Blazon

Blazon (pronounced bley-zuhn)

(1) In heraldry, an escutcheon or coat of arms or a banner depicting a coat of arms.

(2) In heraldry, a description (verbal or written or in an image) of a coat of arms.

(3) In heraldry, a formalized language for describing a coat of arms (the heraldic description of armorial bearings).

(4) An ostentatious display, verbal or otherwise.

(5) A description or recording (especially of the good qualities of a person or thing).

(6) In literature, verses which dwelt upon and described various parts of a woman's body (usually in admiration). 

(7) Conspicuously or publicly to set forth; display; proclaim.

(8) To adorn or embellish, especially brilliantly or showily.

(9) To depict (heraldic arms or the like) in proper form and color.

(10) To describe a coat of arms.

1275-1300: From the late thirteenth century Middle English blazon (armorial bearings, coat of arms), from the twelfth century Old French blason (shield, blazon (also “collar bone”).  Of the words in the Romance languages (the Spanish blason, Italian blasone, Portuguese brasao & Provençal blezo, the first two are said to be French loan-words and the origins of all remain uncertain.  According to the OED (Oxford English Dictionary), the suggestion by nineteenth century French etymologists of connections with Germanic words related to English blaze is dubious because of the sense disparities.  The verb blazon (to depict or paint (armorial bearings) dates from the mid sixteenth century and was either (or both) from the noun or the French blasonner (from the French noun).  In English, it had earlier in the 1500s been used to mean “descriptively to set forth; descriptively” especially (by at least the 1530s) specifically “to vaunt or boast” and in that sense it was probably at least influenced by the English blaze.  Blazon & blazoning are nouns & verbs, blazoner, blazonry & blazonment are nouns and blazoned & blazonable are adjectives; the noun plural is blazons.

A coat of arms, possibly of dubious provenance. 

The now more familiar verb emblazon (inscribe conspicuously) seems first to have been used around the 1590s in the sense of “extol” and the still common related forms (emblazoning; emblazoned) emerged almost simultaneously.  The construct of emblazon was en- +‎ blazon (from the Old French blason (in its primary sense of “shield”).  The en- prefix was from the Middle English en- (en-, in-), from the Old French en- (also an-), from the Latin in- (in, into).  It was also an alteration of in-, from the Middle English in-, from the Old English in- (in, into), from the Proto-Germanic in (in).  Both the Latin & Germanic forms were from the primitive Indo-European en (in, into).  The intensive use of the Old French en- & an- was due to confluence with Frankish intensive prefix an- which was related to the Old English intensive prefix -on.  It formed a transitive verb whose meaning is to make the attached adjective (1) in, into, (2) on, onto or (3) covered.  It was used also to denote “caused” or as an intensifier.  The prefix em- was (and still is) used before certain consonants, notably the labials “b” & “p”.

Google ngram: It shouldn’t be surprising there seems to have been a decline in the use of “blazon” while “emblazoned” has by comparison, in recent decades, flourished.  That would reflect matters of heraldry declining in significance, their appearance in printed materials correspondingly reduced in volume.  However, because of the way Google harvests data for their ngrams, they’re not literally a tracking of the use of a word in society but can be usefully indicative of certain trends, (although one is never quite sure which trend(s)), especially over decades.  As a record of actual aggregate use, ngrams are not wholly reliable because: (1) the sub-set of texts Google uses is slanted towards the scientific & academic and (2) the technical limitations imposed by the use of OCR (optical character recognition) when handling older texts of sometime dubious legibility (a process AI should improve).  Where numbers bounce around, this may reflect either: (1) peaks and troughs in use for some reason or (2) some quirk in the data harvested.

Self referential emblazoning: Lindsay Lohan's selfie of her modeling a sweater by Ashish, her visage emblazoned in sequins, London, November 2014.

