Whitewall

Whitewall (pronounced hwahyt-wawl or wahyt-wawl)

(1) A tyre (or tire), almost always pneumatic, with a sidewall with a white circular line of varying widths.

(2) Having white sidewalls (of a tyre).

(3) In US military use, a hair cut with a closely cropped back and sides and the hair on the top of the head left longer.

(4) In UK dialect (Northamptonshire), the spotted flycatcher (the bird so-called because of the white color of the under parts).

1950–1955: The construct was white + (side)wall.  White pre-dates 900 and was from the Middle English whit & hwit, from the Old English hwīt (whiteness, white food, white of an egg (and in late Old English “a highly luminous color devoid of chroma”)), from the Proto-West Germanic hwīt, from the Proto-Germanic hwītaz, from the primitive Indo-European ḱweydós, a by-form of ḱweytós (bright; shine). It was cognate with the German weiss, the Old Norse hvītr and the Gothic hweits; akin to wheat.  The idea of the “whites of the eye” was known in the late fourteenth century while the use of the term “white man” emerged in the late 1600s.  Wall pre-dates 900 and was from the Middle English wal, from the Old English weall (wall, dike, earthwork, rampart, dam, rocky shore, cliff), from the Proto-West Germanic wall (wall, rampart, entrenchment), from the Latin vallum (wall, rampart, entrenchment, palisade), from vallus (stake, post), from the primitive Indo-European welH- (to turn, wind, roll).  It was likely conflated with waw (a wall within a house or dwelling, a room partition), from the Middle English wawe, from the Old English wāg & wāh (an interior wall, divider).  It was cognate with the North Frisian wal (wall), the Saterland Frisian Waal (wall, rampart, mound), the Dutch wal (wall, rampart, embankment), the German Wall (rampart, mound, embankment) and the Swedish vall (mound, wall, bank”).  The forms white wall & white-wall are also used.  Whitewall is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is whitewalls.

Wide whitewalls on 1953 Packard Caribbean Convertible (left), narrow whitewalls on 1967 Mercedes-Benz 600 (centre) and triple whitewalls on 1966 Cadillac Coupe De Ville (right) (there were also double whitewalls).

Whitewall tyres became available in the early years of the twentieth century but it wasn’t until the 1930s they became a noted feature on luxury cars sold in the US and, in the way these things work, they were soon also an option on lower-priced models although, being relatively expensive and offering no functionality, the take-up rate was low.  The very existence of the whitewall was, stylistically, something of a throwback because the earliest pneumatic tyres were an off-white, the color of the natural rubber formula and the manufacturers soon added a zinc oxide to the mix for no reason other than producing a bright white which was more appealing in showrooms.  Given the unsealed roads of the era, the stark white didn’t long last in use and tyres quickly degenerated to a “dirty beige” and although “tyre cleaning” products were available, it was a sisyphean task and presumably few persisted.  In 1910 the BF Goodrich Company began adding carbon black to its various formulae after tests confirmed this added strength and durability to the rubber.  Rapidly the technique was adopted by the industry although because carbon black was an additional input cost, some tyres were produced with the additive used only for the portion of the rubber used for the tread surface, meaning the sidewalls remained white.  The first whitewalls were thus a product of cost-cutting and it’s an irony the look would more than a decade later be picked up as a marker of wealth and luxury although the commercial “whitewalls” would be a strip of white rubber added during the manufacturing process to an all-black carcass.  As a “discovery” the whitewall can be thought serendipitous.

Lindsay Lohan on the cover of Whitewall magazine, Fall / Autumn 2012 edition.  The photograph was Lindsay Lohan V by Richard Phillips (b 1962).  By magazine standards, the predominately black & grey cover was unusually dark but this was a deliberate editorial choice.  New York-based Whitewall magazine was founded in 2006 by Michael Klug (b 1978) who remains publisher & editor at large.  Whitewall is described as a publication for creative communities, bringing together art, design, fashion & lifestyle, with a focus on sustainability and diversity, offering a platform for the queer, trans and those identifying as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, Persons of Color).

Raised-letter tyre on 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1 (left) and red-line (later, there would be blue-line, yellow-line etc) tyre on 1966 Pontiac GTO (right).  The BF Goodrich Radial T/A (left) was valued by road-racers because it was discovered as the tread wore it behaved with characteristics which were similar to a racing "slick".  For a while, worn T/A Radials became a handy revenue earner for tyre shops.

