Tiger

Tiger (pronounced tahy-ger)

(1) A large, carnivorous, tawny-colored and black-striped feline, Panthera tigris, of Asia, ranging in several subspecies from India and the Malay Peninsula to Siberia.

(2) In non-technical use, the cougar, jaguar, thylacine, or other animal resembling the tiger (in wide use in southern Africa of leopards).

(3) A person of some fierceness, noted for courage or a ferocious, bloodthirsty and audacious person.

(4) In heraldry, a representation of a large mythological cat, used on a coat of arms, often with the spelling tyger or tygre (to distinguish the mythological beast from the natural tiger (also blazoned Bengal tiger), also used in heraldry).

(5) A pneumatic box or pan used in refining sugar.

(6) Any of several strong, voracious fishes, as a sand shark.

(7) Any of numerous animals with stripes similar to a tiger's.

(8) A servant in livery who rides with his master or mistress, especially a page or groom (archaic).

(9) In entomology & historic aviation, a clipping of tiger moth (in the family Arctiidae), tiger beetle or tiger butterfly (in tribe Danaini, especially subtribe Danaina).

(10) Any of the three Australian species of black-and-yellow striped dragonflies of the genus Ictinogomphus.

(11) In US, slang, someone noted for their athleticism or endurance during sexual intercourse.

(12) In southern African slang, a ten-rand note.

(13) As TIGR (pronounced as for “tiger”), the abbreviation for Treasury Investment Growth Receipts: a bond denominated in dollars and linked to US treasury bonds, the yield on which is taxed in the UK as income when it is cashed or redeemed.

Pre 1000: From the Middle English tygre & tigre, from the Old English tīgras (plural) and the Anglo-Norman tigre (plural), from the Latin tīgris, from the Ancient Greek τίγρις (tígris), from an Iranian source akin to the Old Persian tigra- (sharp, pointed) and related to the Avestan tighri & tigri (arrow) and tiγra (pointed), the reference being to the big cats “springing” on to their prey but the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) notes no application of either word (or any derivative) to the tiger is known in Zend.  It was used of “tiger-like” people since the early sixteenth century and that could be complementary or pejorative although the female form (tigress) seems only to have been used in zoology since the 1610s and was never applied to women.  The tiger's-eye (yellowish-brown quartz) was first documented in 1886.  The word “liger”, like the creature it described, was a forced mating of lion and tiger.  As a modifier, tiger is widely used including the forms: American tiger, Amur tiger, Asian Tiger, Mexican tiger, Siberian tiger, tiger barb, tiger beetle, tiger bench, tiger-lily, tiger lily, tiger's eye, tiger shark & tiger's milk.  A female tiger is a tigeress.  The alternative spellings tigre & tyger are both obsolete.  Tiger & tigerishness are nouns, tigerly, tigerish & tigerlike are adjectives and tigerishly is an adverb; the noun plural is tigers.

Lindsay Lohan (b 1986) atop tiger in Kult Magazine (Italy), January 2012, photograph by Vijat Mohindra (b 1985), makeup by Joyce Bonelli (b 1981).

In idiomatic use, a country said to have a “tiger economy” (rapid and sustained economic growth), especially if disproportionate to population or other conventional measures.  “Tiger parent” (and especially “tiger mother”) refers to a strict parenting style demanding academic excellence and obedience from children; it’s associated especially with East Asian societies.  The “tiger cheer” dates from 1845 and originated in Princeton University, based on the institution’s mascot and involved the cheerleaders calling out "Tiger" at the end of a cheer accompanied by a jump or outstretched arms.  Beyond Princeton, a “tiger cheer” is any “shriek or howl at the end of a cheer”.  The phrase "paper tiger" was apparently first used by comrade Chairman Mao Zedong (1893–1976; chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) 1949-1976) when discussing his thoughts about the imperialist powers.  A calque of the Chinese 紙老虎／纸老虎 (zhǐlǎohǔ), it referred to an ostensibly fierce or powerful person, country or organisation without the ability to back up their words; imposing but ineffectual.  Phrases in the same vein include "sheep in wolf's clothing" and "a bark worse than their bite".  To be said to “have a tiger by the tail” suggests one has found one’s self in a situation (1) that has turned out to be much more difficult to control than one had expected and (2) difficult to extricate one’s self from, the idea being that while holding the tiger’s tail, things are not good but if one lets go, things will likely become much worse.

Lana Del Rey with (edited-in) tigers, Born to Die, 2012.

Released in 2012, Born to Die was the title track of Lana Del Rey’s (stage name of Elizabeth Woolridge Grant, b 1985) second studio album.  The music video, recorded at the Palace of Fontainebleau (a former royal château of the French court), was directed by Yoann Lemoine (b 1983) who placed the singer between two tigers.  That effect was however a trick of the editing, the big cats filmed separately, which seems a sensible precaution.  Lying some 55 km (34 miles) south-east of central Paris, the Château de Fontainebleau is among the largest of the French royal châteaux and was for centuries both an occasional residence and hunting lodge for monarchs, the name from Fontaine Belle-Eau (spring of beautiful water), a natural fresh water spring located in the English garden not far from the château.  The interior of the palace is in some places referred to as “Rococo” but while some rooms were in the eighteenth century re-decorated with distinct Rococo touches, the distinctive style dates from the late French Renaissance and such was the thematic consistency it created what come to be known throughout Europe as “the School of Fontainebleau” which historians of architecture list as running from the mid sixteenth century to the early seventeenth, the motifs influencing more than one strain of Mannerism.  For students, the place is rich source of examples of movements from the Renaissance, through early and high French Baroque to the First Empire.  It was designated a national museum in 1927 and in 1981 was listed by UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Men in frock coats:  The “Big Four” at the Paris Peace Conference (1919-1920), outside the Foreign Ministry headquarters, Quai d'Orsay, Paris.

Left to right: David Lloyd George (1863–1945; UK prime-minister 1916-1922), Vittorio Orlando (1860–1952; Italian prime minister 1917-1919), Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929; French prime minister 1906-1909 & 1917-1920) and Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924; US president 1913-1921).

Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929; Prime Minister of France 1906-1909 & 1917-1920) was a physician who turned to politics via journalism, a not unfamiliar trajectory for many; at a time of national crisis, he undertook his second term as premier, providing the country’s politics with the stiffness needed to endure what was by then World War I (1914-1918); he was nick-named le tigre (the tiger) in honor of his ferociously combative political demeanour.  In February 1919, while travelling from his apartment a meeting associated with the Paris Peace Conference (1919-1920), he was shot several times, his assailant an anarchist carpenter & joiner, Émile Cottin (1896-1937) and two decades on, another leader would learn carpenters can aspire to be assassins.  Le tigre was lucky, the bullets missing his vital organs although one which passed through the ribcage ending up lodged close to his heart; too close to that vital organ to risk surgery, there it remained until his death (from unrelated causes) ten years later.  Cottin’s death sentence was later commuted to a ten year sentence and he would die in battle, serving with the anarchist Durruti Column during the early days of the Spanish Civil War.  The Tiger’s response to his survival was to observe: “We have just won the most terrible war in history, yet here is a Frenchman who misses his target six out of seven times at point-blank range.  Of course this fellow must be punished for the careless use of a dangerous weapon and for poor marksmanship. I suggest that he be locked up for eight years, with intensive training in a shooting gallery.”  In the circumstances, deploring the state of French marksmanship displayed a certain sangfroid.

The Sunbeam Tigers

Sunbeam Tiger, LSR run, Southport Beach, March 1926.

There have been three Sunbeam Tigers, the first illustrious, the second fondly remembered and the last so anti-climatic it’s all but forgotten.  The first was a dedicated racing car, built between 1923-1925 and, those being times when there was less specialization, it was used both in circuit racing and, most famously, in setting the world Land Speed Record (LSR).  Although aerodynamic by the standards of the time (the techniques of streamlining learned in World War I (1914-1918) military aviation applied), there was little innovation in the platform except for the engine, the nature of which ensured the Tiger’s place in history.  For grand prix events conducted for cars with a maximum displacement of 2.0 litres (122 cubic inches), Sunbeam had earlier built a two litre straight-six, the limitations imposed by the relatively small size being offset by the use of the then still novel double overhead camshafts (DOHC) which allowed both more efficient combustion chambers and much higher engine speeds, thereby increasing power.  It was a robust, reliable power-plant and when contemplating an attempt on the LSR, instead of developing anything new or using the then popular expedient of installing a big & powerful but heavy and low-revving aero engine, the engineers paired two of the blocks and heads on a single crankcase, creating a 75° 3,976 cm³ (243 cubic inch) V12.  When supercharged, power outputs as high as 312 hp (233 kW) were registered.

Sunbeam Tiger in 1990.

Deteriorating weather conditions meant there wasn’t time even to paint the bodywork before the Tiger was rushed to the banked circuit at Brooklands for testing in September 1925 where performance exceeded expectations.  Over the winter, further refinements were made including a coat of most un-British bright red paint and it was in this color (and thus nick-named “Ladybird”) it was in March 1926 taken to the flat, hard sands of Southport Beach where duly it raised the LSR mark to 152.33 mph (245.15 km/h).  That was broken within a year but the Tiger still holds the record as the smallest displacement ICE (internal combustion engine) ever to hold the LSR and a century on, it’s a distinction likely to be retained forever.  After the run on the beach, it returned to the circuits.  A sister car was built and named Tigress; fitted with one of the big Napier Lion W12 aero engines, it still competes in historic competition but the Tiger is now a museum piece although, after 65 years, it did have a final fling when in 1990 it made one last run and this time set a mark of 159 mph (256 km/h).

Sunbeam Alpine (1959-1968) with the original tail fins: 1961 (left) and 1963 (right).  When in late 1958 the design was approved by the Rootes board, tail fins were thought still fashionable but the moment soon passed and with the release of the Series IV in 1964, they were pruned.

Although successful in competition and the manufacturer of some much admired road cars, financial stability for Sunbeam was marginal for most of the 1920s and the Great Depression of the early 1930s proved its nemesis, the bankrupt company in 1934 purchased by the Rootes Group which was attracted by Sunbeam’s production facilities and their well-regarded line of HD (heavy duty) chassis for bus & truck operators.  Rootes over the years used the Sunbeam name in a desultory way, the vehicles little more than “badge engineered” versions of their Hillman, Singer, Humber & Talbot lines but one aberration was the Sunbeam Alpine, a small sports car (1959-1968).  Rootes had used the Alpine name before, adopted to take advantage of the success enjoyed in the 1953 Alpine Rally but the new roadster was very different.  Although the platform was taken (unpromisingly) from a small van (noted for its robustness and reliability but little else) with the rest of the structure a mash up of components from the Rootes parts bin, as a package it worked very well and the body was modern and attractive, owing more to small Italian sports cars than the often rather agricultural British competition from MG and Triumph.  The rakish fins drew the eye (not always uncritically) but they were very much of their time, taller even than those on the Daimler SP250 released the same year.  The Alpine was also pleasingly civilized with a heater which actually worked, a soft-top which didn’t leak (at least not as often or to the same extent as some others), external door handles and wind-up windows, none of those attributes guaranteed to exist on most of the local competition.  It was also commendably quiet, conversations possible and the radio able to be listened to even at cruising speed, then something then novel in little British roadsters.

1966 Sunbeam Tiger Mark IA.

With an engine capacity initially of 1.5 litres (91 cubic inch), the Alpine was never fast although that was hardly the point and the advertising included some campaigns aimed at what was then known as the “ladies market”; that market still exists but the industry now dare not speak its name.  Product development included larger engines would improve things but the performance deficit was better addressed when, in 1964, a version of the Alpine called the Tiger appeared, fitted with Ford’s recently released 260 cubic inch (4.2 litre) “thinwall” V8 (the so-called “Windsor” in honor the foundry in Ontario where the things were cast and assembled), about to become well known from its use in both the Ford Mustang and Carroll Shelby's (1923–2012) Cobra, the latter based on a much-modified AC Ace.  The Windsor was called a “thinwall” because genuinely it was small and light (by the standards of contemporary iron-block V8s) but even so it only just fitted (once come frankly brutish modifications to the engine bay were effected with hammers) and so tight was the fit a small hatch was installed in the firewall (under the dashboard) so a hand could reach in to change one otherwise inaccessible spark plug.  That notwithstanding, the package worked and all those who wrote test reports seemed to enjoy the Tiger, noting the effortless performance, fine brakes (lifted unchanged from the Alpine!) and (within limits) predictable handling, all in something conveniently sized.  However, even in those more tolerant times, more than one journalist observed that although the Ford V8 used was in the mildest state of tune Ford offered (the ones Shelby put in the Cobra producing over 100-odd HP (75 kW) more), it was clear the classis was close to the limit of what could be (even in the more forgiving 1960s) deemed sensible for road use.

