Macabre

Macabre (pronounced muh-kah-bruh, muh-kahb or muh-kah-ber)

(1) Gruesome or horrifying; grim; ghastly; horrible.

(2) Of, pertaining to, dealing with, or representing death, especially its grimmer or uglier aspects.

(3) Of or suggestive of the allegorical dance of death and related works of art.

1370s: From the French macabre, from the Middle French danse (de) Macabré, of uncertain origin.  It may have been influenced by the Medieval Latin chorēa Machabaeōrum (a representation of the deaths of Judas Maccabaeus and his brothers) but there’s no documentary evidence (the Maccabees a “liberation movement” who in the second and first centuries BC established Jewish independence in the Land of Israel),  In the popular imagination, the biblical Maccabees became associated death because of the doctrines and prayers for the dead in 2 Maccabees 12:43-46 in which is discussed Judas Maccabeus sending money to Jerusalem as a “sin offering” for those of his soldiers who had fallen in battle while wearing idolatrous amulets, forbidden by Jewish law.  Theologically, the passage is controversial because not all accept the interpretations which focus on the significance of a Jewish belief in prayer for the dead and the concept of Purgatory as a place rather than conceptual imagining.  The notion of “prayer & payments” as the means by which the dead could be “loosed from their earthly sins” so in Purgatory their souls would undergo purification after death did become embedded in Christianity, later associated with the rampant corruption of clerical indulgences which would play a part in triggering the reformation.  The alternative suggestion for the etymology is the French form was (via the Spanish macabro) from the Arabic مَقَابِر (maqābir) (cemeteries), plural of مَقْبَرَة (maqbara) or مَقْبُرَة (maqbura).  Borrowing from the Arabic in plural form was not unusual (eg magazine, derived from the plural مخازن (maxāzin) of the Arabic singular noun مخزن (maxzan) (storehouse; depot; shop) so etymologically the theory is possible but, like the Latin link, evidence wholly is lacking. 

The abstracted sense of “characterized by gruesomeness” emerged in French in the 1840s and that was picked up by English by at least 1889, dictionaries noting a racial sense from 1921.  The sense of “a comedy that deals in themes and subjects usually regarded as serious or taboo” was what extended the figurative use, suggesting “something morbid”.  The origin of that, although contested, is most associated with the French left and new wave of the late 1950s (pièce noire, comédie noire) which may have been the source of the terms “black comedy” & “dark comedy” in English.  Words similar in meaning include spooky, ghastly, ghoulish, grisly, morbid, gruesome, weird, frightening, grim, lurid, cadaverous, deathly, dreadful, frightful, ghostly, hideous, horrible, offensive & scary.  The first known reference to “danse macabre” dates from 1376 in the poem Respit de la Mort: Je fis de macabre la dance (Spared from death, the dance of the macabre) by Jehan Le Fèvre:

Je fis de Macabre la danse,
Qui tout gent maine à sa trace
E a la fosse les adresse.

I danced with the Macabre,
Which all people follow in his footsteps
And send them to the grave.

The poet used it as a noun, inspired presumably by a near-death experience but when it in the early-mid 1400s came into common use it was as an adjective and during the Romantic era it assumed also the meanings some distance from death (grotesque, tragic etc).  In the late Middle English the spelling was Macabrees daunce (reflecting the influence of the Church) and the French pronunciation (with mute “e”) was a misreading of the Middle French forms.  Macabre is an adjective, macabreness is a noun and macabrely is an adverb.  The spelling macaber is now so rare as to be functionally extinct and in popular culture macabre is used as a non-standard noun (the plural “the macabres”, on the model of the disparaging “the ghastlies”).  

Dance of Death

Danse Macabre of Basel (circa 1450), a memento mori painting by an unknown artist, Historisches Museum Basel (Basel Historical Museum), Barfüsserkirche, Basel, Switzerland.

The Danse Macabre (Dance of Death) was an artistic genre of allegory dating from the late Middle Ages; exploring the universality of death, it made clear that however high or low exulted one’s station in life, the death ultimately will visit all.  It was a popular artistic motif in European folklore and the most elaborated of all Medieval macabre art.  During the fourteenth century, Europe was beset by deathly horrors, recurring famines, the Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453) and, looming over all, the Black Death, an outbreak of bubonic plague which between 1346-1353 may have killed as many as 50 million, making it one of history's most lethal pandemics.  In reducing the population of Europe by between a third and a half, its demographic, political and economic implications were felt for centuries.  In these difficult times, when death not infrequently would strike just about every family in some regions, the Danse Macabre culturally was assimilated across the continent, an omnipresent chance of either a sudden or lingering, painful death spurring not only a religious desire for penance but also an urge to make the most of whatever time was left to one.

Macabre montage: Three images from Terry Richardson's (b 1965) suicide-themed shoot with Lindsay Lohan, 2012.