Impressionistically though this assumption is, few would doubt “blazon” is now rare while “emblazoned” is far from uncommon.  While “emblazon” began with the meaning “that which the emblazoner does” (ie (1) to adorn with prominent, (2) to inscribe upon and (3) to draw a coat of arms) it evolved by the mid-nineteenth century with the familiar modern sense of “having left in the mind a vivid impression” (often in the form “emblazoned on one’s memory”).  In English, there’s nothing unusual in a derived or modified form of a word becoming common than its original root, even to the point the where the original is rendered rare, unfamiliar or even obsolete, a phenomenon due to changes in usage patterns, altered conventions in pronunciation or shifts in meaning that make the derived form more practical or culturally resonant.  That’s just how English evolves.

Other examples include (1) ruthless vs. ruth (ruth (pity; compassion) was once a common noun in Middle English but has long been extinct while ruthless, there being many who demand the description, remains popular), (2) unkempt vs kempt (kempt (neatly kept) would have been listed as extinct were it not for it finding a niche as a literary and poetic form and has also been used humorously or ironically), (3) disheveled vs sheveled (sheveled was from the Old French chevelé (having hair) and was part of mainstream vocabulary as late as the eighteenth century but, except in jocular use, is effectively non-existent in modern English) and (4) redolent vs dolent (redolent (evocative of; fragrant) was from dolent (sorrowful), from the Latin dolere (to feel pain)); redolent both outlived and enjoyed a meaning-shift from its root.

Etymologists think of these as part of the linguistic fossil record, noting there’s no single reason for the phenomenon beyond what survives being better adapted to cultural or conversational needs.  In that, these examples differ from the playful fork of back-formation which has produced (1) combobulate (a back-formation from discombobulate (to confuse or disconcert; to throw into a state of confusion) which was a humorous mock-Latin creation in mid-nineteenth century US English) (2) couth (a nineteenth century back-formation from uncouth and used as a humorous form meaning “refined”), (3) gruntled (a twentieth century back-formation meaning “happy or contented; satisfied”, the source being disgruntled (unhappy; malcontented) and most sources indicate it first appeared in print in 1926 but the most celebrated example comes from PG Wodehouse (1881–1975) who in The Code of the Woosters (1938) penned: “He spoke with a certain what-is-it in his voice, and I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled.”  Long a linguistic joke, some now take gruntled seriously but for the OED remains thus far unmoved and (4) ept (a back-formation from inept (not proficient; incompetent or not competent (there is a functional difference between those two)) which was from the Middle French inepte, from the Latin ineptus).

Literary use

In literary use, “blazon” was a technical term used by the Petrarchists (devotes of Francis Petrarch (1304-1374), a scholar & poet of the early Italian Renaissance renowned for his love poems & sonnets and regarded also as one of the earliest humanists).  Blazon in this context (a subset of what literary theorists call “catalogue verse”) was adopted because, like the structured and defined elements of heraldic symbolism, Petrarch’s poems contained what might be thought an “inventory” of verses which dwelt upon and detailed the various parts of a woman's body; a sort of catalogue of her physical attributes.  Petrarch’s approach wasn’t new because as a convention in lyric poetry it was well-known by the mid thirteenth century, most critics crediting the tradition to the writings of Geoffrey of Vinsauf, a figure about whom little is although it’s believed he was born in Normandy.  In England the Elizabethan sonneteers honed the technique as a devotional device, often, in imaginative ways, describing the bits of their mistresses they found most pleasing, a classic example a fragment from Amoretti and Epithalamion (1595), a wedding day ode by the English poet Edmund Spenser (circa 1552-1599) to his bride (Elizabeth Boyle) in 1594:

Her goodly eyes like sapphires shining bright.
Her forehead ivory white,
Her cheeks like apples which the sun hath rudded,
Her lips like cherries charming men to bite,
Her breast like to a bowl of cream uncrudded,
Her paps like lilies budded,
Her snowy neck like to a marble tower,
And all her body like a palace fair.

Two bowls of cream uncrudded.

