President

President (pronounced prez-i-duhnt or preza-dint (plus many regional variations)

(1) The title of the highest executive officer of most modern republics.

(2) An official appointed or elected to preside over an organized body of persons.

(3) The chief executive (and sometimes operating) officer of a college, university, society, corporation etc.  Many corporate presidents function as something like a “char(man) of the board” rather than a CEO or COO.

(4) A person who presides.

(5) An alternative form of “precedent” (long obsolete).

1325–1375: From the Middle English, from the Old French president, from Late Latin praesidēns (presiding over; president of; leader) (accusative praesidentem) from the Classical Latin praesident (stem of praesidēns), the noun use of the present participle of praesidēre (to preside over, sit in front of).  The Latin word was the substantivized present active participle of the verb praesideō (preside over) while the construct of the verb was prae (before) + sedeō (sit).  The verb’s original sense was “to sit before” (ie presiding at a meeting) from which was derived the generalized secondary meaning “to command, to govern”, praesidēns thus meaning variously “the one who presides at a meeting”, “governor or a region”, “commander of a force” etc.  In English the construct is thus understood as preside + -ent.  Preside was from the Old French presider, from Latin praesidēre, the construct being pre- (before) + sedere (to sit).  It displaced the Old English foresittan which may have been a calque of the Latin.  The –ent suffix was from the Middle English –ent (which existed, inter alia, also as –ant & -aunt.  It was from the Old French -ent and its source, the Latin -ēns (the accusative singular was -entem), suffix of present participles of verbs in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th conjugations.  The word is used with an upper case if applied honorifically (President of Italy; President Nixon etc) but not otherwise but this is of the more widely ignored rules in English.  Modifiers (minister-president, municipal president, president-elect et al) are created as required.  The spelling præsident is archaic.  President & presidency are nouns, verb & adjective, presidentship & presidenthood are nouns, presidenting & presidented are verbs, presidential is an adjective and presiˈdentially is an adverb; the noun plural is presidents.  The feminine form presidentess dates from at least 1763 and is probably obsolete unless used in humor but that may risk one’s cancellation.

US politics in the last decade has had moments of strangeness so some things which once seemed unthinkable are now merely improbable.

In the US, “president” was used in the original documents of the constitution (1787), picking up the earlier colonial use as “officer in charge of the Continental Congress” and it had also been used in several of the colonies and that in the sense of “chosen head of a meeting or group of persons”.  During and immediately after the Revolution, the tile was adopted by the chief magistrates of several states but before long all instead settled on “governor”, emulating the colonial designation.  In the US, the most common slang shortening of president is “pres”, dating from 1892 although dictionaries note the earlier existence of “prex” which was student slang for the president of a university or college.  First recorded in 1828, as a Latin verb, it meant “a request, entreaty”.  The handy initialization POTUS (President of the United States) dates from 1879 when it was created as part of the “Phillips Code” a system devised by US journalist, telegrapher & inventor Walter Polk Phillips (1846–1920) to speed up the transmission of messages across wire services and reduce their cost (the services charging per letter).  Among those in the code was SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States) and later (long after the original rationale had been overtaken by technology) journalists and others started using VPOTUS (Vice-President of the United States), FLOTUS (First Lady of the United States) and NPOTUS (next President of the United States) the latter once applied to both Al Gore (b 1948; VPOTUS 1993-2001 & in 2000 the NPOTUS)) and crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013 & in 2016 the NPOTUS).  Word nerds, pondering nomination of the latest NPOTUS (Kamala Harris (b 1964; VPOTUS since 2021) as the likely Democrat nominee are wondering what will emerge to describe her husband should she become CMOTUS (Chief Magistrate of the United States), the options presumably FGOTUS (First Gentlemen of the United States) or FHOTUS (First Husband of the United States).  Presumably FMOTUS (First Man of the United States) won’t be used.

A full bucket of veep.

In the US during the nineteenth century there was a joke about two brothers: "One ran off to sea and the other became vice-president; neither were ever heard of again."  That was of course an exaggeration but it reflected the general view of the office which has very few formal duties and can only ever be as powerful or influential as a president allows although the incumbent is "a heartbeat from the presidency".  John Nance Garner III (1868–1967, vice president of the US 1933-1941), a reasonable judge of these things, once told Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; US president 1963-1969) being VPOTUS was "not worth a bucket of warm piss" (which is polite company usually is sanitized as "warm spit").  For US vice-presidents, the slang veep (based on the phonetic V-P (pronounced vee-pee) is more commonly used.  Veep dates from 1949 and may have been influenced by the Jeep, the four wheel drive (4WD) light utility vehicle which had become famous for its service in World War II (1939-1945) with a number of allied militaries (the name said to be derived from an early army prefix GP (general purpose light vehicle)).  It was introduced to US English by Alben Barkley (1877-1956; VPOTUS 1949-1953), reputedly because his young grandchildren found “vice-president” difficult to pronounce.  In the press, the form became more popular when the 71-year-old VPOTUS took a wife more than thirty years younger; journalists decided she should be the veepess (pronounced vee-pee-ess).  Time magazine entered into the spirit of things, declaring the president should be Peep, the Secretary of State Steep, and the Secretary of Labor Sleep.  In the US, a number of VPOTUSs have become POTUS and some have worked out well although of late the record has not been encouraging, the presidencies of Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; VPOTUS 1961-1963, POTUS 1963-1968), Richard Nixon (1913-1994; VPOTUS 1953-1961, POTUS 1969-1974) and Joe Biden (b 1942; VPOTUS 2008-2017, POTUS 2021-2025 (God willing)) 1963-1968 all ending badly, in despair, disgrace and decrepitude respectively.

Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei (b 1939; supreme leader of of the Islamic Republic of Iran since 1989) hands Masoud Pezeshkian (b 1954, president of the Islamic Republic of Iran since 2024) the presidential seals of Office, Tehran, 28 July 2024.

