side semaphore on 1937 Rolls-Royce Phantom III Gurney Nutting Touring Limousine (right).

The A30 (1952-1956) was powered by an 803 cm³ (49 cubic inch) four cylinder engine while the Phantom III (1936-1939) was fitted with a 7338 cm³ (447 cubic inch) V12 (noted diarist Sir Henry “Chips” Channon (1897–1958) owned one) so the driving experience was very different but both used the same Lucas semaphore assembly.  Note the "BEWARE, TRAFFICATORS IN USE" notice in A30's rear window.  Because drivers are no longer attuned to look for the now archaic semaphores, some jurisdictions (while still allowing their operation), will permit road registration only if supplementary flashing indicators (now usually amber) are fitted.  In the 1960s many trafficator-equipped cars were modernized with flashers and it's now only collectors or restorers who prize the originality of the obsolete.

Low-emission Trabant (rated at 1 PP (pony-power)) with driver using semaphore signal to indicate intention to turn left, Barnim district, Bernau bei Berlin, GDR, 1981.

As late as the 1960s, in some places, trucks & vans still were being built with a hand-operated semaphore mounted on the driver’s door and specialized vehicles likely also to have an occupant on the passenger-side (such as fire-engines) sometimes had two.  If need be they could also be improvised, as in the low-tech “lollipop” sign being used in this image of a two-seater buggy, a vehicle crafted using the salvageable section of a Trabant which may have suffered frontal damage in a crash.  Trabants really could go fast enough to have damaging crashes and although not engineered with the “crumple zones” which were introduced in the West as a way of absorbing an impact’s energy before it reached the occupants, in their own way, crumple Trabants did.  In the GDR (German Democratic Republic, the old East Germany), the long-running (1957-1991) Trabant's bodywork was made with Duroplast, a composite thermosetting plastic (and a descendant of Bakelite).  It was a resin plastic reinforced with fibres (the GDR used waste from both cotton & wool processing) and was structurally similar to fibreglass although the urban myth Trabants were made from reinforced cardboard persists.  The first Trabants left the Saxony production line in November 1957, only weeks after the Soviet Union had startled the world (certainly those in Pentagon and such places) by launching Sputnik, the first man-made Earth satellite.  Launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit where it circulated for three months, it did nothing other than transmit radio pulses which, because of the flight path, could at various time be detected just about anywhere below.  Compared with what space programmes would become, it sounds now a modest achievement but at the time was a sensation and the event which triggered the “space race”.

Two comrades approaching their 1957 Trabant P50 in stylish korallenrot (coral red) over creme (cream).  Note the amber turn signals; Trabants were factory-fitted with flashers at a time Rolls-Royce and other manufacturers in the “advanced West” were still installing antiquated semaphores.

In the Eastern Bloc there weren’t many marketing departments but there was a vast propaganda apparatus and opportunistically, the name Trabant was derived from the Middle High German drabant (satellite; companion; foot soldier) which at the time was a positive association with the famous Sputnik but it later became emblematic of the economic and moral bankruptcy of the whole communist project: While by the fall of the Berlin Wall (1961-1989) Soviet satellites and related technologies greatly had advanced, the “Trubi” remained a little changed “1957 time capsule”.  Although much despised in the early 1990s in the aftermath of the break-up of the Soviet Union (1922-1991), opinions softened and the survivors of the more than three million produced (a greater volume than BMC's (British Motor Corporation) Mini (1959-2000)) gained a cult following.  More correctly, the marque gained a number of cult followings, some attracted by the “retro-cuteness”, some with genuine, Putinesque nostalgia for the old Soviet system and other with a variety of projects as varied as EV (electric vehicle) conversions, the installation of V8s for drag-racing and the re-purposing in many forms of competition.

Two comrades with their 1960 Trabant P50 in stylish two-tone pastellblau (pastel blue) over creme (cream) admiring the Leipzig Opera building, Saxony, circa 1961.

The Trubi is now a fixture in the lower reaches (a notch above the Austin Allegro) of the collector market.  The photograph of the horse-drawn Trubi, while not representative of the entire Eastern Bloc experience under communist rule, captures a sight which would not have been uncommon away from large urban centres (which could be grim enough).  Dr Henry Kissinger (1923-2023; US national security advisor 1969-1975 & secretary of state 1937-1977) said his abiding memory of Eastern Bloc cities was of “the smell of boiled cabbage and an unrelenting greyness.”  In fairness, English cooks probably inflicted worse on the noble cabbage than anything done behind the Iron Curtain but his sense of “greyness” was literal, the appalling air pollution of the GDR (its industrial base powered by burning lignite (from the Latin lignum (wood)) and other forms of low-grade, “dirty coal”), thus the griminess of the buildings.  Places like London similarly were affected and it was only after the 1952 “Great Smog of London” that the Clean Air Act (1956) became law, meaning air quality began slowly to improve.  That the photographs of the era look so drab is not because of the film stock; buildings literally were “dirty”.  Because of various other advances in health care, it’s difficult to quantify the contribution to reducing mortality achieved by reducing air pollution but few doubt it was significant.

Left & right semaphore signals (trafficators): Lucas part number SF80 for one’s Austin A30, Morris Minor or Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith.  In the 1950s, the price may have varied between resellers.