So objectification of the female form is nothing new and the poets saw little wrong with plagiarism, most of the imagery summoned salvaged from the works of Antiquity by elegiac Roman and Alexandrian Greek poets.  Most relied for their effect on brevity, almost always a single, punchy line and none seem ever to attempt the scale of the “epic simile”.  As can be imagined, the novelty of the revival didn’t last and the lines soon were treated by readers (some of whom were fellow poets) as clichés to be parodied (a class which came to be called “contrablazon”), the London-based courtier Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586) borrowing from the Italian poet Francesco Berni (1497–1535) the trick of using terms in the style of Petrarch but “mixing them up”, thus creating an early form of body dysmorphia: Mopsa's forehead being “jacinth-like”, cheeks of “opal”, twinkling eyes “bedeckt with pearl” and lips of “sapphire blue”.

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) however saw other possibilities in the blazon and in Sonnet 130 (1609) turned the idea on its head, listing the imperfections in her body parts and characteristics yet concluding, despite all that, he anyway adored her like no other (here rendered in a more accessible English):

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
   And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
   As any she belied with false compare.

Liberal

Liberal (pronounced lib-ruhl (U) or lib-er-uhl (non U))

(1) Favorable to progress or reform, as in political or religious affairs (and in this context a synonym of progressive and antonyms of reactionary.

(2) Noting or pertaining to a political party advocating measures of progressive political reform (used often with an initial capital letter, something in some cases perhaps influenced by the existence of political parties with the name (where the initial capital is correct)).

(3) Of, pertaining to, based on, or advocating liberalism, especially the freedom of the individual and governmental guarantees of individual rights and liberties.

(4) Favorable to or in accord with concepts of maximum individual freedom possible, especially as guaranteed by law and secured by governmental protection of civil liberties (now better described as libertarian now the definitions of “liberal” are so fluid).

(5) As “liberal education”, of or relating to an education that aims to develop general cultural interests and intellectual ability (as distinct from specific vocational training).

(6) Favoring or permitting freedom of action, especially with respect to matters of personal belief or expression.

(7) Of or relating to representational forms of government rather than aristocracies and monarchies.

(8) Free from prejudice or bigotry; tolerant, unprejudiced, broad-minded

(9) Open-minded, free of or not bound by traditional or conventional ideas, values etc.

(10) Characterized by generosity and willingness to give in large amounts; unstinting, munificent, openhanded, charitable, beneficent; lavish.

(11) Given or supplied freely or abundantly; generous.

(12) Abundant in quantity; lavish.

(13) Not strict or rigorous; not literal (often of translations, interpretations etc).

(14) Of, relating to, or based on the liberal arts.

(15) Of, relating to, or befitting a freeman (now rare).

(16) A person of liberal principles or views, especially in politics or religion.

(17) A member of a “liberal” party in politics (if applied to a part actually named “Liberal”, in some contexts an initial capital should be used).

(18) Unrestrained, licentious (obsolete although the sense seems still to be understood by the Fox News audience).

1350–1400: From the Middle English, from the twelfth century Old French liberal (befitting free people; noble, generous; willing, zealous), from the Latin līberālis (literally “of freedom, pertaining to or befitting a free person” and used also in the sense of “honorable”), the construct being līber (variously “frank, free, open unrestricted, unimpeded; unbridled, unchecked, licentious”) + -ālis.  The –alis suffix was from the primitive Indo-European -li-, which later dissimilated into an early version of –āris and there may be some relationship with hel- (to grow); -ālis (neuter -āle) was the third-declension two-termination suffix and was suffixed to (1) nouns or numerals creating adjectives of relationship and (2) adjectives creating adjectives with an intensified meaning.  The suffix -ālis was added (usually, but not exclusively) to a noun or numeral to form an adjective of relationship to that noun. When suffixed to an existing adjective, the effect was to intensify the adjectival meaning, and often to narrow the semantic field.  If the root word ends in -l or -lis, -āris is generally used instead although because of parallel or subsequent evolutions, both have sometimes been applied (eg līneālis & līneāris).  The noun came into use early in the nineteenth century.  The antonym in the sense of “permitting liberty” is “authoritarian” while in the sense of “open to new ideas and change”, it’s “conservative”.  Liberal is a noun & adjective, liberalism, liberalizer, liberalization, liberalist & liberality are nouns, liberalize is a verb and liberally is an adverb; the noun plural is liberals.