The whitewall became more popular in the late 1940s until the Korean War (1950-1953) caused a squeeze on rubber supplies but once the peacetime returned, so did the whitewall and the width grew, often measuring 2½-3 inches (65-75 mm), something made possible by the physical size of tyre sidewalls increasing during the 1950s.  The perception now is the fashion was very much a US taste and while there’s some truth in that, American culture in the 1950s exerted a great influence and whitewalls were seen in Europe, Australia and Japan and for some reason the Italian fashion magazines seemed particularly taken with them for their photo-shoots.  Curiously, the US industry seemed to lose interest in whitewalls between 1961-1963, just as the wild fins of the era suddenly vanished although there was a period of transition, the “standard” whitewall shrinking to a width of 1 inch (25 mm) and sometimes less.  During the 1960s, although whitewalls remained a fixture on the more up-market mainstream vehicles the preferred look for high-performance machinery (it was the “muscle-car” era) was the “raised letter” tyre which spelled out the manufacturer’s name and often model of tyre, the free advertising greatly pleasing.  At the same time, the muscle car circle developed a taste for “red-line” tyres” which featured a thin red strip.

US actress Mamie Van Doren (b 1931) cleaning her Jaguar XK120 OTS (open two seater (ie roadster) 1948-1954), paying special attention to the whitewall tyres.  For those who need advice on such matters, Longstone Tyres has published a guide.

In the collector community there are factions for whom whitewalls are a thing (for some, verging on a fetish) and according to these experts, the most common mistake is to use a product like ArmorAll’s various tyre cleaners (ArmorAll’s stuff usually a good choice for many surfaces) which, because of the chemical composition, tend to draw the carbon from the black rubber of the tyres, permanently staining the whitewalls with a yellowish hue.  For generations the preferred cleaning product was Westley’s Bleche Wite but, after a corporate takeover, the ingredients were in some way changed and the reputation suffered, the product later replaced.  Among disgruntled ex-customers, the theories explaining all this included corporate greed and some (unspecified) intervention by the EPA (Environmental protection Authority).  Containers of Westley’s Bleche Wite (those with the original chemical composition) now trade on the internet at multiples of their original price, in the manner of bottles of “original” Absinthe dating from the days when it was in many places banned although, unlike the “green fairy”, most of the cleaning spray is probably authentic.  There seems not now a consensus about what’s the nest cleaning product and some even suggest good results can be obtained by using a mix of baking soda or plain white toothpaste with warm water.

Sir William Lyons (1901–1985) presenting the Jaguar E-Type to the press pack, Geneva, March 1961 (left) and a 1961 publicity shot for the US market release (right).  In the US market, Jaguar had long made the whitewalls optional for the XK sports cars but there, most of the E-Type's (often called XK-E or XKE in the US) publicity material featured whitewalls.  The fad soon faded although narrow whitewalls were still available until 1975 when the last E-Types were sold.

Using one of his trademark outdoor settings, Norman Parkinson (1913-1990) photographed model Suzanne Kinnear (b 1935) adorning a Daimler SP250, wearing a Kashmoor coat and Otto Lucas beret with jewels by Cartier.  The image was published on the cover (left) of Vogue's UK edition in November 1959, the original's (right) color saturation being "enhanced" in pre-production editing; Vogue's artists made models thinner and cars shinier.  Although never quite as popular in Australia, the UK & Europe as they were in the US, whitewalls until the 1980s were not a rare sight in these places and buyers were seduced also by that other American intrusion, the vinyl roof, something more of a crime against good taste than any whitewall.

1952 Ferrari 212 (which the factory supplied with an up-rated 225 engine) Barchetta by Touring Superleggera (left) and 1974 Mercedes-Benz R107 (450 SL).

The Ferrari was a gift from Enzo Ferrari (1898-1988) to Henry Ford II (1917–1987) and was the last non-racing Ferrari bodied by coachbuilder Carrozzeria Touring Superleggera.  The whitewall tyres were fitted especially for US delivery and Ford used the car during its evaluation process for the 1955 Thunderbird which picked up styling cues including the hood (bonnet) scoop and egg crate grille.  The Mercedes-Benz 450 SL illustrates just how jarring whitewalls can be if used on vehicles not suited to their presence.  On the early R107s (1971-1989) and C107s (the SLC, 1971 1981), thin whitewalls were sometime fitted to US market cars and even then there was comment about they really didn’t suit.  On the 450 SL pictured, the error is compounded by the fitting of the “chrome” wheel arch trims.  This was an unfortunate trend (which spread also to Jaguar, BMW and beyond) which began with their appearance in 1963 on the Mercedes-Benz 600 (W100, 1963-1981) but on the original they were of metal whereas the aftermarket ones were almost always anodized plastic. 

