Edition

Edition (pronounced ih-dish-uhn)

(1) One of a series of printings of the same publication, each issued at a different time and differing from another by alterations, additions etc (historically sometimes referred to as impressions).

(2) The format in which a work is published (single volume edition, abridged edition, leather-bound edition, French language edition etc).

(3) In newspaper production, a form of differentiation between different versions of the “same” issue (late edition, city edition etc) and used in a similar manner in radio & television broadcasting.

(4) In book collecting, as “first edition”, a copy of a book from its first release or print run.

(5) The whole number of impressions or copies of a book, newspaper etc, printed from one set of type at one time.

(6) A version of anything (physical and not), often (sometimes misleadingly) in forms such as “limited edition”, “special edition” etc).

1545–1555: From the French édition, from the Middle French, from the Latin ēditiōn- (publication), the stem of ēditiō (a bringing forth, publishing), the construct being ēdit, the past participle of ēdere (to give out; bring forth, produce) + -iōn (the suffix appended to a perfect passive participle to form a noun of action or process, or the result of an action or process).  When the word entered English in the sense of “version, translation, a form of a literary work” (and later “act of publishing”) the dominant linguistic influence was probably the Latin editionem (a bringing forth, producing (although in specialized use it also carried the meaning “a statement, an account rendered”, from the past-participle stem of ēdere, the construct being e(x) (in the sense of “out”) + -dere, a combining form of dare (to give), from the primitive Indo-European root do- (to give).  Edition is a noun; the noun plural is editions.

More Issues Than Vogue sweatshirt from Impressions.

In publishing and (sometimes vaguely) related fields, the terms “issue”, “edition” and “version” have come to be used so loosely that they sometimes function interchangeably but within the publishing industry, there are conventions of use: Issue traditionally was used to refer to a specific release of a recurring publication (magazine, journal, newspaper etc) and tended to be tied to the release sequence (“October 2024 Issue”, “Fall 2024 Issue”, “Issue No. 215” etc).  Issue can however be used also as “re-issue” which refers usually to a “re-print” of a previous edition although it’s not uncommon for blurbs like “re-issued with new foreword” or “re-issued in large print” to appear, the implication being the substantive content remains the same.  Edition was used of a particular form or version of a publication that might differ from previous ones in significant ways which might include text corrections, foreign language translations, or updates, thus descriptions like “German Language Edition”, “Second Edition” or “Abridged Edition.  Some editions (especially those which appear in an irregular sequence) actually give in their title some hint of the nature of what distinguishes them from what came before such as the convention adopted by the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic for their Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).  What the APA does is change the number if a DSM is regarded as a “new edition” but retain the number with an appended “R” (revised) or “TR” (text revision) if it’s an “updated edition”.  Thus has appeared the DSM-III-R (1987), the DSM-IV-TR (2000) and the DSM-5-TR (2022).  There’s some overlap in use for version and this perhaps reflects the influence of technology because it tends to be used of a specific form or variant of a publication such as language (eg Spanish version), format (eg audio version) or materials used in the construction (eg e-book version) rather than an implication of a chronological or iterative update (which in publishing tends to be called an “edition”.  In that the industry differs from IT where version numbers are almost always sequential although the convention widely used in the 1980s in which something like “version 2.4.3” could be interpreted as 2=major release, 4=update and 3= bug fix has long fallen into disuse.

Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version (RSV), 1952 limited edition, first printing by Thomas Nelson & Sons, brown full leather binding with inlaid gold lettering, silk end paper and green cardboard slip case, custom bound by the Chicago Bible Society.  US$750 from Abe Books.

There are also special uses which assume a life of their own, notably the Revised Standard Version (RSV), an English translation of the Bible published in 1952 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the US.  The RSV was a revision of the American Standard Version (ASV, 1901) and was published to render the text into the modern English which readily would be understood by a contemporary reader of modest education.  The object was not to change the meaning of the text but to preserve it and paradoxically this required editing the classic verses written by William Tyndale (circa 1494–1536) or in the King James Version (KJV, 1611) because the over hundreds of years the language had evolved and the much of what was in the original needed to be interpreted for a general audience and the controversy of clerical gatekeepers between God and his people had for centuries been a thing.  The RSV however has not been the last words and those who track novel initializms will have been delighted by the appearance of the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV, released in 1989 by the National Council of Churches (NCC) and the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition (NRSVue), published in 2021.  Students of such things aren’t expecting the next update for at least a decade but finding a name might prove more of a challenge than editing the Old Testament’s Book of Leviticus for a modern audience although those who have worked in biblical forks have found alpha-numeric solutions such as RSV-2CE (Revised Standard Version, Second Catholic Edition (2006))

First Edition of James Joyce’s Ulysses, "Copy No 1", held in the National Library of Ireland.  It contains in Joyce's hand an inscription to the English political activist Harriet Shaw Weaver (1876–1961) who was for decades his patron.

A first edition of Ulysses (1922) by James Joyce (1882–1941) in 2009 sold on the opening day of an antiquarian book fair London for Stg£275,000, at the time a record for a twentieth century first edition.  Ulysses is regarded in the industry as the most collectable modern novel and the first editions, printed on hand-made Dutch fine-paper, are well-catalogued and this was number 45 of the first edition print run (all signed by the author) of 100, one of four not previously accounted for.  It had been sold originally by the Manhattan’s obviously subversive Sunwise Turn bookshop (Ulysses at the times banned in the US) and remained in the possession of the same family, stored in its original box and thus not exposed to light, accounting for the preservation of the construction.  Proving that dealers in literary circles can gush with the finest used car salesmen, the dealer who arranged the sale explained: “The color is amazing – this lovely Aegean Sea, Greek flag blue which would normally have darkened into a more dirty blue but because it has been in a box it is a complete thing of beauty.”  The almost pristine condition was a product also of its history of use, an inspection suggesting it was seemingly unread except for the well-thumbed final chapter where the most salacious passages can be found.  The existence of unread copies of well-known books is not unusual and those notorious for sitting neglected on the bookshelf include “challenging” texts such as A Theory of Justice (1971) by John Rawls (1921–2002), A Brief History of Time (1988) by Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) and Joyce’s own, bafflingly difficult Finnegans Wake (1939).  Intriguingly, the antiquarian book business also includes the category “pre-first edition” (any limited run copy of a book printed before the “first edition” is published).  The apparent oxymoron is explained by “first edition” being an industry definition rather than a literal description; pre-first editions thus analogous with “pre-production” or “final prototype” cars which (if they’ve survive the crusher which claims most) can be prized by collectors.