Even in political science it’s not uncommon to see comparisons between “presidential system” and “parliamentary system” and while that verbal shorthand is well understood within the profession, it’s more accurate to speak of “presidential systems” because the constitutional arrangements vary so much.  Essentially, there are (1) “ceremonial presidencies” in which a president serves as head of state and may nominally be the head of the military but all executive functions are handled by a chancellor, premier or prime-minister (or equivalent office) and (2) “executive presidencies” where the roles of head of state & head of government are combined.  However, those structural models are theoretical and around the world there are many nuances, both on paper and in practice.  While there are many similarities and overlaps in presidential systems, probably relatively few are identical in the constitutional sense.  Sometimes too, the constitutional arrangements are less important than the practice.  In the old Soviet Union, the office of president was sometimes filled by a relatively minor figure, despite it being, on paper, a position of great authority, something replicated in the Islamic Republic of Iran where ultimate authority sits in the hand of the Supreme Leader (both of whom have been ayatollahs).  Many systems include something of a hybrid aspect.  In France, the president appoints a prime-minister and ministers who may come from the National Assembly (the legislature) but, upon appointment, they leave the chamber.  A US president appoints their cabinet from anywhere eligible candidates can be found but creates no prime-minister.  In the “ceremonial presidencies” there is also a spectrum of authority and the extent of that can be influenced more by the personality and ambition of a president than the defined powers.  One president of Ireland described the significance of the office as one of “moral authority” rather than legal power.

Some presidents who like being president.

(Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; b 1952; president or prime minister of Russia since 1999).

Mr Putin was prime minister from 1999 to 2000, president from 2000 to 2008, and again prime minister from 2008 to 2012 before returning to the presidency.  The unusual career trajectory was a consequence of the Russian constitution forbidding the one person from serving as president for more than two consecutive terms.   Russia has an executive presidency, Mr Putin liked the job and his solution to (effectively) keeping it was to have Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev (b 1965; president of Russia 2008-2012 & prime minister of Russia 2012-2020) “warm the chair” while Mr Putin re-assumed the premiership.  Generously, one could style this arrangement a duumvirate but political scientists could, whatever the constitutional niceties, discern no apparent difference in the governance of Russia regardless of the plaque on Mr Putin’s door.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (b 1954; prime-minister or president of the Republic of Türkiye since 2003), pictured here meeting Lindsay Lohan, Presidential Palace, Ankara, Türkiye, 27 January 2017.  Palace sources say the president regards this meeting as the highlight of his time in office.

Mr Erdoğan has been president since 2014 having previously served as prime minister between 2003–2014.  As prime-minister under Turkey’s constitution with a non-executive president, he was head of government.  After becoming president, he expressed his disapproval for the system and his preference for Turkey’s adoption of an executive presidency.  On 15 July 2016, a coup d'état was staged by the military and, as coups d'état go (of which Türkiye has had a few), it was a placid and unambitious affair and the suspicion was expressed it was an event staged by the government itself although there’s little evidence to support this.  Mr Erdoğan blamed an exiled cleric, his former ally Fethullah Gülen (b 1941), for the coup attempt and promptly declared a state of emergency.  It was scheduled to last three months but the parliament extended its duration to cover a purge of critical journalists, political opponents, various malcontents and those in the military not overtly supportive of Türkiye.  In April 2017 Mr Erdoğan staged a national referendum (which the people duly approved), transforming the Republic of Türkiye into an executive presidency, the changes becoming effective after the presidential and parliamentary elections of June 2018.

Reichspräsident (Reich President) Paul von von Hindenburg (right) accepts the appointment of Adolf Hitler (left) as Reichskanzler (Reich Chancellor), Berlin, Germany, 21 March 1933 (Potsdam Day).  Standing behind Hitler is Hermann Göring (1893–1946; leading Nazi 1922-1945, Hitler's designated successor & Reichsmarschall 1940-1945).

Of course, if one has effectively “captured” the state, one can just decide to become president.  When in 1934 Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) was informed Generalfeldmarschall Paul von Hindenburg (1847–1934; Reichspräsident (1925-1934) of the German Weimar Republic 1918-1933) was dying, unilaterally he had replaced the constitutional procedures covering such an eventuality, the “Law Concerning the Head of State of the German Reich” (issued as a cabinet decree) stipulating that upon the president’s death the office of Reichspräsident would be abolished and its powers merged with those of the chancellor under the title of Führer und Reichskanzler (Leader and Chancellor of the Reich).  Thus, the leadership of the party, government and state (and thus the military) were merged and placed exclusively in Hitler’s hands, a situation which prevailed until his death when the office of Reichspräsident was re-created (by a legal device no more complex than a brief document Hitler called his “political testament”) as an entity separate from the chancellorship.  Interestingly though, in a manner typical of the way things were done in the Third Reich, although in 1934 there ceased to be a Reichspräsident, maintained as administrative structures were (1) the Chancellery, (2) the Presidential Chancellery and (3) what became ultimately the Party Chancellery.

Mercedes-Benz 600 Landaulets a 1966 short roof (left) and 1970 long roof ("presidential", right),  

Between 1963-1981, Mercedes-Benz built 2190 600s (W100), 428 of which were the long wheelbase (LWB) Pullman versions, 59 were configured as Landaulets with a folding roof over the passenger compartment.  Built in both six and four-door versions, the Landaulets were available with either a short or long fabric roof, the latter known informally as the "presidential" although the factory never used the designation.  Twelve of the presidentials were built, a brace of which were bought by Kim Il-sung (Kim I, 1912–1994; Great Leader of DPRK (North Korea) 1948-1994) and subsequently inherited (along with the rest of North Korea) by Kim Jong-il (Kim II, 1941-2011; Dear Leader of DPRK (North Korea) 1994-2011) and Kim Jong-un (Kim III, b 1982; Supreme Leader of DPRK (North Korea) since 2011).