Flute

Flute (pronounced floot)

(1) A woodwind instrument consisting of a tube with a row of finger-holes (or keys) which produce sound through vibrations caused by air blown across the edge of the holes, often tuned by plugging one or more holes with a finger; the Western concert flute, a transverse side-blown flute of European origin (in colloquial use, a recorder, also a woodwind instrument).

(2) An organ stop with wide flue pipes, having a flutelike tone.

(3) In architecture or engineering (particularly the manufacture of firearms), a semi-cylindrical vertical channel, groove or furrow, as on the shaft of a column, in a pillar, in plaited cloth, or in a rifle barrel to cut down the weight.

(4) Any groove or furrow, as in a ruffle of cloth or on a piecrust.

(5) One of the helical grooves of a twist drill.

(6) A slender, footed wineglass with a tall, conical bowl.

(7) A similar stemmed glass, used especially for champagne and often styled as "champagne flute".

(8) In steel fabrication, to kink or break in bending.

(9) In various fields of design, to form longitudinal flutes or furrows.

(10) A long bread roll of French origin; a baguette.

(11) A shuttle in weaving, tapestry etc.

(12) To play on a flute; to make or utter a flutelike sound. 

(13) To form flutes or channels in (as in a column, a ruffle etc); to cut a semi-cylindrical vertical groove in (as in a pillar etc).

1350-1400; From the Middle English floute, floute & flote, from the Middle French flaüte, flahute & fleüte, from the twelfth century Old French flaute (musical), from the Old Provençal flaüt (thought an alteration of flaujol or flauja) of uncertain origin but may be either (1) a blend of the Provencal flaut or  flaujol (flageolet) + laut (lute) or (2) from the Classical Latin flātus (blowing), from flāre (to blow) although there is support among etymologists for the notion of it being a doublet of flauta & fluyt.  In other languages, the variations include the Irish fliúit and the Welsh ffliwt.  The form in Vulgar Latin has been cited as flabeolum but evidence is scant and all forms are thought imitative of the Classical Latin flāre and other Germanic words (eg flöte) are borrowings from French.

Portrait of Archduchess Maria Antonia of Austria (later Queen Marie Antoinette of France (1774-1792)), circa 1768, oil on canvas by Martin van Meytens  (1695–1770).

Fluted & fluting both date from the 1610 while the verb (in the sense of "to play upon a flute" emerged in the late fourteenth century and the use to describe grooves in engineering dates from 1570s and the tall, slender wine glass, almost a century later although the term "champagne flute" didn't enter popular use until the 1950s.  The champagne flute is preferred by many to the coupé (or saucer) even though it lacks the (since unfortunately debunked) legend that the shape of the latter was modelled on Marie Antoinette’s (1754-1793) left breast.  Elegant though it is, the advantages of the flute are entirely functional, the design providing for less spillage than a coupé, something which comes to be more valued as lunch progresses and the slender, tapered shape is claimed better to preserved the integrity of the bubbles, the smaller surface area and thus reduced oxygen-to-wine ratio maintaining the aroma and taste.

Grand Cru's guide to the shape of champagne glasses.

Among musical instruments, there are a dozen or more distinct types of flute.  Early French flutes differed greatly from modern instruments in having a separate mouthpiece and were called flûte-a-bec (literally "flute with a beak").  The ancient devices were played directly, blown straight through a mouthpiece but held away from the player's mouth, the modern transverse (or "German") flute not appearing until the eighteenth century and the familiar modern design and key system of the concert flute were perfected 1834 by Bavarian court musician & virtuoso flautist Theobald Boehm (1794–1881), the fingering system known to this day as "Boehm system").  The architectural sense of "furrow in a pillar" dates from the mid-seventeenth century and was derived from the vague resemblance to the inside of a flute split down the middle.  One imaginative linguistic adoption was the use in the 1940s (apparently first in the US) of “playing the skin flute” to mean “to perform fellatio” and while it’s used still in that sense in certain LGBTQQIAAOP circles, in general use it has spread, describing “a male in the act of masturbation”.  Use shifted to fruit, either by virtue of use at the time being almost exclusively oral rather than written (linguistically, that’s classified as an example of an imperfect echoic) or because "fruit" was then in use as a gay slur.  Flute is a noun, fluting is a noun, verb & adjective and fluted is a verb & adjective; the noun plural is flutes.