Among special editions there are, inter alia, “Collector's Editions”, “Anniversary Editions” and even, in one instance, the “So Fetch Edition”.

In commerce, “special editions” have become notable income generators for content providers and the movie business has embraced the concept with editions such as “the making of”, “bloopers & out-takes”, “director’s cut” and others and the idea isn’t new.  Led Zeppelin's eighth studio album (In Through the Out Door (1979)) originally was sold with an outer sleeve of plain brown paper, stamped with nothing more than the while the cardboard sleeve proper within was released with six different versions of the artwork.  Buyers would thus not know which sleeve they were selecting.  There’s nothing to suggest it was anything but a gimmick and neither the band nor the record company were expecting many to keep buying copies in the plain brown wrapped until they’d scored all six covers but there were press reports at the time of "Led Heads" doing exactly that.  The industry took note.

Taylor Swift's The Anthology, one of 34 available editions of The Tortured Poets Department.

The attraction of releasing multiple versions of essentially the same product with variations restricted to some added content or detail differences in the packaging is that the additional costs in production and distribution are marginal yet there’s sometimes it’s possible to charge a premium for the “non-standard editions”.  The practice had for decades been quite a thing with car manufacturers but the music business came also to like the idea because, unlike with the cars where customers tended to buy one at a time, obsessive fans of musicians might be persuaded they needed several copies of what was essentially the same thing.  Leftist UK student site The Tab noted few music fans were as obsessive as Taylor Swift’s (b 1989) Swifties and, more significantly, they were also impressively numerous and thus an irresistible catchment of disposable income.  What The TAB noted was the almost simultaneous release of a remarkable (and apparently unprecedented) of 34 versions of Ms Swift’s eleventh album, The Tortured Poets Department (2024), something which as well as generating revenue has the statistical benefit of afforcing her presence on the charts, every sale counting as a 1.0.  Some were technologically deterministic in than four were released as audio cassettes and nine were exclusively digital bit most were essentially the same product except for the inclusion of a bonus track and there were some available only through the retailer Target.  The most obsessive Swifties obviously could buy all 34 editions but for those which want just an exhaustive collection of the music, it appeared all was included on the accurately named The Anthology so there was that.  One day, all 34, still (where appropriate) unopened in their original packaging will appear begin to appear on auction sites.  The approach attracted some adverse comment (which the Swifties doubtless ignored) and probably confirmed in the mind of JD Vance (b 1984; US senator (Republican-Ohio) since 2023) that childless cat ladies are evil.

All editions: The Tab’s The Tortured Poets Department discography:

1. Collector’s Edition Deluxe with The Manuscript
2. Collector’s Edition Deluxe with The Albatross
3. Collector’s Edition Deluxe with The Bolter
4. Collector’s Edition Deluxe with The Black Dog
5. Standard album and The Manuscript
6. Standard and The Manuscript (signed)
7. Standard and But Daddy I Love Him (Acoustic)
8. Standard and Guilty As Sin? (Acoustic)
9. Standard and Down Bad (Acoustic)
10. Standard and Fortnight (Acoustic)
11. Standard and Fresh Out The Slammer (Acoustic)
12. Target exclusive with The Albatross
13. Target exclusive with The Bolter
14. Target exclusive with The Black Dog
15. Target exclusive vinyl
16. The Manuscript vinyl (pressing one)
17. The Manuscript vinyl (pressing two)
18. The Albatross vinyl
19. The Bolter vinyl
20. The Black Dog vinyl
21. The Manuscript vinyl
22. The Anthology
23. Standard and The Black Dog ‘voice memo’
24. Standard album and Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me voice memo
25. Standard album and Cassandra voice memo
26. Standard album (digital)
27. Standard album and Daddy I Love Him (Acoustic)
28. Standard album and loml (live from Paris)
29. Standard album and My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys (live from Paris)
30. Standard album and The Alchemy / Treacherous mashup (live from Paris)
31. The Manuscript cassette
32. The Bolter cassette
33. The Albatross cassette
34. The Black Dog cassette

1976 Lincoln Continental Mark IV, Lipstick edition.  The shade of red appears to be close to Dior's lipstick #744 (Party Red).

The car manufacturers have produced at least hundreds of “special editions”, a concept to which they kept returning because it was lucrative, the things usually profitable to an extent exceeding greatly the nominal sum of their parts.  Quite how many have existed over the years is difficult to estimate because, in addition to the well-documented examples from manufacturers which were sold nationally or even globally, some were offered only briefly or regionally and barely advertised.  Additionally, dealers or sometimes an agglomeration of them would also conjure up their own "special editions" so the total of such things is probably in the thousands.  Sometimes, fashion houses were paid to lend their name, AMC teaming with Pierre Cardin, Levi Strauss (Volkswagen also had a denim-trimmed Beetle though without a specific brand attribution) & Oleg Cassini while the Lincoln Continental at times was offered with themes by Emilio Pucci, Cartier, Bill Blass and de Givenchy although the most memorable were the reputed 500 “Lipstick editions”, a study in red & white, quite a sight given the expanse of sheet metal and leather.