The 1970 Landaulet pictured was purchased by the Romanian government and used by comrade president Nicolae Ceaușescu (1918–1989; general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party 1965-1989) until he and his wife were executed (by AK47) after a “people's tribunal” held a brief trial, the swiftness of which was aided by the court-appointed defense counsel who declared them both guilty of the genocide of which, among other crimes, they were charged.  Considering the fate of other fallen dictators, their end was less gruesome than might have been expected.  Comrade Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980; prime-minister or president of Yugoslavia 1944-1980) had a similar car (among other 600s) but he died undisturbed in his bed.  The blue SWB (short wheelbase) car to the rear is one of the few SWB models fitted with a divider between the front & rear compartments including hand-crafted timber writing tables and a refrigerated bar in the centre console.  It was delivered in 1977 to the Iranian diplomatic service and maintained for Mohammed Reza Pahlavi (1919–1980; the last Shah of Iran 1941-1979).

Crooked Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974) chatting with crooked Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; US president 1963-1969).  His credibility destroyed by the Watergate scandal, Nixon is the only US president to resign from office.

The term Watergate has come to encompass an array of clandestine and often illegal activities undertaken by members of the Nixon administration but the name is derived from a break-in into Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) offices at the Watergate complex in Washington, DC on 17 June 1972.  A series of revelations made it clear the White House was involved in attempts cover up Nixon’s knowledge of this and other illegal activities.  He continued to insist he had no prior knowledge of the burglary, did not break any laws, and did not learn of the cover-up until early 1973.  Also revealed was the existence of previously secret audio tapes, recorded in the White House by Nixon himself.  The legal battle over the tapes continued through early 1974, and in April Nixon announced the release of 1,200 pages of transcripts of White House conversations between him and his aides. The House Judiciary Committee opened impeachment hearings and these culminated in votes for impeachment.  By July, the US Supreme Court had ruled unanimously that the full tapes, not just selected transcripts, must be released.  One of the tapes, recorded soon after the break-in, demonstrated that Nixon had been told of the White House connection to the Watergate burglaries soon after they took place, and had approved plans to thwart the investigation.   It became known as the "Smoking Gun Tape".  With the loss of political support and the near-certainty that he would be impeached and removed, was “tapped on the shoulder” by a group of Republicans from both houses of Congress, lead by crazy old Barry Goldwater (1909–1998).  Nixon resigned the presidency on 8 August 1974.

Mr Nixon assured the country he was "not a crook" although in that he was speaking of matters unrelated to the Watergate scandal.

One thing even his most committed enemies (and there were many) conceded of Nixon was his extraordinary tenacity and Nixon fought hard to remain president and the most dramatically Shakespearian act came in what came to be called the Saturday Night Massacre, the term coined to describe the events of 20 October 1973 when Nixon ordered the sacking of independent special prosecutor Archibald Cox (1912-2004), then investigating the Watergate scandal.  In addition to Cox, that evening saw also the departure of Attorney General Elliot Richardson (1920-1999) and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus (1932-2019).  Richardson had appointed Cox in May, fulfilling an undertaking to the House Judiciary Committee that a special prosecutor would investigate the events surrounding the break-in of the DNC’s offices at the Watergate Hotel.  The appointment was made under the ex-officio authority of the attorney general who could remove the special prosecutor only for extraordinary and reprehensible conduct.  Cox soon issued a demand that Nixon hand over copies of taped conversations recorded in the Oval Office; the president refused to comply and by Friday, a stalemate existed between White House and Department of Justice and all Washington assumed there would be a break in the legal maneuvering while the town closed-down for the weekend.

Before the massacre.  Attorney-General Elliot Richardson, President Richard Nixon and FBI Director-Designate Clarence Kelly (1911-1997), The White House, 1973.

However, on Saturday, Nixon ordered Richardson to fire Cox.  Richardson refused and resigned in protest. Nixon then ordered Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus to fire Cox.  Ruckelshaus also refused and resigned.  Nixon then ordered Solicitor General Robert Bork (1927-2012), as acting head of the Justice Department, to fire Cox; while both Richardson and Ruckelshaus had given personal assurances to congressional committees they would not interfere, Bork had not.  Brought to the White House in a black Cadillac limousine and sworn in as acting attorney-general, Bork wrote the letter firing Cox; thus ended the Saturday Night Massacre.  Perhaps the most memorable coda to the affair was Richardson’s memorable post-resignation address to staff at the Department of Justice, delivered the Monday morning following the “massacre”.  Richardson had often been spoken of as a potential Republican nominee for the presidency and some nineteen years later, he would tell the Washington Post: “If I had any demagogic impulse... there was a crowd... but I deliberately throttled back.” His former employees responded with “an enthusiastic and sustained ovation.”  Within a week of the Saturday Night Massacre, resolutions of impeachment against the president were introduced in Congress although the House Judiciary Committee did not approve its first article of impeachment until 27 July the following year when it charged Nixon with obstruction of justice.  Mr Nixon resigned less than two weeks later, on 8 August 1974, leaving the White House the next day.

Lyndon Johnson (left) & Sam Rayburn (1882-1961, right), Washington DC, 1954.

Nixon’s predecessor also liked being president and few have assumed the office in circumstances more politically propitious, even if it was something made possible by the assassination of John Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; US president 1961-1963).  Johnson had for over two decades worked to achieve control of the Senate and at the peak of the success of the Johnson-Rayburn congressional era the Democrats held majorities of 64-36 in the Senate and 263-174 in the House of Representatives.  In the 1964 presidential election (facing Barry Goldwater), Johnson won a crushing victory, securing over 60% of the popular vote and taking every state except Goldwater’s home state of Arizona and a handful south of the Mason-Dixon Line.  Relatively uninterested in foreign policy, Johnson had a domestic agenda more ambitious than anything seen since the US Civil War (1861-1865) a century before and what he achieved was far-reaching and widely appreciated for its implications only decades after his death but it was the US involvement in the war in Vietnam which consumed his presidency, compelling him dramatically to announce in April 1968 “…I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.”  As a message, it was strikingly similar to that in July 2024 delivered by Joe Biden (b 1942; US president 2021-2025), something nobody seemed to think a mere coincidence.  Also compelling are similarities between the two, both spending a political lifetime plotting and scheming to become president, having no success until curious circumstances delivered them the prize with which genuinely they achieved much but were forced to watch their dream of re-election slip from their grasp.