Pleasingly, in the mid 1960s, there was in the US quite an appetite for cars not wholly sensible for street use and late in 1966, a revised version was released, this time with a 289 cubic inch (4.7 litre) Windsor V8 and although there had been some attention to the underpinnings, it was now obvious that while still in the placid state Ford used in station wagons and such, the 289's increased output exceeded the capability of the chassis.  For the journalists of course, that was highly entertaining and some were prepared to forgive, one cautioning only that the Tiger:

“…doesn’t take kindly to being flung around.  It’s a car with dignity as asks to be driven that way.  That doesn’t mean slowly, necessarily, but that there’s sufficient power on tap to embarrass the incautious.  But if you treat it right, respecting it for what it is, the Tiger can offer driving pleasure of a very high order.”

In the era, there were other over-powered machines which could behave worse and those able to read between the lines would know what they were getting but there may have been some who were surprised and tellingly, the Tigers were never advertised to the “ladies market” although one was in 1965 presented as the traditional "pink prize" to Playboy’s PotY (Playmate of the Year).  Presumably she enjoyed it and, now painted "resale" red, the car still exists.

Jo Collins (b 1945), 1965 PotY with her 1965 Sunbeam Tiger Mark I.  All Tigers received the pruned fins (introduced on the Series IV Alpines), the once raked elliptical taillights assuming a vertical aspect.

The US was a receptive market for the little hot rod and one featured in the Get Smart TV series, although it’s said for technical reasons (the V8 version not having space in the engine compartment for some of the props), a re-badged Alpine was used for some scenes (the same swap effected for the 2008 feature film adaptation), a V8 exhaust burble dubbed where appropriate, a trick not uncommon in film-making.  At the corporate level of M&A (mergers & acquisitions), changes were however were coming which would doom the Tiger although it was an unintended victim.  Seeking a greater presence in Europe as well as a ranger of smaller vehicles to offer in the US, Chrysler had first taken a stake in the Rootes Group in 1964 and in 1967 it assumed full control.  Chrysler was most interested in the mainstream sedans but although the Tiger was a low-volume line, it was profitable and the corporation’s original intention had been to continue production but with Chrysler’s 273 cubic inch (4.4 litre) LA V8 substituted.  Unfortunately, while 4.7 Ford litres filled it to the brim, 4.4 Chrysler litres overflowed; the Windsor truly was compact.  Allowing it to remain in production until the stock of already purchased Ford engines had been exhausted, Chrysler instead changed the advertising from emphasizing the “…mighty Ford V8 power plant” to the vaguely ambiguous “…an American V-8 power train”.  Still a popular car in the collector community, so easily modified are the V8s that few survive in their original form and many have been fitted with larger Windsors, the 289 and 302 (4.9 litre) the most popular and some have persuaded even the tall-deck 351 (5.8) to fit though not without modifications.

Sunbeam Tigers: 1965 model with “Powered by Ford 260” badge (left), 1967 model with “Sunbeam V8” badge (centre) and 1965 French market model with “Alpine 260” badge (right).

It wasn’t unknown for the major US manufacturers to use components from competitors, something which happened usually either because of a technology deficit or to do with licencing.  However, they much preferred it if what was used was hidden from view (like a transmission) so Chrysler’s reticence about advertising what had become one of their cars being fitted with Ford V8 was understandable.  Not only was the advertising material swiftly changed but so were the badges: “Powered by Ford 260” giving way to “Sunbeam V8” for the rest of the Tiger’s life.  Unrelated to that however was the curious case of Tigers sold in South Africa and some European markets where they were designated variously as “Alpine 260” or “Alpine V8”.

On the silver screen: Sunbeam Alpine 260 opposite Simca Aronde and behind Renault 16 in the Italian film Come rubare la corona d'Inghilterra (1967) by Sergio Grieco (1917–1982).  The title translates literally as “How to Steal the Crown of England” but in the English-speaking world it’s better known as Argoman the Fantastic Superman.  The film garnered mixed reviews.

The reason the “Tiger” name never made it to the largest European markets was because Panhard in France was then selling a Tigre and Messerschmitt in the FRG (Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany; the old West Germany) 1949-1990), held the trademark to Tiger.  The German Tiger can be visualized as something like the cockpit of a World War II (1939-1945) era Messerschmitt Bf-109 fighter aircraft fitted with four wheels and a 500 cm³ engine; it was as entertaining as it sounds.  Apparently on advice from Rootes’ French distributers (Société des Automobiles Simca), it was decided just to use the Alpine name and the car thus was advertised in France, Germany Austria & Switzerland variously as the “Alpine 260” or “Alpine V8”, the latter making marketing sense in countries not used to cubic inches as a measure although the imperial measure may have been used to emphasize the US connection, Detroit's V8s deservedly enjoying a reputation for smoothness, power and reliability.

What lay beneath: Body tags for US market Tiger (left) and French market Alpine 260 (centre & right).  Whether the 4.2 V8-powered cars had “Alpine” or “Tiger” badges, all were designated on the body tags as “Alpine 260 V8”.

However, in places such as Sweden and Monaco where there was no concern with violating trademark law, the “Tiger” name was used, as it was for vehicles ordered by US citizens for delivery in Europe.  Typically these were armed forces personnel able to buy through the military’s PX (Post Exchange) stores and they enjoyed the benefit at the end of their deployment of having their car shipped home to the US at no cost.  Volumes into Europe were always low and the sketchy records (assembled by Tiger owners clubs) suggest as few as seven Mark II models were exported to Europe, three of which went to France and by then the operation known as "Rootes Motors Overseas Ltd" had for all purposes switched their advertising to “Sunbeam Alpine V8”.

On the silver screen, with rear projection.  Cary Grant (1904–1986, left) with (pre-princess) Grace Kelly (1929–1982; Princess Consort of Monaco 1956-1982, right) behind the wheel of 1953 Mark I Sunbeam Alpine (in Sapphire Blue) in To Catch a Thief (1955).