1969 Dodge Charger R/T SE (left), 1972 Chrysler VH Valiant Charger 770SE E55 (centre left), 1976 Holden HX LE (centre right) and 2002 Mazda Miata Special Edition (MX-5 in some markets) (right).

In most of the “special” editions, offered over the decades, it was only in the advertising or press kits that terms like “special edition” or “limited edition” appeared.  Sometimes though, such physical badges did appear on the vehicles. In the US, on the 1969 Dodge Chargers with the SE option, the badge included both “SE” & “Special Edition” while in Australia, only “SE” appeared on the 1972 Chrysler VH Valiant Charger 770SE E55 (one of the industry’s longer model names) although the marketing material called it a “Special Edition”, a usage borrowed from the parent corporation in the US and even the badge used was the same part as that which had been stuck on the 1970 Dodge Challenger SE.  Holden’s frankly cynical (but most profitable) 1976 LE spelled out “Limited Edition” under a “LE” (in a larger font) while Mazda used only the full term for the Miata (MX-5) Special Edition models.

Limited Edition, less limited profit: The Holden LE

1976 HX Holden LE

By the mid 1970s, the market had come to prefer the cheaper, smaller and easier to use cassette tapes which meant warehouses were soon full of the once desirable 8-track players and buyers were scarce.  In Australia, GMH (General Motor Holden) by 1975 had nearly a thousand in the inventory which also bulged with 600-odd Monaro body-shells, neither of which were attracting customers; fashions change and both had become unfashionable.  Fortunately, GMH was well-acquainted with the concept of the "parts-bin special edition" whereby old, unsaleable items are bundled together and sold at what appears a discount, based for advertising purposes on a book-value retail price there’s no longer any chance of realizing.  Thus created was the high-priced, limited edition LE (which stood for "Limited Edition", the Monaro name appearing nowhere although all seem still to use the name), in metallic crimson with gold pin striping, golf "honeycomb" aluminium wheels, fake (plastic) burl walnut trim and crushed velour (polyester) upholstery; in the 1970s, this was tasteful.  Not designed for the purpose, the eight-track cartridge player crudely was bolted to the console but five-hundred and eighty LEs were made, GMH pleasantly surprised at how quickly they sold with no need to resort to discounting.  When new, they listed at Aus$11,500, a pleasingly profitable premium of some 35% above the unwanted vehicle on which it was based; these days, examples are advertised for sale for (Aus$) six-figure sums and anyone who now buys a LE does so for reasons other than specific-performance.  Although of compact size (in US terms) and fitted with a 308 cubic inch (5.0 litre) V8, it could achieve barely 110 mph (175 km/h), acceleration was lethargic by earlier and (much) later standards yet fuel consumption was high; slow and thirsty the price to be paid for the early implementations of the emission control plumbing bolted to engines designed during more toxic times.      

1971 Holden HQ Monaro LS 350

The overwrought and bling-laden Holden HX typified the tendency during the 1970s and of US manufacturers and their colonial off-shoots to take a fundamentally elegant design and, with a heavy-handed re-style, distort it into something ugly.  A preview of the later “malaise era” (so named in the US for many reasons), it was rare for a facelift to improve the original.  The 1971 HQ Holden was admired for an austerity of line and fine detailing; what followed over three subsequent generations lacked that restraint.  The HX LE was one of a number of "special" and "limited" editions offered during the era and it remains one of the few remembered.

Oiler

Oiler (pronounced oi-ler)

(1) A person or device which is some way delivers oil.

(2) A worker employed to oil machinery.

(3) Any of several devices, other than pressure devices, for feeding lubricating oil to a bearing.

(4) In oil exploration, a productive well.

(5) An oilcan.

(6) An oilskin garment, especially a coat.

(7) A ship which uses oil as fuel (archaic).

(8) In admiralty slang, an oil tanker used to refuel other vessels.

(9) In admiralty slang, an assistant in the engine room of a ship, senior only to a wiper, mainly responsible for keeping machinery lubricated (archaic).

(10) In the cleaning kits of firearms, a small (typically thumb-sized) metal container of oil, often containing an integral brush.

(11) As an ethnic slur (mostly southern US), a Mexican (sometimes extended to other of Latino appearance.

Circa 1290: The construct was oil + -er.  Oil was from the Middle English olyer, oyller & oyellere (the later alternative spellings included oylle, olie, oli, eoli, eoyle, olige, oyll, uile, oile & oyl.  Oyler was from the Anglo-Norman olie and the Old French oile, from the Latin oleum (olive oil), from the Ancient Greek ἔλαιον (élaion) (olive oil).  The –er suffix was from the Middle English –er & -ere, from the Old English -ere, from the Proto-Germanic -ārijaz, thought most likely to have been borrowed from the Latin –ārius where, as a suffix, it was used to form adjectives from nouns or numerals.  In English, the –er suffix, when added to a verb, created an agent noun: the person or thing that doing the action indicated by the root verb.   The use in English was reinforced by the synonymous but unrelated Old French –or & -eor (the Anglo-Norman variant -our), from the Latin -ātor & -tor, from the primitive Indo-European -tōr.  When appended to a noun, it created the noun denoting an occupation or describing the person whose occupation is the noun.  The meaning “an appliance for distributing oil in machines" was in use by 1861 and was adopted by the British Admiralty in 1916 to describe "navy vessels carrying oil for use by other ships"; although such vessels had been in use for some years, the Royal Navy having begun the conversion from coal to oil a decade earlier, by 1911 only the submarine fleet ran exclusive on oil and coal (sometimes sprayed with oil) still fuelled most of the navy’s vessels.  Oiler is a noun; the noun plural is oilers.