Nicolás Maduro (b 1962; President of Venezuela since 2013, left) and Hugo Chávez (1954-2013; President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela 1999-2013 (except during a few local difficulties in 2002, right)).

Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) of course liked being president and the events of 6 January (the so-called "capitol riot") are regarded by many (though clearly not a majority of US Supreme Court judges) as an attempted (if amateurish) insurrection, something Mr Trump denies encouraging.  To the south, in Venezuela, Mr Maduro also really likes being president and is from the comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) school of democracy: “It matters not who votes, what matters is who counts the votes”.  Accordingly, in July 2024 there was some scepticism when the National Electoral Council (the NEC, controlled by Mr Maduro’s political party) announced the president had won the 2024 presidential election with 51.2% of the vote, despite the country being in a sustained economic crisis during which it had suffered a rate of hyper-inflation at its peak so high the economists stopped calculation once it hit a million percent and seen more emigration than any country in South or Central America not actually in a state of declared war.  For a country which possesses the world’s largest known reserves of crude oil, the economic collapse has been a remarkable achievement.  Mr Maduro came to office after the death of Hugo Chávez, a genuinely charismatic figure who took advantage of a sustained high oil price to fund social programmes which benefited the poor (of which his country had a scandalous number) who, unsurprisingly voted for him; Mr Chávez won his elections fair and square.  The decrease in oil revenue triggered a chain of events which meant Mr Maduro hasn’t enjoyed the same advantages and some claim his victories in the 2013 & 2018 elections were anything but fair & square although the numbers were so murky it was hard to be definitive.  Details of the 2024 results however are not so much murky as missing and although the NEC provided aggregate numbers (in summary form), only some 30% of the “tally sheets” (with the booth voting details) were published.  Interestingly, the (admittedly historically unreliable) public opinion polls suggested Mr Maduro might secure 30-35% of the vote and the conspiracy theorists (on this occasion probably on sound ground) are suggesting the tally sheets made public might have been selected with “some care”.

In the way these things are done, the regime is sustained by being able to count on the reliability of the security forces and the conventional wisdom in political science is this can be maintained as long as (1) the members continued to be paid and (2) the percentage of the population prepared to take to the streets in violent revolt doesn’t reach and remain at a sustained critical mass (between 3-9% depending on the mechanics of the country).  So the streets are being watched with great interest but already Mr Maduro has received congratulations from the leaders of Iran, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (the DPRK; North Korea), Bolivia, Cuba, Honduras, and Nicaragua and Russia so there’s that.  Mr Maduro runs the country on a basis not dissimilar to being the coordinator of a number of "crime families" and on 2 August the US State Department announced they were recognizing the leader of the opposition as the "legitimate winner" of the election and thus president of the Bolivarian Republic; gestures like this have previously been extended but the regime's grip on power was strong enough to resist.  The opposition numbers are now greater and generous will be the resources devoted to ensuring a critical mass of protesters isn't achieved and Caracas doesn't see its own "capital riot".  For as long as the security forces remain willing and able to retain control of the streets and ensure the population isn't deprived of food for three days (another trigger point for revolution established by political scientists), Mr Maduro should be able to keep the job he so obviously enjoys. 

1955 Studebaker President Speedster.  As well as the styling motifs, there was a sense of exuberance in the two (and sometimes three) tone color schemes the US industry offered in the 1950s.  

Studebaker used the President name (they also offered a "Dictator" until events in Europe made that a harder sell) for their most expensive models, the first three generations a range of sedans, coupes and roadsters produced between 1926-1942.  The name was revived in 1955 and used until 1958, the range this time encompassing two and four-door sedans & station wagons and two-door coupes and hardtops.  The last of the Packards (the much derided, so-called "Packardbakers" which had a brief, unsuccessful run between 1957-1958) was based on the Studebaker President Speedster, the most admired of the range.

Scimitar

Scimitar (pronounced sim·i·tar or sim-i-ter)

An oriental sword with a curved blade broadening towards the point

1540s: From the Middle French cimeterre or the Italian scimitarra (and in English originally spelled also as cimiterie).  Most etymologists agree it’s from an unknown Ottoman Turkish word and ultimately from the Persian شمشیر‎ (šamšir) (sword), an unusual event because the linguistic variations in the Ottoman dialects are otherwise so well documented.  There are contested variations too in the Persian shimshir (pronounced shamsher), said by some to be derived from the Greek sampsera (a barbarian sword) but most authorities find this explanation unsatisfactory.  There were many variations too in spelling, the preferred modern form scimitar reflecting the influence of Italian but at least one dictionary preferred simitar as late as 1902.  In palaeontology, the term "scimitar-toothed cat" describes any of the various species of extinct prehistoric cats of the tribe Homotheriini.  Scimitar is a noun & verb and the gruesome sounding scimitared is an adjective; the noun plural is scimitars.

Antique Persian scimitar with leather wood scabbard featuring natural engraving on pommel and wooden handle adorned with embossed metal.  The heavy curved blade is hand-forged and thirty inches (760mm) in length with a deep blood grove.  The leather-covered wooden scabbard is equipped with a pair of belt rings and wire decoration.  The drag is heavily embossed with nature designs and is thirty-eight inches (965mm) long.

1973 Reliant Scimitar SE5a.

Produced between 1968-1986 (and based on an earlier coupé of the same name launched in 1964), the Reliant Scimitar was an early and successful attempt to combine the stylistic appeal of a coupé with the practicality of an estate.  Although English manufacturers had a long tradition of (mostly bespoke) two-door estates called shooting-brakes, they were expensive and (except for the rakish Aston Martins) often rather staid designs optimised for the carriage of dogs, shotguns, picnic baskets and such rather than style.  The Scimitar, although in some ways crude and lacking the refinement of the better-bred, was at the time unique in the market and sold well, triggering a trend for the design which is still sometimes seen.