In 1955, Sunbeam did release an Alpine Mark III but there was never a Mark II, “skipping numbers” something not uncommon in aircraft and software but rare in automobiles.  For students of technology, the long scene of Grace Kelly driving in To Catch a Thief (appearing mostly to be filmed through the windscreen) is an example of the RPT (rear projection technique) used before CGI (computer-generated imagery) technology existed.  While much of the film was shot on-location in Europe, the Alpine was shipped to the US for some of her driving scenes because only in Hollywood were the big studios outfitted with the rear-projection equipment able to emulate 360^o settings.  RPT obviously created new possibilities for cinematographers but for directors there was the advantage of the driver not being compelled to “keep their eyes on the road”, however bad an example this may have set for impressionable audiences.  In the age of CGI, the RPT looks obviously fake but it was at the time state-of-the-art and a companion piece to the vivid “Technicolor look” of the era.

Grace Kelly and Cary Grant filmed with RPT in To Catch a Thief.  In 1982, driving her Rover P6 (1963-1977) 3500 (1968-1977), she would die in an accident on a similar road. 

When first pondering the name to be used in Europe, within Rootes there may anyway have been awareness of the French manufacturer Peugeot in 1964 forcing Porsche to rename its new 901 to 911 (something which worked out OK) on the basis of the argument they had an “exclusive right in France” to sell cars with three numeral designation in France when the middle digit was a “0” (zero).  That seems dubious given Mercedes-Benz had for years been selling 200s & 300s and was about to release the 600 but the EEC (the European Economic Community, the Zollverein which would evolve into the EU (European Union)) wasn’t at the time governed by the “give way to the Germans” rule which would come to characterize the EU so defer Porsche did.  Rootes was thus wise to avoid the inevitable C&D (cease and desist letter) which may have been anticipated.

1965 PotY Jo Collins with her pink Tiger.

Stranger however is that Tigers sold in France were called “Alpine 260” despite (1) the French manufacturer Alpine having first sold cars there in 1954 and (2) the “260” being a reference to the V8 displacement in cubic inches (cid), imperial measurements not used in wholly metric France (where a 4.2 (litre) badge might have been expected).  Sunbeam was able to use the Alpine name because their original version (the one driven by Grace Kelly) had first been sold in France in 1953, thus pre-dating the French venture Automobiles Alpine, the corporate identity of which wasn’t formalized until 1955.

1965 French market Sunbeam Alpine 260 with after-market 14" Minilite wheels.

So, on the basis of “prior use”, the Alpine name could in France be used, despite the existence since 1954 of the sports cars produced by Dieppe-based Automobiles Alpine.  Whether the decision to append an imperial “260” rather than a more localized “4.2” was the British adding insult to injury isn’t known but the use of metric measurements in engine displacement had for decades been the British practice, possibly reflecting the early French dominance in the field (rather as terms like “fuselage”, “aileron” and such were picked up in the English-speaking world because it was the French who enjoyed a early lead in aviation and thus got to name the bits & pieces).  Still, while subtle cross-channel slights may sound improbably petty, that’s a quality not absent either in international relations or commerce and not only were London and Paris then squabbling over whether the Anglo-French SST (supersonic transport) airliner should be called “Concorde” or the anglicized “Concord”, in 1963, Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970; President of France 1959-1969) had vetoed the UK’s application for membership of the EEC.  For that last diplomatic setback, the British may have had themselves to blame because when in 1940 they offered de Gaulle sanctuary in London after the fall of France, the Foreign Office allocated him offices on Waterloo Place and overlooking Trafalgar Square.  A sensitive soul, neither Le Général nor Le Président ever forgave or forgot a slight.

Carroll Shelby, Sunbeam publicity shot for the US market, 1964.

Between April 1964 and August 3763 Mark I Tigers were built.  The 2706 “Mark IA” models which followed between August 1965 and February 1966 were based on the Alpine Series V which had a number of detail changes (most obviously the doors, hood (bonnet) and truck (boot) lid having sharper corners and a vinyl rather than metal top boot for the folding soft-top); while these now universally are listed as “Mark IAs”, that was never an official factory designation.  The first Mark IIs weren’t built until December 1966 with production lasting only until June the next year when Sunbeam’s stocks of Ford V8s was exhausted and just 536 (although 633 is oft-quoted) were built.  Although there were detail differences between the Mark IA and Mark II, the fundamental change was the use of the 289 cubic inch (4.7 litre) engine and all but a few dozen were exported to the US.

Carroll Shelby invoiced Rootes US$10,000 to develop the original Tiger prototype and had expected to gain the contract for production on the same basis as Shelby American's arrangement with AC to produce the Cobra (ie he'd receive engineless cars into which he'd insert the V8s) but the process instead went the other way with Sunbeam importing the engines, contracting final assembly to Jensen.  Shelby instead received a small commission for each Tiger sold and appeared in some of the early marketing material.  He understood that despite (on paper) being superficially similar, the Tiger was a very different machine to the Cobra and, aimed at different markets, the two were really not competitors.  Amusingly, Shelby's US$10,000 fee was paid in a "back-channel deal", the funds coming from Rootes' US advertising budget rather than the engineering department's allocation.  That accounting sleight of hand was necessary because it was known to all the company's conservative chairman (Lord Rootes (1894–1964)), would never have approved such a project.  He changed his mind after test-driving the prototype and ordered immediate production, living long enough to see it enjoy success.

Tigerish: Lindsay Lohan imagined in cara gata (cat face) by Shijing Peng. 

One Sunbeam Tiger variant which did however not enjoy success was the Tiger GT which was supplied without a soft-top.  It might seem a strange notion that someone (unless they lived somewhere like the Atacama Desert in Chile which enjoys an average annual rainfall around 0.1 mm (0.00393699 of an inch)) would buy a convertible without a folding roof but in the 1960s it really was a thing, Mercedes-Benz releasing such a version of their W113 roadster (1963-1971).  Introduced in 1967 during the brief run of the 250 SL, Mercedes-Benz listed it officially as the “SL Coupe” but journalists and the public (and not a few dealers) quickly dubbed it the “California Coupe”, reviving an appellation which emerged in 1959 to describe the stacked headlight assembly used for a number of models between 1959-1973 because US lighting regulations outlawed the ovoid-shape composite headlights used for the RoW (rest of the world) production.  The rationale behind the label was apparently that “California” was the most American thing imaginable.  The California Coupe was enough of a success to be carried over to 1968 when the 280 SL was released and the model remained in the catalogue until the last W113s left the line in 1971; it’s believed some 1,100 were built.  Chevrolet in the era allowed buyers of the C2 Corvette (1963-1967) convertible to order their cars with the choice of (1) a soft-top, (2) a hard-top or (3) both and while a majority (35,892) chose both, of the 72,418 convertibles built 5,794 (just over 8%) eschewed the folding roof.  It’s true some of those would have been bought for use in competition so the folding roof would have been needless expense but it can be assume most were purchased to be registered for use on the street.