Evolution of the Ford 427 side-oiler

The side valve (usually called “the flathead”, an allusion to the almost flat plate covering the combustion chambers) Ford V8 of 1932 is remembered for its vices as well as the many things which made it one of the great engines of the mid-century.  In the 1930s, those vices could be both forgiven and worked-around but by 1953, it was still in production and outdated (though in overseas production it would continue, in French Simca cars until 1961, in Brazilian Fords until 1964 and remarkably, until 1990 in the Simca Unic Marmon Bocquet military truck.  For 1954, Ford responded to the modern overhead valve (OHV) V8s others had introduced with the debut of two new engines, essentially (by the standards of the time) small and big block versions of the same design.  Known as the Y-Blocks because of the shape of the castings, they were sturdy pieces of machinery and addressed many of the problems identified in the flathead over two decades of production but neither was suited to the evolutionary path the American automobile unexpectedly would take during the mid-late 1950s.

Top oiler: 1962 Ford 406 FE V8 with 3 x 2 barrel carburetors.

That path was not one which anyone in Detroit was likely to foresee in the late 1940s when the design work on the Y-Blocks began but by 1954, it was at least competitive with the competition.  However, in 1955, Chevrolet introduced their small-block V8 which was light, compact and free-breathing, not something which could be said of the Y-Blocks and more importantly, the design afforded a potential for development which would play out over decades.  By contrast, the Y-Blocks’ potential in both capacity and power output soon plateaued and Ford was forced to resort to exotic solutions like supercharging, something not practical for low-cost mass-manufacturing.  Ford’s solution was not one new V8 but three.  All released during 1958, the SD (Super Duty, a large, low revving truck engine), the MEL (a big block for what were now very large Lincolns and Mercurys) and the FE (thought at the time a big-block but subsequently listed by pedants as a mid-block because later castings would out-weigh it by so much).  The durable SD would remain in the catalogue until 1980, its demise prompted only by the implications of the second oil-shock in 1979, the sole complaint about it being its prodigious thirst.  The MEL would last a decade, early attempts to use it on the race-tracks abandoned because of the penalty imposed by excessive weight although it did enjoy some success in powerboat racing where it’s capacity to run reliably at full throttle for sustained periods was highly valued.

Side oiler: 1966 Ford 427 FE V8 side oiler with tunnel-port cylinder heads and Kar-Kraft transaxle, the specification used in the mid-engined Ford GT40s which recorded a 1-2-3 finish at that year's 24 Le Mans 24 hour classic.

Although rapidly it would earn a stellar reputation which endures to this day, Ford’s FE V8 engine didn’t enjoy a wholly auspicious start, associated as it was with the ill-fated Edsel (FE really did stand for “Ford-Edsel” despite some post-debacle attempts to suggest “Ford Engine” (the contemporary MEL decodes as Mercury-Edsel-Lincoln)).  However, whatever the problems of the Edsel, the use of the FE in some was not one.  Offered in its first few seasons in several displacements, the most produced in the 1960s would be the 352 & 390 cubic inch (5.8 & 6.5 litre) versions, both of which briefly were offered in high-performance versions until the decision was taken to develop such engines (to be used in competition) as a separate FE branch, the first fruit of which was the 406 (6.6 litre) which debuted in 1962.  The 406 had performed well on Ford’s test-rigs, its output slightly exceeding the engineers’ projections and when installed in the new, slippery bodies offered that year, the combination proved fast on the racetracks.  The power however came at the cost of reliability and the increasing speeds on the circuits had exposed weaknesses in the bottom-end, the main bearing caps “walking” when vibrations attained a certain resonance.

Hair oiler: Lindsay Lohan recommends Nexxus Hair Oil and provided the following technical advice for hair care: "I would select three. I love the hair oil because I think we always tend to overdo putting products in our hair, so it's good to give it some rest and let it refresh and replenish. I love a hairspray that doesn't make your hair hard and crunchy. And so the Nexxus XXL Volume Spray does that—it holds, but it doesn't make your hair feel icky, and that's important to me. And then the Slick Stick is good because I mean, I'm always on the go and sometimes I just need it to look nice and chic and back and clean-looking. So that's perfect for that. These are actually products that I use and like."

By their bolts they shall be known.  By convention a "four bolter" was one with the four all into the boss while in a "cross bolter" two were in the boss and two into the block.  "Six bolters" (with four in the boss, two in the block) are now common.

The solution was to “cross-bolt” the caps; an additional two securing bolts (installed sideways through the block) per cap augmenting the pairs mounted in the conventional vertical position.  This approach, still widely used to this day, proved successful and was carried over when in 1963 the FE was further enlarged to 425 cubic inches (7.0 litre), Ford labelling the new mill the 427 to align it with the displacement limit used by both NASCAR (National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing) and the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (the International Automobile Federation and world sport’s dopiest regulatory body)).  However, greater capacity meant more power, higher speeds and increased heat and the 427 began to also to suffer, the higher internal pressures meaning lubrication to the now cross-bolted main bearings had become marginal.  Ford’s solution was to reverse the priority with which oil was delivered.  The original design (subsequently known as the “top oiler”) lubricated first the valve-train at the top of the engine, then the main bearings which supported the crankshaft.  The new process reversed this order and the design became known as the side-oiler: on one side of the block was cast an additional oil galley, the bulge the external distinguishing feature of the new arrangement.

By their oil galleys they shall be known: Lubrication systems of 1964 Ford 427 FE V8 top oiler (left) & Ford 427 FE V8 side oiler (right). 