1973: Marilyn Cole, Volvo 1800ES.

Beginning in 1964, Playboy magazine (much read for the interviews) began rewarding the Playmate of the Year (PotY) with a pink car and in 1973 it was awarded to Ms Marilyn Cole (b 1949).  Still one of the more admired Volvos, the 1800ES (1972-1973) underwent a conversion from a coupé (1961-1972) which was exquisitely executed, the re-design undertaken entirely in-house, the proposal by Pietro Frua's (1913-1983) studio (the P1800’s original designer) thought too avant-garde for Volvo buyers.  They may have had a point because Volvo owners do seem impressed more by frugality of operation and longevity than anything flashy and there are several 1800s which are documented as having covered more than a million miles (1.6 million km).  The coupé gained much from its use in a popular TV series shown in the early 1960s, a promotional opportunity made possible only because Jaguar declined to loan the production company one of its new E-Types (XKE) which had debuted in the same year as the P1800.  Still, the seductive E-Type hardly needed a TV series to create its image.  Doubtlessly the equally seductive Ms Cole won PotY on merit but her photo-shoot was the first in which a "full-frontal nude" image appealed in the magazine so that alone may have been enough to persuade the judges.

Aston Martin's original 1965 DB5 Shooting Brake (left) and one of the eleven subsequently built by Radford (right).

Before Reliant adopted the style, there were Aston Martin shooting brakes.  Sir David Brown (1904–1993) liked his DB5 coupé (which the factory, in their English way, called a "saloon") but found it too cramped comfortably to accommodate his polo gear, shotguns and hunting dogs.  Now, that would be called a “first world problem” but because Brown then owned Aston Martin, he simply wrote out a work order and had his craftsmen create a bespoke shooting brake (thereby confirming the informal English definition of the term: “station wagon owned by someone rich”) which they did by hand-forming the aluminum with hammers over wooden formers.  It delighted him and solved his problem but created another because good customers stared writing him letters asking for their own but Aston Martin was at full capacity building DB5s and developing the up-coming DB6 and V8 models.  With a bulging order book, the resources didn’t exist to add another niche model so the project was out-sourced to the coachbuilder Radford which built a further 11 (and subsequently another 6 based on the DB6).  That Brown’s original car was bespoke seems clear but the others are a gray area because the coachbuilder’s records and assessments of the cars indicate they were identical in all but the color of the paint and leather trim.  There may have been only 12 DB5s and 6 DB6s but by conventional definition, all but one from some sort of production line (albeit one both leisurely and exclusive) so can all but the original be thought truly bespoke?  According to the Aston Martin website, all are bespoke so presumably that will remain the last word on the subject.

1970 Aston Martin DBS shooting brake by FLM Panelcraft (left), 1992 Aston Martin Virage Shooting Brake (centre) and 2023 Aston Martin Vanquish Zagato Shooting Brake (right).

The troubled 1970s were unforgiving times for the coachbuilders for which shooting brakes had been a minor but lucrative side-hustle and FLM’s Panelcraft’s 1970 Aston Martin DBS shooting brake remained a one-off.  Things had improved by the 1990s and although the industry in the years since has had its ups & downs, by 2023 it was possible for one buyer in Japan to order a Vanquish Zagato Shooting Brake in pink.  Aston Martin are one of the English manufacturers which have long offered custom (even one-off) colors (at a price) and Bristol used to emphasise the nature of their clientele by mentioning often they would match the tints to old-school or regimental ties.  Sadly, Bristol entered liquidation in 2020 and the world lost one of its more charming anachronisms.

1970 Range Rover, the car which for a generation doomed the after-market shooting brake.

Although now thought a "luxury car", the original Range Rover was a utilitarian device with rubber floor mats, provided because it was assumed owners would need to "hose it out" after a day on the farm in their muddy boots.  As late as 1969, the plan had been for a basic four-cylinder version and an up-market V8 but constraints of time and budget meant only a single version was released, combining the interior fittings of the former with the latter's mechanical specification.  Not until the release in 1981 of the Range Rover Vogue did carpet, air-conditioning, leather and walnut facias appear, a response to the fit-outs being offered by a number of third-party operations.   

The industry never settled on an agreed definition of the shooting brake body style but from the 1930s it’s been used usually to describe a two-door car (there were variations) with estate-car coachwork added.  In recent years, what are (sometimes misleadingly) labelled shooting brakes have tended to be based on fast sports cars rather than the large chassis familiar in the 1930s when the intent was to offer the rich a large, comfortable car for outings like shooting parties, the enlarged rear compartment easily accessible and sufficiently capacious handily to accommodate guns, picnic baskets and (on a good day) a few brace of grouse on the trip home.  For reasons related to economics and engineering, the creation of shooting brakes declined in the post-war years and the release of the Range-Rover in 1970 rendered the style redundant except for the rare creations for those who still hankered for conspicuous exclusivity.  The sporty breed of coupés with estate coachwork which many (Volvo, Reliant, BMW, Ferrari, Lancia et al) have offered in recent decades are really not shooting brakes, the design instead intended to enlarge luggage space beyond the “toothbrush & bikini” capacity of some sports cars.  However, nobody seems to have thought of a better term and because of the historic association with class & wealth, the target market likes “shooting brake”.  The origin of the name lies in the shooting brake which was a large horse-drawn cart suitable for use by shooting parties.  The “brake” in the name is derived from the popularity among shooting parties of the heavy-framed carts used when “breaking-in” spirited horses although, etymologists have pointed out the Dutch word brik (cart or carriage) but any link is speculative.  In the UK, the term brake became so identified with large horse-drawn carts than it came to be applied widely, extended to wagons generally, whether used for shooting parties or not.  In France, an estate car (station wagon) was called a break, the French (somewhat unusually) following the example in English, the original form having been break de chasse (hunting break).