Although the grim realities of post-war economics meant standardization began to intrude, even in the 1950s Rolls-Royce made much of things being “bespoke” and while that was still true of some of the coach-work, what lay beneath the finely finished surface was often from the industry parts-bin and the semaphore turn signals the company fitted to the Silver Wraith (1946-1958) and Silver Dawn (1949-1955) was Lucas part number SF80, exactly the same component used by the humble Austin A30 and Morris Minor (1948-1971) where the functionality was identical.  Presumably, were one to buy the part from Rolls-Royce one would have been charged more (perhaps it was wrapped in more elaborate packaging) and that’s a well-understood industry phenomenon.  The internet has made it easier to trace such commonalities but in the 1980s there was a most useful publication which listed shared part-numbers which differed only in the prices charged, a switch for a Lamborghini which might retail for hundreds available from the Fiat parts counter (a busy place folklore suggests) for $12 while those aghast at the price quoted for a small linkage in a Triumph’s Stag’s induction system were pleased the same thing could be bought from a Ford dealer for a fraction of the cost.  Rolls-Royce fitted their last trafficator in 1958 and when Austin updated the A30 as the A35 (1956-1968) flashers were standard equipment, metal covering the apertures where once the semaphores had protruded while internally there was a panel concealing what had once been an access point for servicing.  The Morris Minor, the last of which wasn’t (in CKD (completely knocked down) form) assembled in New Zealand until 1974(!) switched from trafficators to flashers in 1961, the exterior and interior gaps concealed al la the A35.

Left-side semaphore on 1951 Volkswagen Type 1 (Beetle).

The Latin sēmaphorum (the alternative form was sēmaphoru) is thought to be a calque of the Italian semaforo (traffic light), again borrowed from the French sémaphore in the literal sense of “signaling system”.  The modern Italian for “traffic light” is semaforo although (usually for humorous effect) sēmaphorum is sometimes used as Contemporary Latin.  Traffic lights have for over a century regulated the flow of vehicles in urban areas but the first semaphore signal predated motorized transport, installed in London in 1868.  It was introduced not because it would perform the task better than the policemen then allocated but because it was cheaper and was an example of the by then common phenomenon of machines displacing human labor.  The early mechanical devices were pre-programmed and thus didn’t respond to the dynamics of the environment being controlled and that applied also to the early versions of the now familiar red-amber-green “traffic lights” which began to proliferate in the 1920s but by the 1950s there were sometime sensors (weight-sensitive points in the road) which could “trigger” a green light if the pre-set timing was creating a needless delay.  Even before the emergence of AI (artificial intelligence) in the modern sense of the term, implementations of AI had been refining the way traffic light systems regulated vehicular flow and in major cities (China apparently the most advanced), cameras, sensors, face and number plate recognition all interact to make traffic lights control the flow with an efficiency no human(s) could match.

ASMR semaphore porn: 1955 Austin A30.  ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response) describes the physical & psychological pleasure derived from specific stimuli (usually a sound).  For some, this can be the sight & sound of South Korean girls on TikTok eating noodles while for those fond of machines it can come from hearing semaphore turn-signals being raised and lowered.

Whether it was the early semaphore signals or the soon to be ubiquitous illumined red-amber-green lights, what the system relied on was compliance; inherently, lacking physical agency, a piece of colored glass can’t stop a car but that almost always is the effect of a “red light”.  In behaviorism, this was described as discriminative stimulus (SD) in that the red light culturally is understood as a universal cue signalling a punishment might follow any transgression (ie “running the red light”), thus the incentive to obey the signal and avoid negative consequences (crashing or being fined).  What SD does is control behavior through learned association.  The use of red comes from semiotics and the color is culturally assigned to “stop” as green is to “go”, these allocated by virtue of historical associations which long pre-date the technology in the same way semiotics are used (as red & blue) to denote “hot” & “cold” water when taps are labelled, meaning for travellers no knowledge of a local language is needed to work out which is which.  In the jargon, the red light is a “signifier” and the “signified” is stop.

Modern Mechanix magazine, January 1933.

Sir William Morris (1877-1963; later Lord Nuffield) held a number of troubling and even at the time unfashionable views and he’d been sceptical about producing the Morris Minor (1948-1971), describing the prototype as looking “like a poached egg”; in that he was right but the Minor proved a highly profitable, quarter century long success.  In the 1930s however, he did have the imaginative idea of adapting the by then familiar traffic light (in miniature form) to the automobile itself.  The concept was sound, Sir William’s proposed placement even anticipating the “eye level brake lights” of the 1980s and the inclusion of green in the code was interesting but the “mini traffic light” wasn’t taken up and lesson which should have been learned is that in the absence of legislation compelling change, the industry always will be most reluctant to invest and not until the 1960s would such mandates (for better and worse) begin to be imposed.

1947 Volvo P444 (1947-1958, left) and 2022 Volvo XC 40 (introduced 2017, right).  Volvo abandoned the semaphores years before the British but the designers clearly haven’t forgotten, the rear reflectors on the XC 40 using the shape.  Volvo replaced the semaphores with conventional flashers but not before the modernist Swedes had tried the odd inventive solution.

In idiomatic use, semaphore’s deployment tends to be metaphorical or humorous, the former used as a literary device, borrowed from behavioral psychology.  “To semaphore” can mean “wildly or exaggeratedly gesture” but can also convey the idea of a communication effected without explicitly stating something and that can either be as a form of “unspoken code” understood only between the interlocutors or something unconscious (often called body-language).  “Semaphoring a message” can thus be either a form of secret communication or something inferred from non-verbal clues.  Authors and poets are sometimes tempted to use “semaphore” metaphorically to describe emotional cues, especially across physical or emotional distance and one can imagine the dubious attraction for some of having “her sensuous lips silently semaphoring desire” or “her hungry eyes semaphored the truth”.  Among critics, the notion of “semaphoring” as one of the motifs of modernist literature was identified and TS Eliot’s (1888–1965) style in The Waste Land (1922) included coded fragments, often as disconnected voices and symbols, called by some an “emotional semaphore” while Samuel Beckett (1906-1989 and another Nobel laureate) was noted for having his characters exchange their feelings with repetitive gestures, signals and critically, silences, described variously as “gestural semaphore” or the “semaphoring of despair”.