Introduced in 1965, the side-oiling proved the final solution and the 427 became a paragon of reliability, powering even the Le Mans 24 hour winning GT40s in 1966 & 1967.  Today the 427 is perhaps best remembered as the power-plant in the Shelby American AC Cobra 427 (although some of those actually used the rather more tame FE 428) but in those happy days when one could tick a box and have what was essentially a racing engine installed in a road car, it was available also in full-sized machines (the Galaxie), intermediates (the Fairlane) and, at the tail-end of production, a few (by then somewhat toned down) were even put in the Cougar, Mercury’s Mustang-based take on the pony-car.  By then however, the side-oiler’s days were numbered because not only was it noisy, apt to be cantankerous and a bit of an oil-burner, the complex lubrication and cross bolting made it quite expensive to build, added to which the big bore was at close to the limit the FE block could accommodate so during the manufacturing process; even a slight shift in the casting cores meant a scrapped block.  Thus the attraction for most (non racing) purposes of the 428 with its smaller bore, less elaborate lubrication and (then) conventional bottom-end bolting.

As supplied ex-factory: Ford 427 SOHC on stand.

The side oiler also provided the basis for one engine which wasn’t exactly mythical because quite a few were built but remains mysterious because nobody seems quite sure how many, the consensus being it was somewhere in mid-three figures, the last of which (in a crate) wasn't sold until 1970 although production ended in 1967.  This was the 427 SOHC (single overhead camshaft (the “sock” in the slang of some)) which for all sorts of reasons never made it onto the circuits for which it was intended nor into even one road car, despite the wishes of many.  Popularly known as “the cammer”, even some sixty years on there’s still a mystique surrounding the cammer and if one can’t find an original for sale (one sold at auction in 2021 for US$60,000), from a variety of manufacturers it’s possible still to buy all the bits and pieces needed to build one (in a quirk of timing and the overlap of simultaneous product development, some of the very early SOHCs used the top oiler block although most were side oilers and the third party reproductions over the years have always been the latter).  Although the production numbers have never been verified (which seems strange given Ford's accounting system recorded everything which emerged with a serial number), what all agree is the horsepower of a stock SOHC was somewhere over 600, the number bouncing around a bit because there were versions with single and dual four barrel carburetors, different camshaft profiles and variations in the cylinder heads and while it never made it into a production car, it remains the ultimate FE.

The Porsche 911 E series and the Ölklappe affair

1971 Porsche 911S (note the flap for the oil filler cap behind the passenger-side door (US market model and thus left-hand drive (LHD)).  The factory confirmed this car was built in July 1971, despite many references to E series production beginning in August.

Porsche in 1971 began the build of its E series update (produced between July 1971-July 1972 and generally known as the “1972 models”) of the then almost decade-old 911 and in addition to the increase in the flat-six’s displacement from 2.2 litres (134 cubic inch) to 2.3 (143) (although always referred to as the “2.4”), there were a myriad of changes, some in response to US safety & emissions legislation while others were part of normal product development.  One of latter was the placing of the hinged-flap over the oil filler cap behind the right side door, something necessitated by the dry sump oil tank having been re-located from behind the right rear wheel to in front, one of a number of design changes undertaken to shift the weight distribution forward and improve the handling of the rear-engined machine’s inherently tail-heavy configuration.  In Germany, the addition was known variously as Ölklappe, Oil Klapper or Vierte Tür (fourth door, the fuel filler flap being the third).  Weight reduction (then becoming difficult in the increasingly strict regulatory environment), especially at the rear, was also a design imperative and the early-build E series cars were fitted with an aluminum engine lid and license-plate panel although these components were soon switched to steel because of production difficulties and durability concerns.

Where the troubles began:  The fuel filler flap on the left-front fender (left) and the oil filler flap on the right-rear fender (right).  Apparently, not even the “◀ Oil” sticker in red was sufficient warning.

For the E series 911S, Porsche recommended the use of a multigrade mineral oil (SAE 20W-50 or SAE 15W-40, depending on climate) but were aware those using their vehicles in competition sometimes used a high-viscosity SAE50 monograde.  With the car’s 10 litre (10.6 US quarts, 8.8 Imperial quarts) oil tank, the fluid’s weight would be between 8.5-9.1 kg (18.7-20.0 lb) and the physics of motion meant that the more rearward the placement of that mass, the greater the effect on the 911’s handling characteristics.  It was thus a useful contribution to what would prove a decades-long quest to tame the behaviour of what, in the early versions, was a car regarded (not wholly unfairly) as handling like “a very fast Volkswagen Beetle” and ultimately the engineers succeeded, it being only at the speeds which should be restricted to race tracks the 911s of the 2020s sometimes reveal the implications of being rear-engined.

VDO instruments in 1971 Porsche 911S.  In home market cars, the oil pressure gauge (to the left of the centrally mounted tachometer) was labelled DRUCK.

However, when in August 1972 the revised F series entered production, the oil tank was back behind the rear wheel and the filler under the engine lid, the retrogressive move taken because there had been instances of gas (petrol) station attendants (they really used to exist) assuming the oil filler flap was the access point for the gas cap and, to be fair, it was in a location used for gas on many front-engined cars (a majority of the passenger-car fleet in most markets where Porsche had a presence).  Quite how often this happened isn’t known but it must have been frequent enough for the story to become part of the 911 legend and the consequences could have been severe and rectification expensive.  The factory paid much attention to oil and also ensured drivers could monitor the status of the critical fluid; all air-cooled 911s ran hot and the more highly tuned the model (in 1971-1972 the 911T, E & S in increasing potency), the hotter they got.  As well as being a lubricant, engine oil functions also as a coolant and the VDO instrumentation included gauges for oil level, oil temperature, and oil pressure; for all three to appear in a road car was unusual but being air-cooled and thus with no conventional fluid coolant, the oil's dynamics were most important.

Butterfly

Butterfly (pronounced buht-er-flahy)

(1) Any of numerous diurnal insects of the order Lepidoptera, characterized by clubbed antennae, a slender body, and large, broad, often conspicuously marked wings which are typically closed when the creature is at rest (the adjectival form is lepidopteran).