1964 Sunbeam Tiger GT interior.

So the “hardtop only” Tiger GT at the time probably seemed a good idea and it followed the model of the Alpine GT, added to the range when the Series III (1963-1964) was introduced (the versions with hard & soft-tops designated as Alpine STs although use of “ST” has always been about as rare as that enjoyed by “Sports Tourer” & “Gran Tourismo” which appeared in the early advertising copy.  The GT was essentially a “luxury” model and the most luxurious aspect was greater interior space, made possible by the area taken by the top’s stowage compartment being allocated to a larger, padded rear seat, albeit one really suitable only for children.  The GT’s unique appointments included full length pleated door panels (a padded arm rail a top), full carpeting (replacing the ST’s practical but utilitarian rubber mats), wood-rimmed steering wheel and burled walnut wood veneered facia for the dashboard.  Additionally, the GT featured as standard equipment some of the ST’s options including a clock, ammeter, cigar lighter and glove-box courtesy light.  The GT’s hard-top was painted to match the body, additional sound insulation was fitted and the carburetor even received a canister type air filter to minimise the “sucking sounds” from the induction system.  The GT’s modifications were all about refinement rather than performance for as well as being heavier, the GT received a slightly less powerful engine (80 HP against the ST’s 87).  Initially, the Alpine GT sold well though in the US it may have been the lack of a soft-top which curbed demand and when the Series V (1965-1968) Alpine was released, the GT no longer appeared in the US catalogue.

Brochure shot of 1963 Sunbeam Alpine GT interior.

So, with the Alpine GT having been well-received, it was logical for Rootes to include a Tiger GT in the new range; accordingly, during August 1964, Jensen completed was thought to be an initial batch of 15 Tiger GTs but they would prove to be the last.  Unlike the Alpine GT with its detuned engine, the Tiger GTs had the same mechanical specification as other Tigers and all 15 were shipped to US dealers where their “luxury” interiors seemed to have a “shaming” effect on the more basic (vinyl & rubber) appearance of the standard model, the distributers reporting to Rootes there was some market resistance to the 200 Tigers which had arrived, the drab interior not helping persuade buyers to spend some US$3,800 when Ford’s recently released Mustang offered the same engine and transmission combination in a bigger package for rather less.  The factory responded, adding to the Tiger’s specification the burl walnut veneer facia for the dashboard and the wood rimmed steering wheel (although the fancier door trims didn’t appear until the Mark IA revisions).  After that, the Tiger GT project was allowed to lapse with none were built after the first 15, its sole contribution to the line apparently inducing an upgraded interior for the standard model.

1972 Hillman Avenger Tiger advertisement (left) and 1972 Avenger Tiger Mark II advertisement (right).  The early Avengers (1972-1976) are remembered for their distinctive "boomerang (or hockey stick)" tail-lamps, a style later used by Mazda for the Cosmo (1975-1981 and sold in some markets as the RX-5).  It's believed the rear spoiler was not wind tunnel tested, despite the claim the "special aerofoil on the boot" was there to "keep the Tiger hugging the road".

1972 Hillman Avenger Tiger Mark II in Sundance Yellow.

While not quite the sublime to the ridiculous, the third and final Tiger certainly lacked the luster of its predecessors and was sold as a Hillman rather than a Sunbeam, the old Rootes group now owned by Chrysler.  Based on the Hillman Avenger (1970-1981), a competent if unexciting family car, the Avenger Tiger was initially a one-off built for motor shows (they used to be a thing) but such was the reaction a production run was arranged and, based on the Avenger GT, it was a genuine improvement, fitted with dual Weber carburetors on a high-compression cylinder head with larger valves and improved porting.  The power increase was welcome but wasn’t so dramatic as to demand any modification of the GT’s suspension beyond a slight stiffening of the springs.  On the road, the well-sorted RWD (rear wheel drive) dynamics meant it was good to drive and the performance was a notch above the competition at the same price point although Chrysler never devoted the resources to develop it into a machine which could have been competitive with Ford’s Escort in racing and rallying.  Despite that, when sold in the US as the Plymouth Cricket (1971-1972) the car won the demanding “Press on Regardless” rally although that wasn't enough to convince many Americans to buy the thing.  The first run of 200-odd Tigers early in 1972 were all in “Sundance” yellow with a black stripe (and in case that was too subtle, a “Tiger” decal adorned the rear quarter panels) but “Wardance” red was an option when an additional batch of 400 was made to meet demand.

A poster from Esso’s brilliantly successful “Put a Tiger in your Tank” campaign”.

Now, a remoteness between a product and the motifs used in its advertising is unexceptional but in 1959 when Esso in the US launched its “Put a Tiger in Your Tank” campaign, the concept was still quite novel but the abstraction (full up your car with Esso gas (petrol) and you’ll gain the power of a tiger) resonated and the campaign is today recognized as one of the most successful of the era.  Esso had, off and on, for decades used tigers as corporate symbols and the big cat had been the centre of a campaign in the UK in 1953 to promote gas sales after the end of post-war petrol rationing but that tiger had been a ferocious beast, something like the often hungry ones one would not wish meet in the wild.  The documentary evidence from the time suggests the Esso’s lethal looking Panthera tigris made it “just another advertisement” but when the US agencies re-imagined their big cat as something friendly and playful, it really caught the public imagination and created a number of minor industries in children’s toys, key-chains, piggy banks, buttons, pins, pens tiger masks, party glasses, coffee mugs, T-Shirts and even “tiger tails”, sold at Esso-branded gas stations to be attached to gas caps, the implication being to suggest there really was a “tiger in the tank”.

Esso’s original tiger in its “Esso for Extra” campaign which didn’t capture the hearts of UK consumers; perhaps memories of tiger hunting in the Raj were still too close.