The mid-fourteenth century adjective meant “generous” (in the sense of “quantity”) and within decades this has extended to “nobly born, noble, free” and from the late 1300s: “selfless, magnanimous, admirable” although, as a precursor of what would come, by early in the fifteenth century it was used with bad connotations, demoting someone “extravagant, undisciplined or unrestrained”; Someone something of a libertine (in the modern sense) therefore and it was in this sense Don Pedro in William Shakespeare’s (1564–1616) Much Ado About Nothing (1599) spoke of the lustful villain in Act 4, Scene 1:

Why, then are you no maiden, Leonato,
I am sorry you must hear. Upon mine honor,
Myself, my brother, and this grievèd count
Did see her, hear her, at that hour last night
Talk with a ruffian at her chamber window
Who hath indeed, most like a liberal villain,
Confessed the vile encounters they have had
A thousand times in secret.

The evolution in use continued and while in the sixteenth & seventeenth centuries “liberal” was used as a term of reproach suggesting “lack of restraint in speech or action”, with the coming of the Enlightenment there was a revival of the positive sense, the word now used also to mean “free from prejudice, tolerant, not bigoted or narrow” and that seems to have emerged in the late 1770s although by the nineteenth century, use often was theological rather than political, a “liberal” church (Unitarians, Universalists et al) one not so bound the rigidities in doctrine & ritual as those said to be “orthodox” (not to be confused with the actual Orthodox Church).  It was also in the nineteenth century that in England the phrase “liberal education” became widely used although what to claimed to described had a tradition in pedagogy dating from Antiquity although the it path to modernity was hardly uninterrupted, various forms of barbarism intervening and in this context it probably is accurate to speak of some periods of the Medieval era as “the Dark Ages”.  There was never anything close to a standard or universal curriculum but theme understood in the nineteenth century was it was the only fitting education for what used to be called “a gentlemen” (a term related in sense development to the Classical Latin liber (a free man)) and contrasted with technical, specialist or vocational training.  Historically, the “liberal arts” inherited from the late Middle Ages were divided into the trivium (grammar, logic & rhetoric) and the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music & astronomy).

Much associated with the worst of America’s “corrupting coasts” (New York City & Hollywood), Lindsay Lohan is a classic liberal.

The now familiar use in politics began in the first decade of the nineteenth century, one of the many ripples from the French Revolution (1789) when it was used to suggest a tendency to “favor freedom and democracy” over the long dominant hierarchical systems which characterized feudal European society.  In English, the label was initially applied by opponents to whichever party or politicians championed individual political freedoms and it seems the word often was spoken with a French accent, the implications being that such notions were associated with chaos and ruin; the revolution of 1789 had shocked and frightened the ruling establishment(s) just about everywhere.  However, there seems to have been a fork in the sense development in the US which came from a tradition which of course viewed more approvingly revolutions which swept away tyranny and there, certainly by the 1820s, “liberal” was already being used to mean “favorable to government action to effect social change” and some historians have linked this to the religious sense of “free from prejudice in favor of traditional opinions and established institutions” (and thus open to new ideas and plans of reform); this theme has continued to this day.  From the very foundations of the first colonial settlements, in what became the US there has always been a tension between the lure of freedom & democracy and that of religious purity, the notion what was being created was a society ordained by God.