Especially during the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, the theme was a source of the vivid and stark paintings on the walls of churches and the cloisters of cemeteries and ossuaries.  Art of the Danse Macabre was typically a depiction of the personification of death summoning the doomed to dance along to the grave and they featured characters from the exultated to the most humble; popes, emperors, lawyers, laborers & children all appearing, the popular motifs in the works including hourglasses, skulls and extinguished candles.  Although the art was moral and allegorical, many also had a satirical tone and, reflecting the mores of the times, although they made clear death finally would claim rich and poor alike, the living usually were arranged in an order following the the conventional sense of precedence, popes, cardinals, kings, dukes and such at the head of the queue, blacksmiths, fellmongers and farm workers knowing their place; the “cold gradations of decay” in the phrase of Dr Johnson (Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)).  The pieces were also among the multi-media productions of the medieval period, appearing variously in manuscript illustrations, printed books, paintings on canvas, wood & stone, engravings on stone and metal, woodcuts, sculpture, tapestry embroidery & stained glass as well as in prose & verse.  They were produced as mementos mori, a Latin phrase translated literally as “remember you will die”.  That wasn’t intended to be thought macabre but rather a gentle reminder of the brevity of life and the fragility of earthly existence, hopefully inspiring folk to live lives more fulfilling and purposeful.  The tradition, although it became increasingly detached from its religious associations, never died and has enjoyed periodic resurgences over the last six-hundred years, notably after horrific events such as epidemics or World War I (1914-1918).  The COVID-19 pandemic seemed not to stimulate similar art; popular culture’s preferred platforms have shifted.

The lure of macabre collectables 

It's macabrely ironic the market for bits and pieces associated with RMS Titanic (1911-1912) continues to be buoyant and although for decades after the end of World War II (1939-1945) the trade in Nazi memorabilia flourished on both sides of the Atlantic, in recent years such collecting has attracted increasingly strident criticism and in some jurisdictions the (public) buying and selling of certain items has been banned,  There remains some tolerance for the trade what which would otherwise anyway be collectable (aircraft, armoured vehicles and such) and items of genuine historical significance (such as diplomatic papers) remain acceptable but the circulation of mere ephemera with some Nazi link is increasingly being condemned as macabre and the higher the prices paid, the more distasteful it’s claimed to be.  Nor is it only material tainted by an association with the Nazis which is condemned by some as “trading in the macabre”.

French racing driver Pierre Levegh (1905-1955) in Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR (chassis 0006/55, left), the wreckage after the fire finally was extinguished (centre) and the surviving Elektron panel (right).

In 2023, a battered metal panel from the Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR (W196S, chassis 0006/55) which crashed during the running of the 1955 Le Mans 24 Hour endurance classic sold at auction for US$37,000.  That would have been unremarkable except it was in the aftermath of that crash that more than 80 spectators were killed and many more badly injured; it remains the most lethal single event in the history of the sport and one which led to some profound changes, many of which remain in force to this day.  Footage of the crash is available on-line and it will shock those accustomed to modern safety standards to see the cars continuing to race despite the carnage in the grandstand only metres away, the driver’s corpse lying on the track and the wreckage of the 300 SLR continuing to burn, the water used by fire-fighters making the intensity worse because of the exotic Elektron (a magnesium alloy) used in the lightweight construction.  The surviving panel (a cover placed for aerodynamic advantage over the passenger-side of the cockpit) was retrieved by a track marshal and it remained in his family’s possession until offered at auction by his nephew who inherited it.  Based on the unique underside markings, the factory confirmed the provenance and the auction house described it as “an authentic relic” from one of the “most exclusive models in the history of the automobile”, its special significance coming from involvement in “one of the most significant events in the history of international motor sport”.  Some though it macabre to be trading in something which gained its notoriety from so much death but the interest in such stuff in long standing, the Austin-Healey also involved in the incident in 2011 selling for US$1.3 million although it subsequently had been repaired and continued to race so anyway would have been a collectable on the historic racing circuit though doubtlessly it would have commanded a lower price.

US film star James Dean (1931–1955) with 1955 Porsche 550 Spyder (chassis 550-0055) shortly before his death, the 1955 Ford Country Squire with tandam-axle trailer the team’s tow vehicle (left), the wrecked Porsche (centre) and its salvaged transaxle in display mounting (right).

The Cadillac to Mr Dean's left is a 1953 model and, beyond both having four wheels, one of the few things it had in common with the Porsche was the availability of a manual transmission (Porsche at the time offered no choice).  The black Cadillac was probably fitted with the company's four-speed Hydra-Matic automatic transmission although, after a fire destroyed the factory, almost 30,000 were in 1953 equipped with Buick's famously smooth but inefficient two-speed Dynaflow.  After the end of production of the 1953 Series 75, almost three decades would pass before Cadillac again offered a model with a manual transmission although that didn't end well (among the Cadillac crowd the Cimarron (1982-1988) is never spoken of except in the phrase "the unpleasantness of 1982") but in a much more convincing way the option returned to the list in 2004 and by 2013, while one could buy a Cadillac with a clutch pedal, one could not buy such a Ferrari.  For most of the second half of the twentieth century, few would have thought that anything but improbable or unthinkable.   