Fluted grill on 1972 Series 1, 4.2 Litre Daimler Sovereign.

In British use, one who plays the flute is a flautist (pronounced flaw-tist (U) or flou-tist (non-U)), from the Italian flautista, the construct being flauto (flute) +‎ -ista.  The -ist suffix was from the Middle English -ist & -iste, from the Old French -iste and the Latin -ista, from the Ancient Greek -ιστής (-istḗs), from -ίζω (-ízō) (the -ize & -ise verbal suffix) and -τής (-tḗs) (the agent-noun suffix).  It was added to nouns to denote various senses of association such as (1) a person who studies or practices a particular discipline, (2), one who uses a device of some kind, (3) one who engages in a particular type of activity, (4) one who suffers from a specific condition or syndrome, (5) one who subscribes to a particular theological doctrine or religious denomination, (6) one who has a certain ideology or set of beliefs, (7) one who owns or manages something and (8), a person who holds very particular views (often applied to those thought most offensive).  The alternative forms are the unimaginative (though descriptive) flute-player and the clumsy pair fluter although the odd historian or music critic will use aulete, from the Ancient Greek αὐλητής (aulētḗs), from αὐλέω (auléō) (I play the flute), from αὐλός (aulós) (flute).  The spelling flutist is preferred in the US and it's actually an old form, dating from circa 1600 and probably from the French flûtiste and it replaced the early thirteenth century Middle English flouter (from the Old French flauteor).

Daimler, the fluted grill and US trademark law

1972 Daimler Double-Six Vanden Plas.

Vanden Plas completed only 342 of the Series 1 (1972-1973) Daimler Double Sixes, the later Series 2 (1973-1979) & 3 (1979-1992) being more numerous.  The flutes atop the grill date from the early twentieth-century and were originally a functional addition to the radiator to assist heat-dissipation but later became a mere styling embellishment.  Although some sources claim there were 351 of the Series 1 Double-Six Vanden Plas, the factory insists the total was 342.  British Leyland and its successor companies would continue to use the Vanden Plas name for some of the more highly-specified Daimlers but applied it also to Jaguars because in some markets the trademark to the Daimler name came to be held by Daimler-Benz AG (since 2022 Mercedes-Benz Group AG), a legacy from the earliest days of motor-car manufacturing and despite the English middle class always pronouncing the name van-dem-plarr, it's correctly pronounced van-dem-plass.

1976 Daimler Double-Six Vanden Plas two door.

The rarest Double-Six Vanden Plas was a genuine one-off, a two door built reputedly using one of the early prototypes, a regular production version contemplated but cancelled after the first was built.  Jaguar would once have called such things fixed head coupés (FHC) but labelled the XJ derivatives as "two door saloons" and always referred to them thus, presumably as a point of differentiation with the XJ-S (later XJS) coupé produced at the same time.  Despite the corporate linguistic nudge, everybody seems always to have called the two-door XJs "coupés".  Why the project was cancelled isn't known but it was a time of industrial and financial turmoil for the company and distractions, however minor, may have been thought unwelcome.  Although fully-finished, apart from the VDP-specific trim, it includes also some detail mechanical differences from the regular production two-door Double-Six although both use the distinctive fluted finish on both the grill and trunk (boot) lid trim; the car still exists.  The two-door XJs (1975-1978) rank with the earliest versions (1961-1967) of the E-Type (XKE; 1961-1974) as the finest styling Jaguar ever achieved and were it not for the unfortunate vinyl roof (a necessity imposed by the inability of the paint of the era to cope with the slight flexing of the roof), it would visually be as close to perfect as any machine ever made.

Using one of his trademark outdoor settings, Norman Parkinson (1913-1990) photographed model Suzanne Kinnear (b 1935) adorning a Daimler SP250, wearing a Kashmoor coat and Otto Lucas beret with jewels by Cartier.  The image was published on the cover of Vogue's UK edition in November 1959.