In politics the usual brute-force distinction is of course between “liberals” and “conservatives” and while the nuances and exceptions are legion, it does remain the core template by which politics is reported and it applies to institutions as varied as the Roman curia, the Israeli cabinet, the Church of England and presidential elections in the Islamic republic or Iran; while not entirely accurate, it remains useful.  What is less useful is the noun “liberalism” which in the nineteenth century did have a (more or less) accepted definition but which since has become so contested as to now be one of those words which means what people want it to me in any given time and place.  That the title of the “true inheritor” of liberalism has been claimed groups as diverse as certain neo-Marxists and the now defunct faction of the US Republican Party which used to be called the “Rockefeller Republicans” illustrates the problem.  Also suffering from meaning shifts so severe as to render it a phrase best left to professional historians is “neo-liberal”, first used in 1958 as a reference to French politics and theology but re-purposed late in the twentieth century to describe a doctrine which was a synthesis of laissez-faire economics, deregulation and the withdrawal of the state from anything not essential to national security, law & order and economic efficiency.  Some critics of latter day neo-liberalism call it "an attempt to repeal the twentieth century" which captures the spirit of the debate.

1972 Chrysler Valiant Charger R/T E49 (left) and 1974 Ford Falcon XB GT Hardtop (right), 1974 RE-PO 500K endurance race, Phillip Island, Victoria, Australia, November 1974.

The fifth round of the 1974 Australian Manufacturers' Championship, the 1974 RE-PO 500K event was run under Group C (Touring Cars) regulations over 106 laps (501 km (311 miles)) and one quirky thing about the race was it being a footnote in Australian political history, both the E49 Charger of Lawrie Nelson (b 1943) and the Falcon GT of Murray Carter (b 1931) carrying “Liberal” signage as part of a paid sponsorship deal arranged by the Liberal Party of Australia.  Carter finished second (Nelson a DNF (did not finish)), like the Liberal Party in that year's federal election (ie, they lost), although then party leader, Sir Billy Snedden (1926–1987), provided one of history's more memorable post election statements when he claimed "We didn't lose, we just didn't win enough votes to win." and he'd today be most remembered for that had it not be for the circumstances of his death which passed into legend.  Carter would later reveal that despite his solid result, the Liberal Party never paid up, the sponsorship deal apparently what later Liberal Party leader John Howard (b 1939; prime minister of Australia 1996-2007) might have called a "non-core promise".  

Death of former Australian Liberal Party leader Sir Billy Snedden.

The Liberal Party was in 1944 founded by Sir Robert Menzies (1894–1978; prime-minister of Australia 1939-1941 & 1949-1966 and a confessed Freemason) as essentially an “anti-Labor Party” aggregation of various groups and he emphasized at the time and often subsequently that he wanted his creation truly to be a “liberal” and not a “conservative” party; it was to be a “broad church” in which some diversity of opinion was not merely tolerated but encouraged.  Mostly he stuck to that although some would note as the years passed, perhaps he became a little less tolerant.  By 2024, the Liberal Party of Australia has fallen under the control of right-wing fanatics, religious fundamentalists, soft drink salesmen & suspected Freemasons and it doubtful someone like Sir Robert would now want to join the party, even if they’d have him.  In retirement, Menzies did become disillusioned with the party he'd help create and admitted he'd at least once voted for the DLP (Democratic Labor Party, a Roman-Catholic based outfit which was probably the most country's most awful political excrement until One Nation crawled from the sewer of discontent).  The current party leader is Peter Dutton (b 1970; leader of the opposition and leader of the Australian Liberal Party since May 2022).

The Australian arm of Rupert Murdoch's (b 1931) media empire has become essentially the propaganda unit of the Liberal Party of Australia.  In 2018 Brisbane’s Murdoch-owned Courier-Mail (known to sceptical locals as the “Curious Snail”) was able to run a gushing puff-piece on Mr Dutton, headed (left) by a statement from his wife Kirilly (b 1974): “He is not a monster.”  People might give him the benefit of the doubt on that one but the Courier-Mail has never been able to run the one on the right because neither Mr Dutton or his wife have ever denied he’s a Freemason.

Whether the Courier Mail will be tempted to run another advertorial under the heading “He is not a scientist” is doubtful but if it does it won't be fake news.