(2) A person who moves effortlessly from one social situation to another, usually as “social butterfly”.

(3) Someone perceived as unserious and (originally) dressed gaudily; someone flighty and unreliable; a bolter (common between the seventeenth & nineteenth centuries; now archaic).

(4) In competitive swimming, a racing breaststroke, using a dolphin kick, in which the swimmer brings both arms out of the water in forward, circular motions.

(5) In carpentry, as butterfly joint (or wedge), a type of joint or inlay used permanently to hold together two or more pieces of timber, either as something aesthetic (usually with a contrasting color of timber) or merely functional (also known as the bow tie, dovetail key, Dutchman joint, or Nakashima joint).

(6) In sculpture, an X-shaped support attached to an armature.

(7) As butterfly arm, the swinging brackets of a butterfly table.

(8) In film editing, a screen of scrim, gauze, or similar material, for diffusing light.

(9) In cooking or the display of food, to spread open in halves what is being prepared, resembling the wings of a butterfly (the chef’s term being butterflied).

(10) In financial trading, the simultaneous purchase and sale of traded call options, at different exercise prices or with different expiry dates, on a stock exchange or commodity market; historically a combination of four options of the same type at three strike prices giving limited profit and limited risk.

(11) In medical & surgical dressings, a prepared bandage or the use of surgical tape, cut into thin strips and placed across an open wound in a manner which resembles the open wings of a butterfly, holding it closed.

(12) In mathematics and geometry, any of several plane curves that look like a butterfly and known as butterfly curves (transcendental & algebraic).

(13) In chaos theory and the discipline of alternate (counter-factual) history, as butterfly effect, a single event or random change in an aspect of the timeline seemingly unrelated to the primary point of divergence, resulting from the event.

(14) In automotive design (also used on certain airframes and nautical vessels) a style of door hinged from the A pillars (the windscreen frame).

(15) In engineering, a term applied to a number of fittings (butterfly valve, butterfly clamp, butterfly nut) with some resemblance to the open wings of a butterfly.

(16) As a motif, a widely use shape in fields such as architecture, stained glass, visual art and industrial design.

Pre 1000: From the Middle English buterflie, butturflye & boterflye, from the Old English butorflēoge, buttorflēoge & buterflēoge.  It was cognate with the Dutch botervlieg and the German Butterfliege (butterfly).  The construct was (with variations was butere (butter) +‎ fly.  Etymologists note alternative origins for the name.  Either (1) it was first applied to creatures with wings of a notably yellowish hue (perhaps the dominant or single species of the type in an area) or (2) as a response to the belief that butterflies ate milk and butter or (3) the first element may have originally been butor- (beater), a mutation of bēatan (to beat), a reference to the movement of the wings.  The idea of the fragile things as thieves of milk and butter is supported by similar instances in other European languages including the German Molkendieb (butterfly (literally “whey thief”) and the Low German Botterlicker (butterfly (literally butter-licker) & Bottervögel (butterfly (literally “butter-fowl”).  There was also the notion they excreted a butter-like substance, memorably expressed in the Dutch boterschijte (butterfly (literally “butter-shitter”).  Most memorable however is the explanation in the tales of the Brothers Grimm (die Brüder Grimm, Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm (1786–1859)) in which witches disguised themselves as butterflies.  The early forms in Middle English superseded the non-native Middle English papilion (butterfly) borrowed from the Old French.  Butterfly is a noun & adjective, butterflied is a verb & adjective and butterflying is a verb.  The noun plural is butterflies.

Anatomy of the butterfly valve (left), butterfly crochet (centre) & butterfly bandage (right).

Butter was from the Middle English buter & butter, from the Old English butere, from the Proto-West Germanic buterā, from the Latin būtȳrum, from the Ancient Greek βούτῡρον (boútūron) (cow cheese), the construct being βοῦς (boûs) (ox, cow) + τῡρός (tūrós) (cheese).  Fly was from the Middle English flye & flie, from the Old English flȳġe & fleoge (a fly, a winged insect), from the Proto-Germanic fleugǭ (a fly) & fleugon (flying insect), from the primitive Indo-European plewk- (to fly).  It was cognate with the Scots flee, the Saterland Frisian Fljooge, the German Low German Fleeg, the Danish flue, Norwegian Bokmål flue & Norwegian Nynorsk fluge, the Swedish fluga and the Icelandic fluga, the Old Saxon fleiga, the Old Norse fluga, the Middle Dutch vlieghe, the Dutch vlieg, the Old High German flioga and the German Fliege (fly (literally "the flying (insect))).  The Old English fleogende (flying) was from the primitive Indo-European root pleu- (to flow).

Social butterfly Lindsay Lohan in butterfly print swimsuit, Cannes, 2016.

Butterfly was applied first to people circa 1600, originally in reference to vain and gaudy attire, an allusion to often bright and varied colors of a butterfly's wings.  By 1806 it had become a class-based put-down referencing a transformation from a lower social class to something better, invoking the idea of progression from sluggish caterpillar to graceful butterfly (essentially a synonym for bounder).  The reference to flitting tendencies (from one interest, occupation etc) dates from 1873 and the social butterfly (one who moves effortlessly between social encounters and events) emerged in the 1920s.  The swimming stroke was first defined in 1935.  As a general descriptor (butterfly agave, butterfly ballot, butterfly fish, butterfly flower, butterfly plant, butterfly bomb, butterfly keyboard, butterfly chair, butterfly ray, butterfly shell etc), it’s applied wherever the resemblance to the open wings appears compelling.  In culture, the butterfly tends to be more admired than caterpillar which is an earlier stage of their development, the lovely creatures often appearing on fabrics used for clothing and furnishings.