The death toll need not be in the dozens for collectors to be drawn to relics associated with tragedy; one celebrity can be enough.  In 2021, the four-speed transaxle from film star James Dean’s 1955 Porsche 550 Spyder (550-0055) sold in an on-line auction for US$382,000.  Again, based on the serial number (10 046) & part number (113 301 102), factory verified the authenticity and of the auction lot and it was only the transaxle which had been salvaged from the wreck, the display stand and peripheral bits & pieces (axles, axle tubes, brake assemblies etc) all fabricated.  The crash happened on SR (South Route) 466 (now SR 46) near Cholame, California, en route to October’s upcoming Salinas Road Races and Mr Dean was driving to familiarize himself with his new 550 Spyder which, although mid-engined and thus with a preferable weight distribution compared with the rear-engined 356 which previously he’d campaigned, had characteristics different than he’d before experienced.  In the dimming light of the late afternoon, the Porsche collided with the passenger-side of a 1950 Ford Tudor (two-door sedan) which had just entered the highway, driven by California Polytechnic State University student Donald Turnupseed (1932-1955).  Mr Turnupseed (later cleared by authorities of any blame) suffered only minor injuries while Mr Dean, less than an hour later, was pronounced DoA (dead on arrival) at hospital.

The much re-printed photograph of Sofia Loren (b 1934, left) and Jayne Mansfield (1933-1967, right), Romanoff's restaurant, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, April 1957 (right), the "Mansfield crash" aftermath, June 1967 (centre) and a 1966 Buick Electra 225, claimed to be the car in which Jayne Mansfield died, Dearly Departed Tours and Artifact Museum, Los Angeles, California (right).

Ms Loren's sideways glance, one of the most famous in Hollywood's long history of such looks, variously has been interpreted as “sceptical”, “disapproving” and “envious”, the latter view likely restricted to men.  Ms Loren herself explained the look as one of genuine concern the pink satin gown might not prove equal to the occasion; on the night, there were several photographers covering the event and images taken from other angles illustrate why that concern was reasonable.  There has never been any doubt Ms Mansfield's "wardrobe malfunction" was "engineered and rehearsed".  In her pomp a significant figure in popular culture and a genuine celebrity, Ms Mansfield was a model & actress and what would later come to be known as a “multi-media personality”.  When young she won a number of sponsored beauty contests including being crowned “Miss Magnesium Lamp”, “Miss Fire Prevention Week” and “Miss Photoflash” but it’s reported she drew the line at becoming “Miss Roquefort Cheese” on the grounds it “just didn’t sound right”, something on which she seems not to have expanded, the chance to be “Miss Prime Rib” later also declined.

Three months later and great minds are thinking alike: Shirley Perdew (1939-2020, right), looking at Jayne Mansfield, Garden of Allah Hotel, Hollywood, July 1957.  Ms Perdew had just been crowned "Miss Hollywood 1957") and, as a former "Miss Photoflash", Ms Mansfield had been invited to join the voting panel.  The hotel was built in 1913 as a private residence before in 1926 being converted into a residential hotel; it was demolished in 1959.

On 28 June 1967, Ms Mansfield was a front-seat passenger in a 1966 Buick Electra 225 four-door hardtop, en route to New Orleans where she was next day to be the subject of an interview.  While cruising along the highway at around two in the morning, the driver failed to perceive the semi-truck in front had slowed to a crawl because an anti-mosquito truck ahead was conducting fogging and blocking the lane.  The mist from the spray masked the truck's trailer and, the driver unable to react in time, the car hit at high speed, sliding under the semi-trailer, killing instantly the three front-seat occupants.  Although the myth has long circulated she was decapitated, an idea lent some credence by the visual ambiguity of photographs published at the time, while it was a severe head trauma, an autopsy determined the immediate cause of death was a "crushed skull with avulsion of cranium and brain".  The phenomenon of the “under-run” accident happens with some frequency because of a co-incidence of dimensions in the machines using the roads.  Pre-dating motorised transport, loading docks were built at a height of around four feet (48 inches; 1.2 m) because that was the most convenient height for men of average height engaged in loading and unloading goods.  Horse-drawn carts and later trucks were built to conform to this standard so trays would always closely align with dock.  Probably very shortly after cars and trucks began sharing roads, they started crashing into each other and, despite impact speeds and traffic volumes being relatively low, the under-run accident was noted in statistics as a particular type as early as 1927.

1966 Buick Electra 225 Custom four-door Hardtop. GM (General Motors) Buick Division publicity shot.

The Buick was sold to a Florida-based collector who for decades kept it in storage before it was obtained for exhibition by the Dearly Departed Tours and Artifact Museum in Los Angeles, California.  The museum, described by its founder Scott Michaels as “for two decades a Los Angeles fixture”, was located on Santa Monica Boulevard, across from the Hollywood Forever Cemetery and was a “bricks & mortar” outgrowth of was a guided bus tour he’d previously conducted, taking tourists around the locations of tragic or horrific events which had transpired in the city; he had no shortage of sites.  Mr Michaels coined the term “Death Hag” and, as the ongoing popularity of “dark tourism” (variants including “atrocity tourism” and “holocaust tourism”) indicates, there is a market among those attracted to the macabre although motivations for the interest will be varied.  The museum had a focus on departed pop-culture celebrities and other exhibits included Mae West’s (1893–1980) false teeth, Rock Hudson’s (1925–1985) death bed, one of Sharon Tate’s (1943–1969) bras (32C) and a cigarette butt stubbed out by Carrie Fisher (1956-2016).

Dearly Departed Tours.