During the televised leaders' debate with Anthony Albanese (b 1963; prime-minister of Australia since 2022) on 16 April, 2025, Mr Dutton was asked whether climate change was making weather events more serious.  He agreed there was “an impact” but when asked if recent natural disasters were examples of climate change happening now, he responded: “I don’t know because I’m not a scientist”, adding he'd “let scientists pass that judgment”.  Conceptually, that’s not unreasonable and is way the most of us relate to stuff like number theory or quantum mechanics: we don’t “know” because we don’t have the background to understand but we “accept” the explanations of those who do understand.  That of course means accepting “facts” which one day turn out to be wrong because the history of science is a tale of disproving long-held orthodoxies but the approach does allow civilized life to unfold.  However, it’s believed Mr Dutton’s statement reflects more a need to pander to his constituency of climate change deniers who variously (with some multi-membership) are (1) those with a vested financial interest in the fossil fuel industry, (2) right wing fanatics and (3) pig-ignorant.  Demonstrating some intellectual flexibility, Mr Dutton doesn’t let his lack of scientific training prevent him from being an enthusiastic advocate of nuclear power generation.

Never denied: A depiction of Peter Dutton in the regalia of a Freemason Grand Master (digitally altered image).  Note the ceremonial apron being worn underneath jacket, a style almost unique to The Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry.

The arrival of political parties called “Liberal Party” & “Conservative Party” (often with modifiers (Liberal Democrats, Liberal Movement etc) created the need for labels which distinguish between the “liberal” and “conservative” factions within each: while all members of a Liberal Party are “big L Liberals” some will be “small c conservatives” and some “small l liberals” which sounds a clumsy was of putting things but it’s well-understood.  Some though noted there were sometimes more similarities than differences, the US writer Ambrose Bierce (1842-circa 1914) in an entry in his Devil's Dictionary (1911) recording: "Conservative (noun), a statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others."  These days, he might be called a cynical structuralist.  Bierce, a US Civil War (1861-1865) veteran, never lost his sense of adventure and, aged 71, vanished without a trace in one of the great mysteries in American literary history.  The consensus was he probably was shot dead in Mexico and in one of his last letters there’s a hint he regarded such as fat as just an occupational hazard: “Good-bye. If you hear of my being stood up against a Mexican stone wall and shot to rags, please know that I think it is a pretty good way to depart this life.  It beats old age, disease, or falling down the cellar stairs. To be a Gringo in Mexico--ah, that is euthanasia!”

So, “liberal” being somewhat contested, while the comparative was “more liberal” and the superlative “most liberal”, modified forms appeared including anti-liberal, half-liberal, non-liberal, over-liberal, pre-liberal, pseudo-liberal, quasi-liberal, semi-liberal, uber-liberal, ultra-liberal, arch-liberal, classical-liberal, neoclassical-liberal and, of course, liberal-liberal & conservative-liberal.  In modern use there have been linguistic innovations including latte-liberal (the sort of “middle class” liberal who, stereotypically, orders complicated forms of coffee at the cafés & coffee shops in up-market suburbs, the term very much in the vein of “Bollinger Bolshevik” or “champagne socialist”.  A latte liberal is a variation of the earlier wishy-washy liberal (someone who will express fashionable, liberal views but will not deign to lift a finger to further their cause) with the additional implication they are of the middle class and committed only to the point of "virtue signaling".  The portmanteau word milliberal (the construct being mil(ennial) +‎ liberal is a liberal of the millennial generation (those born between 1981-1986).  The term boba-liberal comes from internet-based (notably X, formerly known as Twitter) political discourse (mostly in the US it seems) and is a slur describing a liberal-leaning Asian American with politics or attitudes considered too tepid or whitewashed by other Asian Americans, stereotyped as focusing on superficial gestures over more meaningful actions especially in regards to Asian American activism.  Those who comment on stories on Fox News have also contributed to the lexicon, the portmanteau libtard (the construct being lib(eral) + (re)tard) and the meaning self explanatory, as it is for NazLib, the construct being Naz(i) + Lib(eral).  So, especially in the US, “liberal” is a word which must be handled with care, to some a mere descriptor, to some a compliment and to others an insult.  While there are markers which may indicate which approach to adopt (is one's interlocutor carrying a gun, driving a large pick-up truck, listening to country & western music etc), none are wholly reliable and probably the best way is to work into the conversation a “litmus paper” phrase like “liberal gun laws”.  From the reaction, one's path will be clear.