Native to the forests of Central and South America, the Blue Morpho is one of the world’s largest butterflies. The wings are bright blue with lacy black edges, the result of light reflecting off microscopic scales on the back of their wings.  Lovely though the blue appears, it’s often not seen because the underside of this butterfly’s wing is a dull brown which provides a camouflage against predators.  When the wings are closed as the Blue Morpho sits on a tree, it blends in well.

Highly qualified content provider Busty Buffy (b 1996) being adorned with body paint in the shape of a butterfly with open wings.

Butterfly valves came into use in the late 1700s and have been popular since for their ease of manufacture, simplicity of operation and low maintenance.  The butterfly nut appeared in 1869 although in some markets it usually called the wing nut; interestingly, the similar fastener with a male thread is known as a wing screw or wing bolt but apparently never a butterfly screw or bolt, presumably because the delicate butterfly is thought emblematically female.  The phrase “Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?” is from Alexander Pope's (1688-1744) Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot" (1735).  The allusion is to "breaking on the wheel", a form of torture in which victims had their long bones broken by an iron bar while tied to a Catherine wheel, the idea a critique of excessive effort or deployment of resources to solve a simple problem; the less confronting phrase “sledgehammer to crack a nut” means the same thing.  The phrase “butterflies in the stomach” is a descriptive reference to the mild stomach spasms induced by anxiety and dates from 1908.  The butterfly effect is the most celebrated idea from (the somewhat misleadingly named) chaos theory, introduced in the 1972 paper Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas? by US academic meteorologist Edward Lorenz (1917–2008).  Lorenz had developed the theory based on his observations in the early 1960s (in one of the earliest big-data models) that a tiny change in one variable (one of a dozen numbers representing atmospheric conditions) had an extraordinary effect upon long-term outcomes.

1966 Dodge Polara convertible (left) and 1966 Dodge Monaco 500 two-door hardtop (right).

The use of the butterfly motif in industrial design in 1967 became a footnote in legal history in the trial of the boxers Rubin "Hurricane" Carter (1937–2014) & John Artis (1946-2021) for a triple murder committed at the Lafayette Bar and Grill in Paterson, New Jersey.  Evidence presented by the prosecution claimed that witness descriptions of the getaway car matched the hired car Carter was found driving in the vicinity of the Lafayette immediately after the killings, their statements even including a mention of the distinctive butterfly-shaped taillight chrome.  However, although a witness said the rear lights lit up across the back of the getaway car, the taillights on Carter's Dodge Polara, although there was certainly a butterfly chrome surround, lit up only at the edges; it was the more expensive Dodge Monaco which had the extended lights.  In the ever changing swirl of model names and trim levels which characterized the US industry during its golden age (1955-1973), in 1966 the Polara was Dodge’s entry-level full-size model, above which sat the higher-priced Polara 500, Monaco, and Monaco 500.  For some reason (and this was not unusual), the lineup’s nomenclature in Canada differed, being Polara, Polara 440, Polara 880, and Monaco.  In both markets however, it was only the Monaco which featured the extended tail lamps.

1966 Dodge Polara convertible (left) and 1966 Dodge Monaco two-door hardtop (right).

On a dark night, glimpsed by a traumatized witness for a second or two, that may have not been significant because tests did reveal the reflective silver finish on the Polara’s rear panel did indeed appear red at certain angles when the brake lights were activated but the distinction, along with a witness’s correction of this in the 1976 re-trial did lead some to suggest the police might have been coaching witnesses; “hardening the statement” in law enforcement lingo.  That actually aligned with the evidence provided by another witness and the prosecution would later suggest later suggested the confusion was caused by the defense misreading the court transcript.

Maria Callas (1923-1977), backstage after appearing as Madam Butterfly, Civic Opera House, Chicago, 17 November 1955.  Had Cio-Cio-San been this feisty, she'd have kept Pinkerton. 

Bud Daley’s famous AP (Associated Press) photograph of diva Maria Callas, still in her Cio-Cio-San’s kimono, caught her snarling at US Federal Marshal Stanley Pringle, one of eight process servers there to serve her with two summonses.  The image was shot just after she'd left the stage, following her third and final performance in Giacomo Puccini's (1858–1924) Madama Butterfly (Madam Butterfly, 1904) and appeared the next morning on the front page of the Chicago Sun-Times with the headline: “Not So Prim a Donna”.  The article reported her words as: “Chicago will hear about this!  I will not be sued!  I have the voice of an angel!  No man can sue me.”  It transpired however at least one man could sue, the action brought by one Edward “Eddy” Bagarozy, who claimed to be the singer’s agent, an assertion based on a contract dating from 1947; the plaintiff sought (1) specific performance of the contract and (2) in the alternative, damages of US$300,000 (depending on the metrics chosen, equivalent to between US$4-6 million in 2025).  As in many such matters, ultimately, things were settled out of court.

2002 Ferrari Enzo (left) & 2016 Ferrari LaFerrari (right).

Butterfly doors are used on some high-performance cars and not wholly as a gimmick, the advantage being that in such usually low-slung vehicle, they do make entry and exit somewhat easier than scissor doors.  There’s even more functionally on certain competition cars because (1) they allow the carefully-crafted aerodynamics of the canopy to be preserved, (2) the driver can enter and leave the cockpit more quickly and (3) the design allows the structural integrity of the shell to be maximized.  Butterfly doors open upwards and outwards and in that they differ from scissor doors which are hinged to move only upwards, thus offering the possibility of a greater aperture while demanding more lateral clearance.  Exotic doors were seen in a handful of pre-war cars, none of which reached production, but it was the Mercedes-Benz 300SL (W194) race-car of 1952 which brought to public attention the idea car doors could be something different.  Such was the response that the factory used the gull-wing doors when, in 1954, the 300SL (W198) was offered in a road-going version although the engineering, like the concept, was not new, having before been used in both marine architecture and aircraft fuselages.  Similarly, the design elements which underlie butterfly and scissor doors can be found in buildings and machinery dating back in some cases centuries but of late, all have come most to be associated with exotic cars.