A thoughtfully designed site, as well as T-shirts and a gift store (blades of grass from the "grassy knoll" in Dealy Plaza, Dallas which made infomous by the assassination of John Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; US president 1961-1963; a fragment of the timber from Rock Hudson's death bed; shards of the shattered windscreen of Jayne Mansfield's death car and much more), there's a helpful "Find-a-Death" lookup feature (described by the L.A. Times as "deliciously sordid").

Presumably, frequently Mr Michaels checks for updates on the the well-curated Dead People site and it’s unlikely he’ll soon run out of subject matter because the recent proliferation of platforms and distribution channels has meant not only are more celebrities than ever being manufactured but the churn rate has also significantly increased; his mantra: “Famous people die every day” more true now than ever.  Unfortunately, the museum was forced to close in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic but, with the same attention to detail, he moved “Dearly Departed Tours” online, an innovation which has enabled his catchment of the macabre to extend well beyond Los Angeles.

Trunk

Trunk (pronounced truhngk)

(1) The main stem of a tree, as distinct from the branches (limbs) and roots (also as bole; tree trunk).

(2) Of, relating to or noting a main channel or line, as of a railroad, waterway or something which assumes a similar shape (topographically).

(3) A large, sturdy box or chest for holding or transporting clothes, personal effects or other articles.  Such trunks usually have a hinged (sometimes domed) lid and handles at each end, provided because such is the size & weight, it takes at least two to carry one when loaded.

(4) A compartment, most often in the rear coachwork of an automobile, in which luggage, a spare tire, and other articles may be kept (a “boot” in the UK and certain other places in the English-speaking world and a “dicky” in India and elsewhere in South Asia).

(5) A storage compartment fitted behind the seat of a motorcycle and known also as a top-ox or top-case (as distinct from a “pannier” or “saddlebag” which is fitted at the side (usually in pairs), below the level of the seat).

(6) In anatomy, the body of a person or an animal excluding the head and limbs (the torso).

(7) In pathology, the main body of an artery, nerve, or the like, as distinct from its branches.

(8) In ichthyology, that part of a fish between the head and anus.

(9) In engineering and architecture, a name for a conduit, shaft, duct, channel or chute etc, used variously for airflow (thermal or blown), water, coal, grain etc.

(10) In steam engines, a large pipe forming the piston rod of a steam engine, of sufficient diameter to allow one end of the connecting rod to be attached to the crank, and the other end to pass within the pipe directly to the piston, thus making the engine more compact.

(11) In extractive mining, a flume or sluice in which ores are separated from the slimes in which they are contained.

(12) In architecture, the dado or die of a pedestal.

(13) In architecture, the part of a pilaster between the base and capital, corresponding to the shaft of a column.

(14) In hydrology, the main channel, artery or line in a river, railroad, highway, canal or other tributary system.

(15) In telephony, a telephone line or channel between two central offices or switching devices that is used in providing telephone connections between subscribers generally (also called a “tie-line”).

(16) In telegraphy, a telegraph line or channel between two main or central offices.

(17) In telecommunications, to provide simultaneous network access to multiple clients by sharing a set of circuits, carriers, channels or frequencies.

(18) In clothing, brief shorts (loose-fitting or tight) worn by men chiefly for boxing, swimming and athletics (some historically known as “trunk hose”.

(19) In zoology, the elongated prehensile, flexible, cylindrical nasal appendage of the elephant and certain other creatures (the proboscis).

(20) In nautical use, a large enclosed passage through the decks or bulkheads of a vessel, used as air ducting for purposes of heating, cooling, ventilation and such.

(21) In shipbuilding, any of various watertight casings in a vessel, as the vertical one above the slot for a centerboard in the bottom of a boat.

(22) A long tube through which pellets of clay, peas etc are driven by the force of the breath; a peashooter (archaic).

(23) In software engineering, the most current source tree, from which the latest unstable builds (so-called “trunk builds”) are compiled.

1400–1450: From the late Middle English tronke & trunke, from the Old French tronc (alms box, tree trunk, headless body), from the Latin truncus (stem, a stock, lopped tree trunk), a noun use of the adjective truncus (lopped; cut off, maimed, mutilated), (the later related to the English truncated).  Trunk & trunking are nouns & verbs, trunkful is a noun, trunked is a verb & adjective and trunkless is an adjective; the noun plural is trunks.

There are a myriad of “truck” terms in human pathology and other derived phrases include “elephant's trunk” (rhyming slang for “drunk”), “hand trunk” (a piece of luggage smaller than the traditional trunk and able to be carried by one), “junk in one's trunk” (corpulence of the buttocks, the alternative forms being “dump truck” or the vernacular “fat ass”), “the apple does not fall far from the trunk” (a variant of “the apple/pear etc does not fall far from the tree”) (children tend in appearance & characteristics to resemble their parents), “trunklid” (literally obviously “the lid of a trunk” and used of the opening panel which provides access to a car’s trunk), “bootlid” the UK equivalent and confusingly in the US used also as “decklid” on the basis of the trunk being a part of a car’s “rear deck”), “trunk novel” (a novel abandoned by the author while still a project), “trunk or treat” (an organized alternative to trick-or-treating where candy is handed out to children from cars in a parking lot; it was introduced as a child safety measure), “trunk show” (an event in which vendors present merchandise directly to store personnel or customers at a retail location or other venue, based on the idea of selling “out of a trunk”), “trunk sale” (and event at which goods are displayed for sale in the trunks of cars), “boot sale” the companion term)), “trunking” (travelling sitting in the trunk of a car”), and “trunk shot” (in film-making, a cinematic shot from within a car trunk (although there was a case of a serial killer who shot his victims while concealed in the trunk of a car.