The key word clearly was “tiger” because the cat was never named and within the corporation was referred to only as the “Whimsical Tiger”.  Genuinely, the friendly looking tiger seems to have transformed Esso’s image (it latter would suffer) and while the extent to which the campaign can be credited with the boom in Esso’s sales (they booked increases notably higher than their competitors), historians of the industry acknowledge the effect was significant.  The implications weren’t lost on advertising executives who learned the lesson that an emotional connection is often preferable to an intellectual one; while the UK’s earlier (zoologically a close to correct depiction) tiger certain conveyed the power and energy of the charismatic creature, it was the warm and friendly “Whimsical Tiger” which appealed to people and their children, the latter anxious to nudge their parents to buy gas from Esso in the hope of getting another plush toy tiger.

Pontiac GTO advertising, 1965 (G.T.O. also sometimes used in documents).

Pontiac definitely had Esso’s “British Tiger” in mind when they began using the big cat in advertising the GTO (1964-1974), the “male market” definitely the target and the messaging all about power and aggression.  Introduced in late 1963, the GTO was “an option package” designed to circumvent GM’s (General Motors) corporate-wide ban on such a thing existing and although conceived as a niche product, immediately it proved so popular (and profitable) that GM abandoned their principles and authorized on-going production.  The GTO is often referred to as the “first muscle car” (a formula which would come to be explained as “a big powerful engine from a large, heavy full-size put into a smaller, lighter vehicle) and while that’s arguable, it was certainly the 1964 GTO which defined the original 1960s “muscle car”.  Actually, the formula, on both sides of the Atlantic, had been in use since the inter-war years but what was unique about the US of the mid-1960s was a combination of circumstances: A booming economy and a large and growing cohort of males aged 17-25 with the cash or credit rating to afford to buy muscle cars.  Really, there was probably no animal on earth better suited to advertising something like the GTO and soon the imagery was all-pervasive, “Tiger Gold” added to the color chart.  Even before the release of the GTO, Pontiac had used a tiger theme in its advertising but it’s the GTO with which it became most associated.

Pontiac GTO advertising, 1965.  Now, were a company to use a tiger skin to try to sell something, they'd be cancelled.  Times have changed.

The original GTO wasn’t quite as muscular as the original press car provided to Car & Driver magazine for their infamous “comparison test” against a Ferrari 250 GTO, printed in the March 1964 edition.  That Pontiac GTO had not only a much bigger engine but was also modified to the point it was close to race-ready and was certainly nothing like the ones in showrooms but despite that deceptive and misleading trick, the ones customers could buy possessed sufficient charm to convince over 32,000 people to pay the retail price, some six times the marketing department’s projections.  Whether the use of tigers in the advertising and promotional material much contributed to the popularity isn’t known but as a piece of name association it worked not at all; by 1966, by which time Pontiac was shipping close to 100,000 GTOs annually, it was obvious males aged 17-25 had settled on the nickname “the Goat”, not an animal which would have been an obvious choice to apply to a high-performance car with youth appeal.  However, that’s how the English language works, and “the Goat” was a playful, phonetic shortening of GTO although recent revisionists have suggested it was an allusion to the car being “the greatest of all time” (that link with “goat” coming much later) or in “eating up the competition”, the GTO was emulating the goat’s reputation for eating just about anything.  There’s nothing to support these quasi-theories and there’s no doubt the nickname came from nothing but sound-play. Beginning in 1967, Pontiac switched the theme of its advertising from the tigeresque to “The Great One”.

Another big, dangerous cat: Advertisement for the 1976 Mercury Cougar.  Despite the apparent implications, not until early in the twenty-first century would “cougar” pick up the informal meaning: “an older woman who seeks sexual relationships with much younger men”; Mercury truly was ahead of the linguistic curve.

The big cats have provided names for manufacturers to use for cars; there have been Tigers, Lions, Jaguars, Cheetahs and Leopards (there is even a Leopard tank, in production since 1965 and now in its third generation) and there was also a Mercury Cougar.  Introduced in 1967 as a kind of up-market Mustang, it’s significance is not only that immediately it was highly successful but that it was the last truly successful Mercury; with some three million sold over 35-odd seasons, it was the marque’s biggest selling nameplate although from the late 1970s, Cougars bore scant resemblance, physically or conceptually to the classic original.  The press reports in 1967 made much of Ford’s admission the Mercury was an attempt to “build a Jaguar”, noting the statement was intended not to be read literally but rather an indication of a wish to build the sort of car which would appeal to someone who would buy a Jaguar.  The consensus at the time was Mercury had succeeded in building a fine car although whether many Jaguar customers were convinced isn’t known.  Some of the Cougars produced in the first four seasons of its long life were legitimate parts of the muscle car ecosystem but by 1976 when the above advertisement appeared, built on the intermediate Ford Torino’s platform, the Cougar it was little more than a slightly smaller Ford Thunderbird; that was bad enough but things would get worse.

Guelph & Ghibelline

Guelph (pronounced gwelf)

(1) In the politics of medieval Italian city states and in certain German states, a member of a political party or faction that supported the sovereignty of the papacy against the Holy Roman Emperor: politically opposed to the Ghibellines who supported the claims of the emperor.

(2) The beliefs of the Guelphs.

(2) A member of a secret society in early nineteenth century Italy that opposed foreign rulers and reactionary ideas.

(3) Any member of the German-Hanoverian Party (1867–1933), a conservative federalist political party in the German Empire (the so-called Second Reich 1871-1918) and the Weimar Republic (1918-1933) founded as a protest against the annexation in 1866 of the Kingdom of Hanover by the Kingdom of Prussia.

1570–1580: From the Italian Guelfo, from the Middle High German Welf (the family name of the founder of a princely German dynasty of Bavarian origin that became the ducal house of Brunswick (literally “whelp”, originally the name of the founder (Welf I).  The family are the ancestors of the present Windsor dynasty of Great Britain which until 17 July 1917 was the house of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the change effected by decree of George V (1865–1936; King of the United Kingdom & Emperor of India 1910-1936), responding to some understandable anti-German sentiment during the World War I (1914-1918).  One unintended consequence of the change was it elicited from Kaiser Wilhelm II (1859–1941; German Emperor & King of Prussia 1888-1918) the first of his two known jokes: Upon hearing of the change, he quipped he hoped soon to attend the next Berlin performance of William Shakespeare’s (1564–1616) The Merry Wives of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (1602).  Historians cite the name as a war-cry used at the Battle of Weinsberg (1140) by forces loyal to Henry III (Henry the Lion, 1129-1195; Duke of Saxony (1142–1180) and of Bavaria (as Henry XII, 1156–1180) who at the time was aligned with Frederick Barbarossa (1122–1190; Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor 1155-1190).  The alternative spelling was Guelf.  Guelph & Guelphism are nouns and Guelphic & Guelfic are adjectives; the noun plural is guelphs.  During the “great controversy”, partisans of the pope were in Italy known as Guelfi.