Although Daimlers had, in small numbers, been imported into US for decades, after Jaguar purchased the company in 1960, there was renewed interest and the first model used to test the market was the small, fibreglass-bodied roadster, probably the most improbable Daimler ever and one destined to fail, doomed by (1) the quirky styling and (2) the lack of product development.  It was a shame because what made it truly unique was the hemi-headed 2.5 litre (155 cubic inch) V8 which was one of the best engines of the era and remembered still for the intoxicating exhaust note.  The SP250 was first shown to the public at the 1959 New York Motor Show and there the problems began.  Aware the small sports car was quite a departure from the luxurious but rather staid line-up Daimler had for years offered, the company had chosen the pleasingly alliterative “Dart” as its name, hoping it would convey the sense of something agile and fast.  Unfortunately, Chrysler’s lawyers were faster still, objecting that they had already registered Dart as the name for a full-sized Dodge so Daimler needed a new name and quickly; the big Dodge would never be confused with the little Daimler but the lawyers insisted.  Imagination apparently exhausted, Daimler’s management reverted to the engineering project name and thus the car became the SP250 which was innocuous enough even for Chrysler's attorneys and it could have been worse.  Dodge had submitted their Dart proposal to Chrysler for approval and while the car found favor, the name did not and the marketing department was told to conduct research and come up with something the public would like.  From this the marketing types gleaned that “Dodge Zipp” would be popular and to be fair, dart and zip(p) do imply much the same thing but ultimately the original was preferred and Darts remained in Dodge’s lineup until 1976, for most of that time one of the corporation's best-selling and most profitable lines.  The name was revived between 2012-2016 for an unsuccessful and unlamented compact sedan.

US market 2001 Jaguar Vanden Plas (X308).  These were the only Jaguars factory-fitted with the fluted trim.

Decades later, US trademark law would again intrude on Jaguar’s Daimler business in the US.  The company had stopped selling Daimlers in the US with the coming of January 1968 when the first trickle (soon to be a flood) of safety & emission regulations came into force, the explanation being the need to devote and increasing amount of by then scarce capital to compliance, meaning the marketing budget could no longer sustain small-volume brands & models.  In Stuttgart, the Daimler-Benz lawyers took note and decided to reclaim the name, eventually managing to secure registration of the trademark and Daimlers have not since been available in the US.  However, there was still clearly demand for an up-market Jaguar and so the Sovereign name (used on Daimlers between 1966-1983) was applied to Jaguar XJ sedans which although mechanically unchanged were equipped with more elaborate appointments.  Sales were good so the US market also received some even more luxurious Vanden Plas models and during the XJ’s X308 model run (1997-2003), the VDP cars were fitted with the fluted grill and trunk-lid trim as an additional means of product differentiation.  It would be the last appearance of the flutes in North America.

1999 Jaguar XJ8 Vanden Plas (US market model).

Although some might dismiss the interior fittings of the Vanden Plas models as “bling”, there were nice touches.  The ones based on the X308 series Jaguar XJ (1997–2003) featured the fold-down picnic-tables so beloved by English coachbuilders but rather than the usual burl walnut veneer, the pieces were solid timber.  The factory seems never to have discussed the rationale but it may be it was cheaper to do it that way, the veneering process being labor-intensive.

Pim Fortuyn in Daimler V8, February 2002 (left), paramedics attending to him at the scene of his assassination a few paces from the Daimler, 6 May 2002 (he died at the scene) (centre) and the car when on sale, Amsterdam, June 2018 (right). 

Jaguar became aware the allure of the flutes was real when it emerged a small but profitable industry had emerged in the wake of the company also ceasing to use the Daimler name in European markets; by the 1990s, it was only in the UK, Australia & New Zealand that they were available.  However, enterprising types armed with nothing more than a list of Jaguar part-numbers had created kits containing the fluted trim parts and the Daimler-specific badges, these shipped to dealers or private buyers on the continent so Jaguar XJs could become “Daimlers”.  The company took note and re-introduced the range to Europe, the Netherlands a particularly receptive market.  One notable owner of a real long wheelbase (LWB) Daimler V8 (X308) was the Dutch academic and politician Pim Fortuyn (1948-2002), assassinated during the 2002 national election campaign, by a left-wing environmentalist and animal rights activist.

Lindsay Lohan with stainless steel Rolex Datejust (Roman numeral dial) with fluted white gold bezel.

Vogue

Vogue (pronounced vohg)

(1) Something in fashion at a particular time or in a particular place.

(2) An expression of popular currency, acceptance, or favor.

(3) A highly stylized modern dance that evolved out of the Harlem ballroom scene in the 1960s, the name influenced by the fashion magazine; one who practiced the dance was a voguer who was voguing.