Louis Vuitton Trunk #5 (left) and Louis Vuitton Trunk on Fire (right) by Tyler Shields (b 1982).

The original idea of a trunk being a “box; case etc” may lie in the first such “trunks” being hollowed-out tree trunks although some suggest the post-classical development of the meaning “box, case with a lid or top” was based on the notion of human body’s trunk being a “case” in which the organs were transported.  The modern idea of a “luggage compartment of a motor vehicle” dates from circa 1930, about the time trunks cease to be something separately carried and replaced by and space for luggage integrated into the bodywork.  The use of trunk had long been familiar in the medical literature (both of the torso and blood vessels etc) and the idea was by 1843 extended to railroad trunk lines and telephone networks by 1889.  “Trunk-hose” were first sold in the 1630s and seems to have been a kind of thermal underwear, the description a reference to them covering the whole torso (ie, the trunk) as opposed to most “hose” which was for the lower limbs.

The use of trunk to describe the “long snout of an elephant (or other beast with a similar appendage)” appeared first in the 1560s but etymologists are divided on whether it was an allusion to a tree’s trunk or has some connection with “trumpet”, based on the loud sound elephants are able to generate although the evidence does suggest the early use may have been a reference to the thing’s ability to hold water.  Predictably, by the early eighteenth century, it was a slang term for the human nose.  The use in clothing (always in the plural as “trunks”) emerged in the mid 1820s and initially described “short breeches of thin material”; it was a use of trunk in the sense of “torso”.  Use began in theatrical jargon but, as was not uncommon, soon it was applied to breeches generally, especially in US English and for the short, tight-fitting breeches worn by swimmers and other sporting types, adoption was close to universal by the 1890s.  “Swimming trunks” has survived as a regionalism; even within the one country, there are often several different names for what is one of humanity’s most simple garments.

Trump Trunks: MAGA (Make America Great Again) swimming trunks.  Trump trunks are made from a “silky, breathable, 4-way stretch mesh fabric” and features include (1) a small internal pocket, (2) a built-in anti-chafe liner.  The country of manufacture is not disclosed.  Clearly, the DNC (Democratic National Committee) in 2016 missed an opportunity by failing to release the "Crooked Hillary Clinton Bikini".

One linguistic curiosity was “subscriber trunk dialing” (later changed to “subscriber toll dialing” which later still switched to DDD (Direct Distance Dialing).  The “other” use of STD was as “sexually transmitted disease”, previously known as VD (venereal disease) and it wasn’t until the 1970s the initialism VD began to be replaced by STD (VD thought to have to have gained too many specific associations) but fortunately for the US telecommunications carrier American Telephone and Telegraph Company (later AT&T), in 1951 they renamed their STD service (for long-distance phone calls) to DDD, apparently for no better reason than the alliterative appeal although it's possible they just wanted to avoid mentioning “toll” with all the potential market resistance the word imparts.  Many countries in the English-speaking world continued to use STD for the phone calls, even after the public health specialists had re-purposed the initialization.  In clinical use, STI (Sexually Transmitted Infection)seems now the preferred term.

The evolution of the trunk: 1851 Concord stagecoach on display at the Smithsonian's National Postal Museum, Washington DC (left) with truck strapped to the back, additional trunks carried on the roof; 1928 Mercedes-Benz Nürburg 460 K Pullman Limousine (W08, centre left) with separate trunk still carried on a rear frame; 1936 Studebaker Dictator 4-door sedan (centre right) with the trunk now an integrated part of the bodywork and from that modest appendage they would grow.  The US full-sized cars of the 1960s & 1970s had most capacious trunks but few could match Leyland Australia's infamous P76 (1973-1975, right) which effortlessly could carry a 44 (imperial) gallon (200 litre) drum although the reputed ability to handle fours sets of golf clubs (including collapsible trolleys) was probably more of a selling point.  Unfortunately, as the P76's rapid demise indicates, there just aren't that many golfers.

The compartment which is most located in the rear coachwork of an automobile is used for luggage and historically also the spare tyre a toolkit (neither now not always supplied).  In North American use, this is called a “trunk”, an inheritance from the time when the passengers’ trunks (ie, in the sense of the box-like suitcases) were strapped on to an extension at the back of horse-drawn carriages.  In the early automobiles, the practice continued (often with lined wicker baskets because they were of lightweight construction) and when these were integrated into the bodywork, the space provided continued to be called “the trunk”.  The British called the same thing a “boot”.  In horse-drawn carriages in the UK, a “boot” was a compartment used to store travel essentials, among which (in an age of rutted, poorly maintained roads) included boots, the male passengers sometimes required to push the coach when it became stuck in mud, the frequent inclusion of a “boot box” or “boot locker”, made typically of leather and attached at the rear.  The other suggested origin is the French boute (compartment; box).  The term “boot” thus spread throughout the British Empire although, under the Raj, in India & Ceylon (later Sri Lanka) it became the “dickie”.  That was based on the dicky seat (also as “dickie seat” & “dickey seat” and later more commonly known as the “rumble seat”), an upholstered bench mounted at the rear of a coach, carriage or early motorcar and as the car industry evolved and coachwork became more elaborate, increasingly they folded into the body.  The size varied but generally they were designed to accommodate one or two adults although the photographic evidence suggests they could be used also to seat half-a-dozen or more children.  Why it was called a dicky seat is unknown (the word dates from 1801 and most speculation is in some way related to the English class system) but when fitted on horse-drawn carriages it was always understood to mean “a boot (box or receptacle covered with leather at either end of a coach, the use based on the footwear) with a seat above it for servants”.  Under the Raj, “dickie” was preferred while the colloquial “mother-in-law seat” was at least trans-Atlantic and probably global.