1967 Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale

Variations on the theme had appeared on the show circuit for some time before butterfly doors debuted on the Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale in 1967 which was much admired but it was thought the complexity of such things would limit their use to low volume runs such as the Stradale (of which only 18 were built) or one-off styling exercises such as the Alfa Romeo Carabo (1968) which used scissors.  However, scissor doors appeared on the prototype Lamborghini Countach (LP500) and, despite the doubts of some, were retained when the production version was released in 1974.  Since then, gull-wings (which open upward on a horizontal axis, hinged from the roof), scissors (which open upwards, rotating on a horizontal axis, hinged from the front), butterflies (which open upwards and outwards on an axis unaligned to the vertical or horizontal, hinged from the A (windscreen) pillar and dihedrals (scissors which move laterally while rotating ) have become common (relatively speaking) and designers seem intent on adding some new twist which seem sometimes to add no advantage but usually attract publicity (admittedly an advantage in the abstract), the most complex to date being the dihedral synchro helix doors which open forward, slide forward and rotate up.

Mercedes-Benz McLaren SLR Coupé & Roadster (top) and McLaren MP4-12C Coupé & Spider (bottom).

When Mercedes-Benz released the SLR McLaren (2003-2009), in an attempt to make explicit the link with the 300SL, they laid it on with a trowel, the phrase “gullwing doors” appearing in the factory’s original press release no less than seven times, just in case people didn’t get the message.  Nobody was fooled and they’ve always been called butterflies.  One clever piece of engineering was seen when the SLR roadster was released, those butterfly doors made possible by using hinge points along the rather than at the top.  McLaren used a variation of this idea when it released the McLaren MP4-12C (2011-2014), omitting the top hinge which allowed the use of frameless windows even on the roadster (spider).

IBM's 1995 ThinkPad 701.

IBM's ThinkPad 701 series was available during 1995 and was that year's biggest seller in its class, its distinctive feature the "butterfly" keyboard, a design in response to the obviously contradictory demands that laptops be smaller and lighter while still equipped with keyboards big enough comfortably to be used (especially with the big, clumsy fingers of men).  The 701 was marketed in what was then an untypically IBM manner, newspaper advertisements in the run-up to the launch published with nothing but a butterfly in the corner, the IBM logo later added while a few days before the debut, the text "Watch for the announcement" appeared.  Butterfly had actually been the project's internal codename although it had never been intended for use as a product, apparently because IBM's corporate policies didn't permit the use of the names of living.  Still, the use in the teaser advertisements did suggest they planned it to catch on as a nickname and doubtlessly hoped for a better outcome than the last time a codename was picked-up, the unfortunate "peanut" (the PCjr (1984-1985)) not fondly remembered.

IBM Thinkpad 701 commercial, 1995.

IBM's 1995 ThinkPad 701.

The 701 series was well-received and butterfly keyboard much admired.  By 1995, although it was clear to most of the industry that OS/2 (IBM's pre-emptive, multi-tasking operating system (OS)) was unlikely to achieve critical mass in either the consumer or corporate markets but the company continued to try to nudge things along: While the 701s using Intel’s i486 DX2 50/25 MHz CPU (central processing unit) came pre-installed with a combo PC-DOS 6.3 OS & Microsoft Windows 3.11 (Windows for Workgroups) operating environment, those using the i486 DX4 75/25 MHz chip offered the option of a dual-boot so users could choose either the combo or IBM’s OS/2 Warp (3.0).  The main body of the keyboard was a two-piece construction, which, gear-driven by the movement of the lid, spread apart to become a single unit as the laptop was opened, the process reversed as the lid closed.  IBM actually called it the TrackWrite, but it was universally known as the butterfly and so compelling was the design that to this day, one is on permanent display in Manhattan's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).  Popular though it was, the market moved and the place on the demand curve at a price point which interested IBM was for laptops with larger screens so the need for the butterfly technology vanished, the 701 remaining unique.  Some patents have recently been filed which suggest manufacturers may be planning to release another laptop with a butterfly keyboard but, in an age of ultra-thin devices, it will presumably be a thing of low-tactility and thus lacking the responsiveness which had been one of the most attractive features of the original.

Thirty years after: 2025 Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 (Lenovo part number 21NSCTO1WWAU8).

Although thinner and with many advances internally, at first glance a 2025 Lenovo ThinkPad appears little different from a 1955 (non-butterfly) IBM original.  Like the shark and pencil, the basic laptop design seems to have attained its evolutionary perfection.  Among the features carried over from IBM was the "TrackPoint" (the small, red pointing device in the centre of the keyboard), used to control the on-screen pointer.  IBM made a number of variants of the red rubber cap (“Classic Dome”, “Soft Dome”, “Soft Rim” and (most memorably) “Eraser Head”) but (male) programmers tended to call it “the clit”. 

A descendent of IBM ThinkPad, the original IBM PC-1 (August 1981) was the MRCA (most recent common ancestor) of both and, even now, a few ancient traits remain identifiable.  In 2005, IBM exited the PC (personal computer) and laptop business, selling the lines to Chinese manufacturer Lenovo, including as a transitional arrangement the right to use the IBM brand on the hardware for five years, the last so labelled thus made in 2010.  However, because the ThinkPad and ThinkCentre trademarks were part of the IP (intellectual property) Lenovo acquired, these continue to appear.  The deal in 2005 meant that IBM, which in 1981 had triggered the PC revolution with the release in August of the original PC-1, was no longer a part (although it continued to be active in software and server production) of the industry which (unintentionally) it had played such a part in creating and which transformed the modern world.  Nothing lasts forever.