Dog owner Lindsay Lohan is part of the target market for shooting brake manufacturers although it's doubtful she's a fan of hunting & shooting.  Her first dog she name Gucci because the hound "chewed up" a pair of Gucci boots, something for which she was forgiven, living to the age of fifteen.

Borrowing shamelessly from Jensen which between 1966-1973 produced the FF, Ferrari chose the model name FF to allude to the specification (4 seats and 4 wheel-drive) although it was all-wheel-drive (AWD) rather than four-wheel-drive (4WD), the latter now indicating something built with some emphasis on off-road use.  The Jensen FF nomenclature was a reference to “Ferguson Formula” the AWD system developed by Ferguson Research, a company founded by Harry Ferguson (1884–1960).  Ferguson had developed its system for agricultural vehicles but the advantages for cars on the road or racetrack were obvious and a number of projects followed, all successful pieces of engineering but the economics were at the time not compelling and it wasn’t until the 1970s that AWD vehicles began to appear in any volume.

1966 Jensen FF Series 1 (left) and 1971 Series III, one of only 15 built (right).

Visually, the FF was distinguished from the standard Interceptor by a 5 inch (127 mm) longer wheelbase, added ahead of the windscreen to accommodate the transfer case and associated hardware, the twin vents the obvious marker (the standard Interceptor used one).  All used the combination of Chrysler's 383 cubic inch (6.3 litre) B-Series V8 and TorqueFlite (727) automatic transmission and tales of some leaving the factory with the 440 (7.2) RB engine or manual transmissions are apocryphal.  Nor it would seem have any FFs subsequently been been fitted with the bigger engine although some have been transformed into convertibles using the parts from the factory's run of 267 (1974-1976), no small project but one which demands no modification of the complex drivetrain.

GKN FFF 100, MIRA (Motor Industry Research Association) proving ground, Warwickshire, England, September 1972, the images from the on-line Jensen Museum.  The car just prior to the test run (left) shows the raised centre panel which allowed the carburettors to protrude; the dual Holley 3116 carburetors atop the short cross-ram manifold  (centre) and the 0-100 mph-0 run in the wet (right).       

There was however one FF which did hint at the possibilities offered by mixing AWD with prodigious quantities of power and torque.  GKN (now an aerospace multi-national but originally Guest, Keen and Nettlefolds, a manufacturing concern with roots traceable to 1759 at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution) in 1971, impressed by the FF, commissioned a special build.  Revealed in 1972 as the FFF 100 (claimed by some to be a reference to a planned production run but probably meaning nothing in particular unless an allusion to 100 mph (162 km/h), a speed which would later figure in the car's 15 minutes of fame), it used a one-off body of no great distinction but beneath the bland and derivative lines sat the intoxicating sight of a 426 cubic inch (7.0 litre) V8 (remembered as the much-vaunted "Street Hemi", a (slightly) civilized version of the unit used on the NASCAR ovals and on drag strips).  Complete with a power-boosting "short cross-ram" dual quad induction system and built to the A990 specification used in drag racing, the FFF 100 was lighter than the FF and when tested in a demonstration run, it achieved 0-100 mph-0 in 12.2 seconds and that was on a wet track; when the test was repeated in the dry the number was 11.5, a mark for road cars which would stand for three decades.  It proved beyond doubt the benefits of AWD & ABS although it wouldn't be until the 1990s many began to enjoy the combination.  However, any possibility of a production FFF 100 was fanciful, the FF and the Street-Hemi by 1972 already retired so all missed what would for decades been the world's fastest shooting brake.       

When the Jensen FF debuted, there was thus no AWD-4WD distinction and it was always referred to as “4WD”, its other notable innovation the fitting of Dunlop Maxaret’s mechanical anti-lock braking system, something which in rudimentary form had appeared on aircraft as early as 1908.  It was later used by railways but cars under braking on roads present more challenges for ABS than aircraft on runways or trains on tracks and it wasn’t until the 1950s that the first (almost) viable implementations appeared.  ABS is essentially a form of “pressure modulation” and the accepted abbreviation doesn’t actually reference the often quoted  “Anti-Lock Braking System”; the correct source is Anti-Bloc System, the name adopted in 1966 when Daimler-Benz and the Heidelberg electronics company Teldix (later absorbed by Bosch) began a co-development of a hybrid analogue-electronic system.  That was presented in a “proof-of-concept” display in 1970 during a media at the company’s Untertürkheim test track but what the engineers knew was that use in mass-production depended on the development of digital controllers, more reliable, more powerful and less complex than analogue electronics, the conclusion US manufacturers soon drew when their early implementation of electronic fuel-injection (EFI) proved so troublesome.  Such things were obviously going to be relatively cheap and available after Intel in 1971 released the 4004 (the first commercially available microprocessor and the ancestor of the x86 family and all which followed) and in 1978, Daimler-Benz made available the first version of ABS on some of the Mercedes-Benz 450 SEL 6.9s (1975-1980, the W116 platform 1972-1980) sold in the European market.  The Dunlop Maxaret mechanical ABS used on the Jensen FF was less sophisticated but was reliable and a remarkable advance and while some testers found adaptation a challenge, others noted that in skilled hands (and feet), it was in some ways superior because one could learn to “tramp-through” the system and induce wheel-locking selectively, something useful in the right circumstances.

Ferrari FF (2011-2016): The factory's official "hero" shot (left), an FF fitted with "aerodynamically optimized" ski boot (centre) and with rear compartment displaying "shooting brake" credentials (right). 