Lindsay Lohan illustrates how there are frunks (left) and there are trunks (right).

The rear-engined Porsche 911 Carrera (997, 2004-2013) Cabriolet (Los Angeles, 2012, right) has a frunk while the front-engined Mercedes-Benz SL 65 AMG roadster (Los Angeles,  2005, right) has a trunk.  Based on the R230 (2001-2011) platform, the SL 65 AMG was produced between 2004-2012 and Ms Lohan also later drove an SL 550 (2006-2011), a model which was a quirk in the naming system because the designation was exclusive to the the North American market, the RoW (rest of the world) cars retaining the SL 500 badge even though both used the 5.5 litre (333 cubic inch) V8 (M273).  As the SL 65's open trunk lid reveals (right), because of the need to accommodate the bulky, folding aluminum hard-top, when lowered, it absorbed much of the trunk space so the design, like many, involved a trade-off between what was gained and what was lost.  Ms Lohan had (relatively) minor accidents in both her SL 65 and later a 911 coupé so clearly should avoid driving black, German cars.

The Fiat X1/9 (produced by Fiat 1972–1982 and Bertone from 1982–1989) featured both a frunk (left) and a trunk (right).

Most cars built have had the engine mounted in the front, thus most trunks appeared in the rear bodywork.  There have however been cars with engines behind the driver (such things were quite numerous until well into the 1970s) and these usually had a storage compartment at the front (where the engine otherwise would sit, under the hood (bonnet)).  Until the early years of the twentieth century, these seem just to have been called a “trunk” or “boot” but as electric vehicles began to appear in volume “frunk” (the construct being f(ront) + (t)runk) and the less popular “froot” (the construct being fr(ont) + (b)oot)) came into use.  There have been mid-engined cars which have both a trunk and a frunk and those in the diminutive Fiat X1/9 were surprisingly large while others (such as Ferrari's Dino 308 GT4 (1973-1980) & 208 GT4 (1975-1980), both badged as Ferraris after 1976) were of a less generous capacity, the frunk in the Dinos best suited to storing something the size of a topless bikini but the GT4 was a genuine four-seater (in the sense of a 2+2), something not often attempted with the mid-engined configuration.

When there was no trunk lid, luggage racks were a popular fitting: 1959 "bug-eye" (or "frog-eye" depending on location) Austin-Healey Sprite (left) and 1971 Chevrolet Corvette Convertible LS5 454/365 (right).

There have been cars (and not all of them were sports cars) with no trunk lid.  In the case of the Austin-Healey Sprite (1958-1971), the lack of the structure on the early versions (1958-1961) was a cost-saving measure (the same rationale that saw the planned retractable headlights replaced by the distinctive protuberances atop the hood (bonnet) which lent the cheerful little roadster its nickname (bug-eye in North American and frog-eye in the UK & most of the Commonwealth).  It had additional benefits including weight reduction and improved structural rigidity but the obvious drawback was inconvenience: to use the trunk one had to reach through the gap behind the seats.  It was easy to see why luggage racks proved a popular accessory, sales of which continued to be strong even when later versions of the Sprite (1961-1971) and the badge-engineered companion model (the MG Midget (1961-1980)) gained a trunk lid.

Have trunk, can travel: Nor Cal’s (of Stockton, California) trunk lid kit for Austin Healy Sprite, May 1961.  Note the standard-sized registration (license) plate; the Sprite really was small.

However, noting Austin-Healey’s cost-cutting meant the Series 1 Sprite’s trunk came lidless, modern commerce quickly saw a gap (technically also a “lack of gap”) in the market and “lid kits” soon appeared.  Advertised as meaning “no more acrobatic maneuvers when loading luggage”, mention was made also of an installation making the spare tyre easier to reach, a matter in the early 1960s of some significance because tyres then were not as durable and punctures more frequent.  The advertising copy was selective in that it mentioned “no welding necessary” but neglected to point out an owner would need to cut the required hole but presumably, that would have been obvious.  It was a proper trunk lid in that it was lockable and said also to be “waterproof”, the latter a quality owners of British sports cars really didn’t expect so that novelty would have been a selling point.  For those Sprite owners whose family had gained a child, the improved accessibility to the trunk would have been most helpful because, as parents know, going anywhere with an infant requires carrying a large bag of stuff.  They might also have been attracted to the "baby seat" available as an accessory from the Healey factory; it was a design which would now be thought extraordinary (other words also come to mind) but it was at the time just the way things were done.  