(4) In Polari, a cigarette or to light a cigarette (often in the expression “vogue me up”).

1565–1575: From the Middle English vogue (height of popularity or accepted fashion), from the Middle French vogue (fashion, success (literally, “wave or course of success”)), from the Old French vogue (a rowing), from voguer (to row, sway, set sail), from the Old Saxon wegan (to move) & wogōn (to sway, rock), a variant of wagōn (to float, fluctuate), from the Proto-Germanic wagōną (to sway, fluctuate) and the Proto-Germanic wēgaz (water in motion), wagōną (to sway, fluctuate), wēgaz (water in motion) & weganą (to move, carry, weigh), from the primitive Indo-European weǵh- (to move, go, transport (and an influence on the English way).  The forms were akin to the Old Saxon wegan (to move), the Old High German wegan (to move), the Old English wegan (to move, carry, weigh), the Old Norse vaga (to sway, fluctuate), the Old English wagian (to sway, totter), the Proto-West Germanic wagōn, the German Woge (wave) and the Swedish våg.  A parallel development the Germanic forms was the Spanish boga (rowing) and the Old Italian voga (a rowing), from vogare (to row, sail), of unknown origin and the Italianate forms were probably some influence on the development of the verb.  Vogue & voguer are nouns (voguette an informal noun), voguing is a noun and adjective, vogued is a verb and vogueing & voguish are adjectives; the noun plural is vogues.

All etymologists seem to concur the modern meaning is from the notion of being "borne along on the waves of fashion" and colloquially the generalized sense of "fashion, reputation" is probably from the same Germanic source.  The phrase “in vogue” (having a prominent place in popular fashion) was recorded as long ago as 1643.  The fashion magazine (now owned by Condé Nast) began publication in 1892 and the young devotees of its advice are voguettes.  In linguistics, vogue words are those words & phrases which become suddenly (although not always neologisms) popular and fade from use or becoming clichéd or hackneyed forms (wardrobe malfunction; awesome; problematic; at this point in time; acid test; in this space; parameters; paradigm et al).  Because it’s so nuanced, vogue has no universal synonym but words which tend to the same meaning (and can in some circumstances be synonymous) include latest, mod, now, rage, chic, craze, currency, custom, fad, favor, mode, popularity, practice, prevalence, style, stylishness, thing, trend & usage.

Lindsay Lohan cover, Vogue (Spanish edition), August 2009.

In Cornwall, the hamlet of Vogue in the parish of St Day gained its name from the Medieval Cornish vogue word for a medieval smelting furnace (blowing house); producing much smoke, vogue was also a word used to mean “fog or mist”.  Clearly better acquainted with law than geography, in early 2022 counsel for Condé Nast sent a cease and desist letter to the inn-keeper of the village’s The Star Inn at Vogue pub, demanding the place change its name to avoid any public perception of a connection between the two businesses.  The pub’s owners declined the request and Condé Nast subsequently apologized, citing insufficient investigation by their staff.

1981 Range Rover In Vogue from the first run with the standard stylized steel wheels (left) and a later 1981 In Vogue with the three-spoke aluminum units.

Much of the 1970s was spent in what to many felt like a recession, even if there were only some periods in some places during which the technical definition was fulfilled and the novel phenomenon of stagflation did disguise some of the effects.  Less affected than most (of course) were the rich who had discovered a new status-symbol, the Range Rover which, introduced in 1970 had essentially created the luxury four-wheel-drive (4WD) segment although the interior of the original was very basic, the car’s reputation based on the excellence of the engineering.  So good was the Range Rover, both on and off-road that owners, used to being cosseted in leather and walnut, wanted something closer to that to which they were accustomed and dealers received enquiries about an up-market version.

Lindsay Lohan at the opening of the Ninety years of Vogue covers exhibition, Crillon Hotel, Paris, 2009.

That had been Rover’s original intention.  The plan had been to release a basic version powered by four cylinder engines and a luxury edition with a V8 but by 1970 time and development funds had run out so the car was released with the V8 power-train and an interior so utilitarian it could be hosed out, something which was touted as a competitive advantage although it’s doubtful it was a feature many owners chose to exploit.  However, if the rich were riding out the decade well, British Leyland (which owned Rover) was not and it lacked the resources to devote to the project.  Others took advantage of what proved a profitable niche and the rich could choose from a variety of limited-production and bespoke offerings including long-wheelbase models, four-door conversions, six wheelers and even open-topped versions from a variety of coach-builders such as Wood & Pickett and low-volume manufacturers like Switzerland’s Monteverdi which anticipated the factory by a number of years with their four-door coachwork.