Ghibelline (pronounced gib-uh-lin or gib-uh-leen)

A member of the aristocratic party in medieval Italy and Germany that supported the claims of the Holy Roman Emperors against the claims by the papacy of temporal power: politically opposed to the Guelphs who supported the claims of the pope.

1565-1575: From the Italian Ghibellino, from the German Waiblingen, from the Middle High German Wibellingen, the name of a castle in Swabia held by the Hohenstaufen dynasty (the township of Waiblingen in modern Germany), from Old High German Weibilinga & Weibelingen which may have been a suffixed form of the personal names Wabilo & Wahilo.  Ghibelline & Ghibellinism are nouns, guelphic is an adjective; the noun plural is Ghibellines.

Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor (circa 1843), oil on canvas by François-Édouard Picot (1786–1868).  Before Lindsay Lohan re-defined rangaism, Frederick Barbarossa was history's most famous redhead.

The Guelf and Ghibelline were members of two opposing factions in Italian and German politics during the Middle Ages, the Guelfs supporting the claims of the papacy to temporal power while the Ghibellines were aligned with the Holy Roman (German) Emperors.  A variant of one of the many types of “state vs church” conflicts which have played out over the last thousand-odd years, the disputes between the Guelfs and Ghibellines contributed to making the strife within northern Italian cities chronic in the thirteenth & fourteenth centuries.  It was the Hohenstaufen emperor Frederick Barbarossa who in the twelfth century resorted to armed force in an attempt to reassert imperial authority over northern Italy, his military ventures opposed not only by the Lombard and Tuscan communes which wished to preserve their autonomy within the empire, but also by the newly elected pope (Alexander III, circa 1104-1181; pope 1159-1181).  Thus was the peninsula split between those who sought to increase their power-bases and political influence and those (with the pope in the vanguard) determined to resist renewed imperial interference.

Othone vien licentiato dal Pontefice, e dal doge perche vada a trattar la pace con l'Imperator suo padre, (Pope Alexander III and Doge Ziani sending Otto to negotiate peace with his father Emperor Frederick Barbarossa), etching (circa 1720) after the painting executed by Palma il Giovane (Iacopo Negretti, circa 1549-1628) for the Sala del Maggior Consiglio in the Palazzo Ducale, Venice, British Museum, London.  The painting depicts Otto kneeling before the pope on his elevated throne; the Doge stands beside him; the crowd to the left and right.  The Doge was the chief magistrate in the republics of Venice and Genoa, the word from the Venetian Doxe, from the Latin ducem, accusative of dux (leader, prince).   It was a doublet of duke and dux and the source of Duce (leader) made infamous by Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; prime-minister of Italy 1922-1943).

Doge is now most often recognized (as Dogecoin) as a cryptocurrency which began as an “in-joke” but took on a life of its own and (as DOGE) the acronym for the US federal government’s Department of Government Efficiency, a cost-cutting apparatus with the stated aim (ultimately) of reducing the national debt.  DOGE was created by one of the earliest executive orders of Donald Trump’s (b 1946; US president 2017-2021 and since 2025) second term and although its status within (or parallel with) the bureaucracy is unclear, it appears still to exist.  Analysis of its effects have been published with estimates of the outcome thus far ranging from savings in excess of US$200 billion to additional costs over US$20 billion.  Those doing the math to come up with these numbers don’t use the same methods of calculation and do their work with different motivations and so sprawling is the US government it may be it will never be known quite what DOGE will eventually achieve.  The DOGE acronym was amusing but following the Australian general election of 1980, the Liberal-National Country (now the latter since 1982 called the National Party) coalition government set up a cabinet committee with a remit to reduce government expenditure and although it seems never to have received an official name, it was soon dubbed “the Razor Gang”, a re-purposing of a term from the 1920s which alluded to Sydney’s criminals switching from revolvers to switchblade knives after concealed handguns were outlawed.  “Razor Gang” does seem more evocative than “DOGE”.

The conflicts between cities pre-dated the use of Guelf and Ghibelline, the deployment of which became a sort of descriptive codification of the factions as the inter & intra-city antagonisms intensified.  Although many of the potted histories of the era lend the impression the conflict was binary as forces coalesced around the Guelfs and Ghibellines, each side existed with what political scientists call “cross-cutting cleavages”: social, family, class, economic and even occupational alliances all at play.  Still, the characteristic depiction of Guelfs representing wealthy merchants, traders and bankers and Ghibellines (representing feudal aristocrats and the Italian equivalent of the landed gentry) was not inaccurate and especially ferocious in Florence, where the Guelfs were twice exiled.  Although as a piece of history the long-running conflict is understood as a political (and even theological although that does take some intellectual gymnastics) squabble, the series of wars fought between the mid-thirteenth and early fourteenth century, although on a smaller scale than many, were as brutal and bloody as any in the Middle Ages and were essentially between Guelf-controlled Florence and its allies (Montepulciano, Bologna & Orvieto) and its Ghibelline opponents (Pisa, Siena, Pistoia, and Arezzo).

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December, 2011.

After the Hohenstaufen loss of southern Italy in 1266 and the extinction of their line two year later, the meanings of Guelf and Ghibelline morphed, Guelfism becoming a system of alliances among those who supported the Angevin presence in southern Italy (including the Angevin rulers of Sicily themselves, the popes, and Florence with its Tuscan allies) while within the many cities where the Guelfs had been victorious, the forces became a kind of blend of political party and pressure group acting on behalf of the conservative, property-owning class dedicated to maintaining the exile of the Ghibellines whose holdings had been confiscated.  Ghibellinism, although there were periodic attempts at revivals, became more an expression of nostalgia for empire although during the later part of the fourteenth century, the practical significance both declined: the popes for decades re-located to France and the emperors solved the problem of northern Italy by pretending it didn’t exist.  For another century the divisions between Guelfs and Ghibelline lived as names for local factions but the days of meeting on the battlefield were over.