1963 Corvette (C2) Coupe. This was one of GM's official publicity stills and one can see why the decision was taken not to include a trunk lid but the absence enhanced structural integrity and it was this Chevrolet chose to emphasize.

Curiously, between 1953-1962, the Chevrolet Corvette (C1) did have a trunk lid but when the second generation (C2, 1962-1967) was released for the 1963 season, it had been removed and not until the fifth generation (C5) in 1998 did one again appear.  By then, the Corvette's luggage rack moment mostly had passed but into the twenty-first century they were still being fitted.  In the modern collector market, it’s one of those accessories, the very sight of which seems to upset some.

Trunks: The long and short of it.

1968 Holden HK Brougham (left) and 1970 Holden Premier (right).

The Holden Brougham (1968-1971) was not so much a landmark of the era as a cul-de-sac but it did indicate how quickly the “brougham” label had come to be associated with prestige and like Chevrolet’s Caprice, the Brougham was a response to a Ford.  In Australia, Ford had been locally assembling the full-sized Galaxies for the government and executive markets but tariffs and the maintenance of the Australian currency peg at US$1.12 meant profitability was marginal, so the engineers (with a budget said to be: "three-quarters of four-fifths of fuck all") took the modest, locally manufactured Falcon, stretched the wheelbase by five inches (125 mm), tweaked the front and rear styling (which although hardly radical resulted in a remarkably different look), added some gorp (the term bling not yet in use) and named it Fairlane.

The Fairlane name was chosen because of the success the company had had in selling first the full-sized US Fairlanes (nicknamed by locals as the “tank Fairlane”) between 1959-1962 and later the smaller version (1962-1965) which Robert McNamara (1916–2009 and briefly the president of Ford Motor Company before serving as US secretary of defense (1961-1968) under John Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; US president 1961-1963) & Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; US president 1963-1969)) described as "the size of car Americans should be driving".  In that at least McNamara was right and what came in the 1960s to be called the "intermediates" (ie between the "compact" & "full-size" lines) proved a sweet spot in the market and that was because they were essentially the size of the "standard" US automobile before the breed became oversized in the mid-late 1950s.  The Australia Fairlane was for decades a successful and profitable product and eventually Holden (General Motors's (GM) local outpost) followed the formula but not before the curious diversion which was the Brougham.  For 1968, Holden chose what even at the time was thought a bizarre approach in trying to match the Fairlane; instead of a longer wheelbase (and thus more interior space), the Brougham was conjured up by extending the tail of the less exalted Premier by 8 inches (200 mm), the strange elongation a hurried and less than successful response.  Unwanted for decades when the could be bought for Aus$250, the handful of surviving Broughams became twenty-first century collectables, advertised for sale at as much as $Aus$90,000, some Holden connoisseurs (as one-eyed a crew as any) even finding a previously undetected elegance in the lines.

1958 Cadillac Series 62 Extended Length Sedan (Body Style 6239EDX, left) and 1958 Cadillac Series 62 Sedan (Body Style 6239, right).

In their defense, Holden could have pointed to a corporate precedent, the 1958 Cadillac range including the “Series 62 Extended Length Sedan”.  The Series 62 Sedan was already an impressive 216.8 inches (5.5 m) long but the Extended Length version measured an even more imposing 225.3 (5.7), the additional 8.5 inches (216 mm) all in the rear deck, creating a more capacious trunk.  There can’t have been many Cadillac buyers with that much luggage (although, impressionistically, golf club car parks did suggest there would be those for whom the ability to carry several sets of clubs might be compelling) but the new model did attract buyers, either despite or because of the healthy industry in jokes about Mafia functionaries and other figures in organized crime grateful finally to have more space to transport the bodies.  Unfortunately for Cadillac, there were only so many golfers and Mafia hit-men and despite 20,952 of the 103,455 (excluding Eldorados and “chassis only” sales) Series 62s produced in 1958 being the Extended Length Sedan (some 20%), it proved a single-season one-off which perhaps should have been a warning to Holden.

Cadillac's other take on the “long & slightly less long” of it: 1963 Cadillac Four-Window Sedan De Ville (Body Style 6239, left) and 1963 Cadillac Sedan De Ville Park Avenue (Body Style 6389, right).

Strangely, Cadillac’s next venture in rear-deck management went the other way, “short deck” versions of certain models offered between 1961-1963, the things created by removing 7 inches (178 mm) of aft bodywork, the effect more noticeable for the final season when the truncation was 8 inches (203 mm).  Demand, anyway muted, quickly declined and there ended Cadillac’s experiments with rear deck length.  There was at the time much criticism that “full-size” US cars had become too big but the “short deck” venture was most un-Cadillac like and, by international standards, the truck capacity of even the abbreviated models was still quite generous, able effortlessly to accommodate two sets of gold clubs, something which later became a de-facto standard in assessing the practicality of sports cars.  Jaguar used this feature as a selling point when the XK8 (1996-2006) was introduced because it wasn’t possible with all versions of the old E-Type (1961-1974).  For a variety of reasons, by the 1970s, there would be a smaller Cadillac and the first generation Seville (1975-1979) was most accomplished but of the even smaller Cimarron (1982–1988) there are few fond memories.  It wasn't that the Cimarron was, by the standards of its time, an especially bad car; it just wasn't "a Cadillac" as that construct was then understood.