Rendez-vous à Biarritz, Vogue magazine, March 1981.

However, British Leyland was soon subject to one of the many re-organizations which would seek (without success) to make it a healthy corporation and one consequence was increased autonomy for the division making Range Rovers.  No longer forced to subsidize less profitable arms of the business, attention was turned to the matter of a luxury model, demand for which clearly existed.  To test market reaction, in late 1980, the factory collaborated with Wood & Pickett to design a specially-equipped two-door model as a proof-of-concept exercise to gauge market reaction.  The prototype (HAC 414W) was lent to Vogue magazine, a crafty choice given the demographic profile of the readership and the by then well-known extent of women’s own purchasing power and influence on that of their husbands.  Vogue took the prototype to Biarritz to be the photographic backdrop for the images taken for the magazine’s co-promotion of the 1981 Lancôme and Jaeger fashion collections, published in an eight-page advertising spread entitled Rendez-vous à Biarritz in the March 1981 edition.  The response was remarkable and while Lancôme and Jaeger’s launch attracted polite attention, Vogue’s mailbox (which then was letters in envelopes with postage stamps) was overwhelmingly filled with enquiries about the blinged-up Range-Rover.

Vogue's Range Rover In Vogue (HAC 414W) in Biarritz, 1981, all nuts on board or otherwise attached.

Rover had expected demand to be strong and the reaction to the Vogue spread justified their decision to prepare for a production run even before publication and the Range Rover In Vogue went on sale early in 1981, the limited-edition run all replicas of the photo shoot car except for the special aluminum wheels.  The three-spoke wheels (based on the design Ford had used on the 1979 (Fox) Mustang) had actually proved a problem in Biarritz, the factory supplying the wrong lug nuts which had a tendency to fall off, meaning the staff travelling with the car had to check prior to each shoot to ensure five were present on each wheel which would appear in the picture.  Not until later in the year would the wheels be ready so the In Vogue’s went to market with the standard stylized steel units, meaning the brochures had to be pulped and reprinted with new photographs.  Quite how many were made remains unclear.  The factory said 1000 would be built, all in right hand drive (RHD) but many left hand drive (LHD) examples seem to exist and it’s thought demand from the continent was such that another batch was built although this has never been confirmed.  The In Vogue’s exclusive features were:

Light blue metallic (the model-exclusive Vogue Blue) paint with twin broad coach-lines in two-tone grey
High-compression (9.35:1) V8 engine
Transfer box with taller (0.996:1) high ratio
Air conditioning
Polished-wood door cappings
Stowage box between front seats
Map pockets on back of front seats
Fully carpeted load area
Carpeted spare wheel cover and tool kit curtain
Custom picnic hamper mounted in rear load-space
Stainless steel tailgate capping
Black centre caps for the wheels

Condé Nast would later describe the In Vogue’s custom picnic hamper as the car’s piece de resistance.  Demand for the In Vogue far exceeded supply and production runs of various volumes followed before the Vogue in 1984 became the regular production top-of-the-range model for many years (although when sold in the US it was called the Country).  For both companies, the In Vogue (and the subsequent Vogues) turned out to be the perfect symbiosis.

Vogue, January 1925, cover art by Georges Lepape.

From the start, Vogue was of course about frocks, shoes and such but its influence extended over the years to fields as diverse as interior decorating and industrial design.  The work of Georges Lepape (1887-1971) has long been strangely neglected in the history of art deco but he was a fine practitioner whose reputation probably suffered because his compositions have always been regarded as derivative or imitative which seems unfair given there are many who are more highly regarded despite being hardly original.  His cover art for Vogue’s edition of 1 January 1925 juxtaposed one of French artist Sonia Delaunay’s (1885–1979) "simultaneous" pattern dresses and a Voisin roadster decorated with an art deco motif.

One collector in 2015 was so taken with Pepape’s image that when refurbishing his 1927 Voisin C14 Lumineuse (literally “light”, an allusion to the Voisin’s greenhouse-inspired design which allowed natural light to fill the interior), he commissioned Dutch artist Bernadette Ramaekers to hand-paint a geometric triangular pattern in sympathy with that on the Vogue cover in 1925.  Ms Ramaekers toook six months to complete the project and the car is now being offered at auction.