A depiction of a fourteenth century street fight between militias of the Guelf and Ghibelline factions in the Italian commune of Bologna by an unknown artist, published in Le croniche di Luccha (The Chronicles of Lucca) by apothecary Giovanni Sercambi (1347–1424).  While there may have been some artistic licence in this work, it does show one aspect of the way fighting was done and as well as roving urban gangs, there were set-piece battlefield events with the use of infantry and cavalry as well as instances of what would now be called guerrilla tactics or terrorism.

However, Europe is a place of long memories (“ancient traditions” also invented as required) and the terms were in the nineteenth century revived during the emergence of the movement which in 1861 would secure the unification of Italy: the “Neo-Guelfs” urged the pope to lead a federation of Italian states while the “Neo-Ghibellines” viewed the pope as a medieval barrier to both modernization and the development of Italian unity.  By the mid-twentieth century popes no longer laid claim to temporal authority but, as the “vicar of Christ on Earth” his Holiness still, on behalf of God, asserted proprietorship over the souls of Catholics and this annoyed Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & Prime-Minister of Italy 1922-1943) whose view was Fascism was not to be seen as simply a political ideology but the primary dynamic of the Italian state and the guiding light of its people.  Authoritarian states are never comfortable if having to co-exist with what might be alternative sources of authority whether that be the Roman Catholic Church, the Falun Gong or the Freemasons (although they’re probably right to be worried about the latter) and Mussolini mentally divided the country in the fascist-supporting Ghibellines (good) and the priest-ridden Guelfs (bad).  Mussolini did think of himself as something of a Roman Emperor, if not one especially holy.  Count Galeazzo Ciano (1903–1944; Italian foreign minister 1936-1943 (and the son-in-law of Benito Mussolini who ordered his execution)) was one of the more readable diarists of the wartime years and a couple of his entries record the way the terms had lived on (and would survive into the atomic age):

2 January 1939: “A conversation with the Duce [Benito Mussolini] and Pignatti [Count Bonifacio Pignatti Morano di Custozza (1877-1957; Italian Ambassador to the Holy See 1935-1939)].  The Duce told the ambassador to tell the Vatican that he is dissatisfied with the policy of the Holy See, especially with reference to the Catholic Action Movement.  He spoke also of the opposition of the clergy to the policy of the Axis, as well as to racial legislation.  Let them not be under any illusion as to the possibility of keeping Italy under the tutelage of the Church.  The power of the clergy is imposing, but more imposing is the power of the state, especially a Fascist state.  We do not want a conflict, but we are ready to support the policy of the state, and in such a case we shall arouse all the dormant anti-clerical rancor; let the Pope remember that Italy is Ghibelline.  Pignatti acted in a satisfactory manner.  He said that the Vatican has made many mistakes, but that the Pope is a man of good faith, and that he is the one who, more than any other prelate, thinks in terms of Italianism.  I have given him instructions to act tactfully. Notwithstanding Starace [confessed Freemason Achille Starace (1889–1945; Secretary of the National Fascist Party 1931-1939 who (along with Mussolini, his mistress and four other fascists) was on 29 April 1945 executed by partisans and hung by his ankles above a gas (petrol) station forecourt in Piazzale Loreto, Milan)], I should like to avoid a clash with the Vatican, which I should consider very harmful.”

Mussolini, his mistress and Starace among the seven hung from the rafters of an Esso gas station’s forecourt, Piazzale Loreto, Milan, 29 April 1945.

On the site there now sits a bank building, the ground floor of which is occupied by a McDonalds “family restaurant”.  Once an autopsy had been performed (clinically, one of the less necessary in medical history), Mussolini’s corpse was buried in a “secret” unmarked grave, but this was Italy so fascists soon discovered the location and exhumed the body, spiriting it away.  That caused a scandal and when eventually the government tracked down the remains, such was the wish to avoid upsetting either the (anti-fascist) Guelphs or (pro-fascist) Ghibellines, an accommodating abbot was found who agreed to find a quiet corner in his monastery.  For over a decade, there it sat until in the late 1950s it was returned to Mussolini’s widow, the need at the time being to appease the Ghibellines (ie the Italian right wing).  The Duce's remains reside now in a crypt at Mussolini’s birthplace which has become a pilgrimage spot for neo-fascists from many countries and in Italy, it’s possible to buy items such as Mussolini postcards and coffee mugs.  Of course the Vatican's gift shops have much papal merchandise for sale and despite the dramatic set-piece at the Esso gas station, what happened in 1945 really wasn't a victory of the Guelphs over the Ghibellines; since then the two sides have managed (mostly) peacefully to co-exist.

June 3, 1942: “Optimism prevails at the Palazzo Venezia on the progress of operations in Libya. The Duce talks today about the imminent siege of Tobruk and about the possibility of carrying the action as far as Marsa Matruk.  If these are roses… they will bloom.  The Duce was very hostile to the Vatican because of an article appearing in the Osservatore Romano [the daily newspaper of Vatican City (owned by the Holy See but not an official publication)] over the signature of Falchetto [“Falchetto” (little falcon) was the ambassador’s pseudonym, used when publishing quasi-official or interpretative commentary on relations between the Holy See and the Italian state, diplomatic developments or political issues of mutual concern, without these writings being treated as formal government statements.  What this meant was the statements could be read as reflecting viewpoint of the Italian embassy to the Holy See (and, by extension, of the Italian government itself) yet still providing the essential layer of “plausible deniability”].  The article spoke about Greek philosophy, but the real purpose was evident.  Guariglia [career diplomat Raffaele Guariglia, Baron di Vituso (1889–1970)] will take the matter up with the Secretariat of State of the Vatican. ‘I hate priests in their cassocks,’ said Mussolini, ‘but I hate even more and loathe those without cassocks [Italians who follow the Vatican line], who are vile Guelfs, a breed to be wiped out.’”  The Duce did though remain a realist and whatever might have been his private fantasies, never suggested, as Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) did during one of the many dark moments of his table talk: “sending a squad into the Vatican and clearing out that whole rotten crew.”  Tacitly, both Duce and Führer knew that to exert his influence, the pope didn’t need any divisions at his command.