The Jensen FF really wasn’t a shooting brake although the huge and distinctive rear window was also a hatch so it did offer some of the advantages.  The Ferrari FF "shooting brake" (the factory seems not to have used the term although every journalist seems to thought it best) was very much in the same vein, its capaciousness closer to that of a “big coupé” rather than any size of station wagon although the factory did circulate photographs of the rear-compartment comfortably (if snugly) packed with a set of golf-clubs and a half dozen-odd travel bags; with folding rear seats, Ferrari claimed a trunk (boot) capacity of 450-800 litres (16-28 cubic feet).  Like the Jensen, it was aimed at those who like to drive to the ski-fields and the promotional material also included pictures of ski-racks and even a roof-mounted “ski-box”, able to hold ski-gear for four.  Despite the high price, the Jensen FF sold remarkably well but its market potential was limited because all Ferguson’s development work had been done in England using right-hand-drive (RHD) vehicles and the system was so specific it wasn’t possible to make a left-hand-drive (LHD) FF without re-engineering the whole mechanism which was so bulky the passenger's front seat was narrower than that of the driver so much did things intrude.  Consequently, only 320 were built, apparently at a financial loss.  Ferrari did better with their FF, over 2000 sold between 2011–2016 and although the packaging may have been remarkably efficient, with a 6.3 litre (382 cubic inch) V12 it was never going to be economical, listed by the 2013 US Department of Energy as the least fuel-efficient car in the midsize class, sharing that dubious honor with the bigger, heavier (though not as rapid) Bentley Mulsanne.  For owners, the 335 km/h (208 mph) top speed was presumably sufficient compensation.

Equiluminant

Equiluminant (pronounced ee-kwuh-loom-uh-nuhnt)

(1) In optics, the quality of two or more objects or phenomenon being equally luminant.

(2) Figuratively, two or more people being judged equally illustrious, attractive, talented etc.

1860s: The construct was equi- +‎ luminant.  As an adjective, luminant means "that which illuminates; that which is luminous" while as a noun it describes "an illuminating agent".  Luminant was from the Latin verb lūminant, the third-person plural present active indicative of lūminō, the construct being lūmen, from the Proto-Italic louksmən, from the primitive Indo-European léwk-s-mn̥, from the root lewk- (bright) +‎ -ō (appended to form agent nouns).  The accepted synonym is isoluminant and equiluminescent is the alternative form.  When used figuratively, although it would make no sense in science, the comparative is “more equiluminant” and the superlative most “equiluminant”.  Equiluminant & equiluminescent are adjectives and equiluminance is a noun; the noun plural is equiluminances (which some list as non-standard).

The prefixes: equi-, homo-, peri- & iso-

The prefixes “equi-”, “homo-”, “peri-” & “iso-” are all used to in same way suggest a concept of sameness or equality, but by tradition and convention, are used in different contexts to produce different meanings or emphasis:

Equi- is used to indicate equality, evenness, or uniformity and is often seen in mathematical, scientific & technical publications to describe something is equal in measure or evenly distributed such as equilateral (a shape having all sides of equal length, equidistant (being at equal distances from two or more points) & equilibrium (a state of balance where opposing forces or influences are equal).  Homo- is used to imply “same” or “alike” and thus sameness or (sometimes by degree) similarity.  In technical use it is a standard form in biology, chemistry & the social sciences to indicate sameness in kind, structure, or composition and by far the most common modern use is in the now familiar “homosexual” which in many jurisdictions is now a proscribed (or at least discouraged) term because of negative associations (“homo” as a stand-alone word also having evolved as a slur used of, about or against homosexual men).  The uses of the prefix are illustrated by homogeneous (composed of parts or elements that are all of the same kind, homologous (having the same relation, relative position, or structure) & homonym (in linguistics words which sound the same or are spelled the same but have different meanings).  Iso- is used to denote equality, uniformity, or constancy in terms of specific characteristics like size, number, or configuration and is most used in scientific and mathematical publications.  Examples of use include isometric (having equal dimensions or measurements, isothermal (having constant temperature) & isosceles (having two sides of equal length).  Peri- is used to denote “surrounding or enclosing”, or “something near or around a specific area or object”, examples including perimeter (the continuous line forming the boundary of a closed geometric figure), periscope (an optical instrument for viewing objects that are above the level of direct sight, using mirrors or prisms to reflect the view & peripheral (relating to or situated on the edge or periphery of something.

So equi-focuses on equality in measure, distance, or value, homo- focuses on sameness in kind, structure, or composition, iso- focuses on equality or uniformity in specific characteristics or conditions while peri- :focuses on surrounding or enclosing, or being near or around something.  For most purposes equi- & iso- can be used interchangeably and which is used tends to be a function of tradition & convention.

Equiluminant colors

An example the equiluminant in blue & orange.  In color the text appears at the edges to "shimmer" or "vibrate".  When re-rendered in grayscale, because the value of the luminance is so close, the two shades become almost indistinguishable.

In optics, “equiluminant” is a technical term used to colors with the same (or very similar) luminance (brightness) but which differ in hue (color) or saturation (intensity).  The standard test for the quality is to convert a two-color image to grayscale and, if equiluminant, the colors would appear nearly indistinguishable because they share the same level of “lightness”.  It’s of some importance in fields as diverse as military camouflage, interior decorating, fashion, astronomy and cognitive psychology.  In the study of visual Perception, when colors are equiluminant, the human visual system relies primarily on the differences in hue and saturation rather than brightness to distinguish them and can create unique visual effects and challenges in perception, as the brain struggles will in most cases struggle to segregate colors based solely on luminance; essentially, there is a lack of information.

An enigmatic abstraction (2024) by an unknown creator.  This is an example of the use of non-equiluminant shades of orange & blue.

In art and design, the qualities of is used to create visual effects, the perception of some “shimmering” or “vibrating” at the edges where colors meet actually a product of the way the different hues are perceived by the brain to be “less defined” (a process not dissimilar to the “grayscaling”) and thus “dynamic”, lending the impression of movement even in a static image, especially if seen with one’s peripheral vision.  While a handy device for visual artists, that’s something of significance in the world of practicalities because the close conjunction of equiluminant colors can make certain visual tasks more difficult, most obviously reading text or distinguishing shapes and objects.  All that happens is the luminance contrast can means there’s a perception of fuzziness at the edges of shapes which means people can suffer a diminished ability to distinguish fine details and the smaller the object (text, numerals or geometric shape), the more acute the problem.  The phenomenon has been well researched, scientists using the properties in equiluminant colors to study how the brain processes color and the findings have been important in fields like instrumentation the production of warning signs.