1967 Ford GT40 Mark III (left) and 1967 Ford GT40 Mark I (road version, right).

From 1967 there was also a more contemporary example to inspire the antipodean engineers although it’s unlikely it much caught their eye; that was the Ford GT40 (1964-1969), one of the most successful machines in 1960s sports car racing which beat not only the competition but also the attempts by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (the FIA; the International Automobile Federation) to legislate it into un-competitiveness,  Then (as now), the FIA was international sport’s dopiest regulatory body.  In the happy era when it was possible to make a few minor modifications and register a Le Mans race car for the road, 31 of the 105 GT40s were so configured (even a cigarette lighter was installed) but the driving experience was still very much that of a (slightly) quieter race car, the accommodation cramped, the ventilation marginal and the luggage space fit for little more than a proverbial topless bikini.  But some hardly souls bought them because there were few things on the road faster so thoughts turned to making a “more civilized” version with the creature comforts now expected.  Thus the 1967 GT40 Mark III with a slightly detuned engine, improved ventilation, a conventional, centrally mounted gear shift, sound deadening, more compliant suspension settings and even a reasonably sized ashtray to compliment the cigarette lighter.  However, only seven were built because they cost as much as a middle-class house, were still cramped (with challenging ingress and egress for all but the young or athletic) and in appearance differed in several aspects from the cheaper (Mark I) GT40 road cars still available from John Wyer (1909–1989).

Herbert von Karajan's 1967 Ford GT40 Mark III; of the seven produced, it was one of four LHD (left hand drive) versions.  The trunk would have be large enough for his conductor's baton and maybe a little more.

By virtue of the long tail, the Mark III did though have more luggage space (for soft baggage rather than suitcases) and it appealed to some, the most famous purchaser being the Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan (1908–1989).  The Mark III was fitted with additional sound deadening and the exhaust system made the sometimes Wagnerian sound of the 289 cubic inch (4.7 litre) V8 less intrusive but inside it was no Rolls-Royce and certainly not a 1965 Ford LTD (which Ford paid acoustic engineers to prove was quieter than a Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III) so whether Karajan ever tried to fit a radio or tape deck ("sound-systems would come later) is unlikely.  It would anyway have been better to focus on the road because even in its detuned form the GT40 Mark III could be a handful, especially to those unacquainted with the then still novel characteristics of mid-engined road cars although Karajan also for a while drove a Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gullwing (W198, 1954-1957) so he may have been not unfamiliar with quirky handling.  Wisely, he never drove his GT40 on wet roads.

1935 MG NA Magnette Allingham 2/4-Seater by Whittingham & Mitchel (left) and a burl walnut storage box mounted in the frunk (right).  The box was a custom fitting and most Magnettes were seen with the frunk simply carpeted.  Sometimes described by auction houses as a DHC (drophead coupé), this body style (despite what would come to be called 2+2 seating) really is a true roadster.  Note the six spare spark plugs in the engine bay; motoring used to be a much more maintenance-intensive business. 

The combination of a frunk and a front-mounted engine is unusual but it has been done.  What the coach-builder did with the MG Magnette was take advantage of what would otherwise be wasted space and the frunk typically was used as the place to store the car's tool-kit (sometimes an extensive inventory because such things often were needed, reliability then not what it became).  Frunks as a thing long pre-dated use of the term which seems to have come into use only in the 1990s (apparently part of the jargon among the cult of of rear-engined Porsche owners) but it was Tesla "formalizing" the terminology in the 2010s which made it mainstream.  The MG N-Type Magnette (1934-1936) used a 1271 cm³ (78 cubic inch) straight-six and while the combination of that many cylinders and a small displacement sounds curious, the configuration was something of an English tradition and a product of (1) a taxation system based on cylinder bore and (2) the attractive economies of scale and production line rationalization of “adding two cylinders” to existing four-cylinder units to achieve greater, smoother power with the additional benefit of retaining the same tax-rate.  Even after the taxation system was changed, some small-capacity sixes were developed as out-growths of fours.  Despite the additional length of the block, there remained between cowl (scuttle) and engine enough space to include a modest frunk.

1935 MG NA Magnette Allingham 2/4-Seater by Whittingham & Mitchel with dickie seat.  Note the resemblance of the front bucket seats to those used in the early (S1 3.8; 1961-1964) Jaguar E-Type (1961-1974).  While the scalloped shape was admired for its elegance they really weren't all that comfortable and there were few complaints when a pair with more prosaic lines was substituted.   

The other unusual feature included by Whittingham & Mitchel in this Magnette was a dickie ("rumble" to the Americans) seat as part of the cockpit.  Although most rumble seats were mounted in an aperture separated from the passenger compartment, in smaller vehicles the additional seat often was integrated but became usable (by people) only when the hinged cover was raised; otherwise, the rear-seat cushion was a nicely upholstered parcel shelf.  Stylistically, what this afforded the designers was the scope to make a car appear a rakish two-seat roadster but one with the practicality of seating four when the panel was folded back.  That's no longer done but the concept remains, some designers artfully now concealing rear-door handles to hint at the look of a two door coupé, something now made more plausible by the adoption of the "four-door coupé" motif for the few remaining sedans and (less successfully) many SUVs (sports utility vehicles).