Voisin's extraordinary visions:  1934 C27 Aérosport (left), 1934-1935 Voisin C25 Aérodynes (centre) & 1931 C20 Mylord Demi Berline (right).

There are few designers as deserving of such a tribute as French aviation pioneer Gabriel Voisin (1880–1973) who made military aircraft during the First World War (1914-1918) and, under the name Avions Voisin, produced a remarkable range of automobiles between 1919-1939, encapsulating thus the whole inter-war period and much of the art deco era.  Because his designs were visually so captivating, much attention has always been devoted to his lines, curves and shapes but the underlying engineering was also interesting although some of his signature touches, like the (briefly in vogue) sleeve valve engine, proved a mirage.  Also a cul-de-sac was his straight-12 engine.  Slow-running straight-12 (there is even a straight-14 which displaces 25,340 litres (1,546,000 cubic inches) and produces 107,290 hp (80,080 kW)) engines are known at sea where they’re used in big container ships but on the road (apart from some less than successful military vehicles), only Voisin and Packard ever attempted them, the former making two, the latter, one.  Voisin’s concept was simple enough; it was two straight-6s joined together, end-on-end, the same idea many had used to make things like V12s (2 x V6s) straight-8s (2 x straight-4s) H16s (two flat-8s, one atop another) and even V24s (2 x V12s) but the sheer length of a straight-12 in a car presented unique problems in packaging and the management of the torsional vibrations induced by the elongated crankshaft.

1934 Voisin C15 Saloit Roadster.

The length of the straight-12 meant an extraordinary amount of the vehicle’s length had to be devoted to housing just the engine and that resulted in a high number for what designers call the dash-to-axle ratio.  That was one of the many reasons the straight-12 never came into vogue and indeed was one of the factors which doomed the straight-8, a configuration which at least had some redeeming features.  Voisin must however have liked the appearance of the long hood (bonnet) because the striking C15 Saloit Roadster (which could have accommodated a straight-12) was powered by a straight-4, a sleeve valve Knight of 2500 cm³ (153 cubic inch).  The performance doubtlessly didn’t live up to the looks but so sensuous were those looks that many would forgive the lethargy.

Using one of his trademark outdoor settings, Norman Parkinson (1913-1990) photographed model Suzanne Kinnear (b 1935) adorning a Daimler SP250, wearing a Kashmoor coat and Otto Lucas beret with jewels by Cartier.  The image appeared on the cover (left) of Vogue's UK edition in November 1959, the original's (right) color being "enhanced" in the Vogue pre-production editing tradition (women thinner, cars shinier).  The "wide" whitewall tyres were a thing at the time, even on sports cars and were a popular option on US market Jaguar E-Types (there (unofficially) called XK-E or XKE) in the early 1960s.  The car on the Vogue cover was XHP 438, built on prototype chassis 100002 at Compton Verney in 1959; it's the oldest surviving SP250, the other two prototypes (chassis 100000 & 100001 from 1958) dismantled when testing was completed.  XHP 438 was the factory's press demonstrator and was used in road tests by Motor and Autocar magazines before being re-furbished (motoring journalists subjecting the press fleet to a brief but hard life) and sold.

More Issues Than Vogue sweatshirt from Impressions.

The Daimler SP250 was first shown to the public at the 1959 New York Motor Show and there the problems began.  Aware the little sports car was quite a departure from the luxurious but rather staid line-up Daimler had for years offered, the company had chosen the pleasingly alliterative “Dart” as its name, hoping it would convey the sense of something agile and fast.  Unfortunately, Chrysler’s lawyers were faster still, objecting that they had already registered Dart as the name for a full-sized Dodge so Daimler needed a new name and quickly; the big Dodge would never be confused with the little Daimler but the lawyers insisted.  Imagination apparently exhausted, Daimler’s management reverted to the engineering project name and thus the car became the SP250 which was innocuous enough even for Chrysler's attorneys and it could have been worse.  Dodge had submitted their Dart proposal to Chrysler for approval and while the car found favor, the name did not and the marketing department was told to conduct research and come up with something the public would like.  From this the marketing types gleaned that “Dodge Zipp” would be popular and to be fair, dart and zip(p) do imply much the same thing but ultimately the original was preferred and Darts remained in Dodge’s lineup until 1976, for most of that time one of the corporation's best-selling and most profitable lines.  The name was revived between 2012-2016 for an unsuccessful and unlamented compact sedan.