Richard Petty's 1974 NASCAR Dodge Charger (left) and 3 ton Super-Duty Jack, produced under licence by the Northern Tool Company (right).  1974 was the last year in which the big-block engines were allowed to run in NASCAR; the big-block era (1962-1973) was NASCAR's golden age.  Richard Petty (b 1937) used a "reddish orange" to augment his traditional blue when he switched from Plymouth to Dodge as the supplier of his NASCAR stockers in the early 1970s.  His team was actually sponsored by STP rather than Gulf and STP wanted their corporate red to be used but in the end a "reddish orange" compromise was negotiated.  However, when he licenced the Northern Tool Company to sell a "Richard Petty" jack, the shade used appeared to be closer to the Gulf orange.

1968 Lamborghini 1R tractor in signature colors (left) and rendered in grey-scale (right); the combination non-equiluminant.  This version of 1R is known as the cofano squadrato (squared hood (bonnet)).  It was produced between 1966-1969 and replaced the earlier 1R (1961-1965) which featured a rounded hood.  The earlier model seems not retrospectively to have been christened but presumably it would have been the cofano arrotondato, proving everything sounds better in Italian than English.  An Italian could read from a lawnmower repair manual and it would sound poetic.  

At scale, equiluminance doesn’t have to be obvious for it still to have desirable “side effects” and while it’s often noted two specific hues: (1) the blue Llewellyn Rylands pigments 3707 (Zenith Blue, replicated by Dulux as “Powder Blue”) & (2) the orange Rylands pigments 3957 (Tangerine, replicated by Dulux as “Marigold”) are “equiluminant colors”, that their use in combination appears so often on cars, motor-cycles and other stuff with wheels is due less to the claim the shades seem at the edge to “vibrate” that the striking combination appearing on some of the Gulf Oil sponsored Ford GT40s and Porsche 917s during sports car racing’s golden era which ended in the early 1970s.  Given the surface area involved, the effect is probably imperceptible which viewed at close range but the science does suggest that at speed (and these were fast machines), at the typical viewing range found on racetracks, there was what the optical analysts call “visual pop”, something which heightens the brain’s perception of motion,

Ford GT40 chassis# 1075, winner of the 1968 & 1969 Mans 24 hour endurance classic in Gulf livery.

Gulf Oil however didn’t explicitly have the equiluminescent in mind when they choose to adopt the combination.  Originally, the Gulf GT40s were painted in the their corporate colors of dark blue & orange but Gulf was an acquisitive conglomerate and in late 1967 it took over the Wilshire Oil Company of California, the corporate colors of which were powder blue and orange, something which Gulf’s management thought “more exciting” and better suited to a racing car.  The change was made for the 1968 season with the Fords now running as five-litre (302 cubic inch) sports cars, governing body having banned the seven-litre engines the cars previously had used (under a variety of names, motorsport has for decades been governed by some of sport’s dopiest regulatory bodies).  In the Gulf colors, GT40 chassis #1075 won the Le Mans 24 hour endurance classic in 1968 & 1969 (repeating the brace Ford had achieved with the seven-litre (427 cubic inch) machines in 1966-1967), the first time the same car had achieved victory twice.  In 1968, the same car won the BOAC International 500, the Spa 1000-kilometer race, and the Watkins Glen 6-hour endurance race, while in 1969 it also took the Sebring 12-hour race, a remarkable achievement for a race car thought obsolescent.  The livery has since been much replicated.

1971 Porsche 917K in Gulf livery.  The fins were added to improve straight-line stability and were strikingly similiar to those which appeared on some late 1950s US Chryslers although the aerodynamic properties of those were dubious.

Interestingly, the team painting the GT40s were aware of the issue created by equiluminant colors and as a matter of professional pride didn’t want it thought they’d created something with “fuzzy edges” so deliberately they included a dark blue hairline-border around the orange, reducing the optical illusion to ensure everything looked immaculately smart when photographed.  When the Gulf team in 1970 switched to using Porsche 917s for the World Sports Car championship, they adopted the expedient of a black line of definition between the blue & orange so the whole enduring appeal of the combination lies just in the striking contrast and relies not at all on the equiluminance.

Ford GT Heritage Edition First Generation (left) and Second Generation (right). 

Little more than 100 GT40s were built but Ford noted with interest the ongoing buoyancy of the replica market, thousands of the things built in a number of countries.  In the twenty-first century, the company decided to create their own replicas but the new GT (2004-2006) was hardly a clone and although it shared the basic mechanical layout and the shape (though larger) was close, it was a modern machine.  The car wasn’t called GT40 because the rights to the name had ended up with another company and Ford declined to pay the demanded price.  Over 4000 were built and one special run was a tribute to the 1968-1969 cars in Gulf livery, 343 of the “Heritage Editions” produced.  A second generation of GTs was produced between 2016-2022 and was very modern, the demands of the wind-tunnel this time allowed to prevail over paying tribute to the classic lines of the 1960s.  Although the supercharged 5.4 litre V8 didn’t return and the new car used a turbocharged 3.5 litre (214 cubic inch) V6, it outperformed all its predecessors over the last 60-odd years (all the original GT40 chassis built between 1964-1969) including the 7 litre (427 cubic inch) monsters which won at Le Mans in 1966 & 1967 so it took decades, but eventually there really was a "replacement for displacement".  The V6 also was used also in pick-up trucks which doesn't sound encouraging but versions of the small & big block V8s used in the GT40s also saw similar service, the latter even first appearing in the doomed Edsel.  Production of the second generation was limited to 1350 units, 50 of which were “Heritage Editions” in the Gulf colors, one of several “limited editions”.

Lindsay Lohan who when swimming uses both orange and blue, sometimes as solids (left and centre), sometimes in combination (right).