But although there are some for who it seems a calling, being a liberal is not in the DNA and there have been some who became conservative, just as there are conservatives who converted to liberalism.  Indeed, were the views of many to be assessed, it’d like be found they are various to some degree liberal on some issues and conservative on others, a phenomenon political scientists call “cross-cutting cleavages”.  Political journeys are common and may be endemic to one’s aging (and certainly financial) path, there being many youthful anarchists, socialists and nihilists who have ended up around the boardroom table, very interested in preserving the existing system.  The path from liberalism can also be a thing of blatant opportunism.  It is no criticism of Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) that he re-invented himself as an anti-liberal because that was the way to become POTUS (president of the United States), despite for decades his stated positions on many social issues revealing his liberal instincts.  It’s just the way politics is done.  It’s also the way business is done and it was unfortunate Rupert Murdoch (b 1931) elected to settle in the matter of Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News to ensure no more of Fox’s internal documents entered the public domain.  Those which did appear were interesting in that far from Fox’s anti-liberal stance being Mr Murdoch’s ideological crusade, it was more the path to profit and were Fox’s audience to transform into something liberal, there would go Fox News.

Once was liberal: Candace Owens Farmer (née Owens and usually styled “Candace Owens”; b 1989) with "Candace Coffee Mug", one item in a range of Candace merchandise.

Because race remains the central fault-line in US politics, political cartoonists and commentators have never been prepared to have as much fun with the black conservatives as they enjoyed with “gay Republicans”, the latter a breed thought close to non-existent as last as the 1990s.  Black conservatism is to some extent aligned with black Christian religiosity but it’s a creature also of that under-reported demographic, the successful, black middle class, a diverse group but one which appears to have much in common with the priorities of their white counterparts.  In that sense Candace Owens is not wholly typical but she is much more entertaining and here early political consciousness was as a self-declared (though apparently retrospectively) liberal before moving to a nominally conservative stance although whether this was an ideological shift or a pursuit of clicks on the internet (on the model Mr Murdoch values to maximize revenue from Fox News) isn’t clear.  What is clear is Ms Owens knows about the Freemasons, her research into the cult beginning apparently when she “freaked out” after learning Buzz Aldrin (b 1930; who in 1969 was the second man to set foot on the Moon) is a confessed Freemason.  On 30 September, 2024, she discussed the Freemasons on her YouTube channel:

What is Freemasonry?  OK, so during the late Middle Ages, the world was united under the holy Roman Catholic church.  OK?  So if you had any opposition to the church throughout Europe, you were forced to go underground.  Right?  We were a Christian society.  And among the only organized groups that were able to move freely throughout Europe were these guilds of stonemasons, and they would then be, therefore, because they could move freely, hence, Freemasons.  They were able to maintain the meeting halls or lodges in virtually every major city, and the Masons were, essentially, very talented at architecture, and they had a bunch of secret knowledge — sometimes secret knowledge of architecture and of other topics.  And that knowledge was dated back to the times of Egypt. Right?  And it was essential maintaining this knowledge in the construction of European churches and cathedrals.

So one of the things that is well known is that Freemasons were in opposition to the church.  Right? They wanted to crush the church, which is why it is not ironic that the person who founded the Mormon church, as just one example — many of the churches, the very many Protestant faiths that we have — was Joseph Smith and he was a Freemason.  That's a fact, just as one example. Now, you may know some people that are Freemasons and you're going, well, I know this person and he goes to a lodge and he's completely harmless.  Yes. It is a known thing that 97 — like, something like 97% of Freemasons are not in the top tier degree of Freemasonry.  And it is understood that at the top tier degree of Freemasonry, you essentially become one of the makers of the world.

So I'm — just for those of you guys who've never even heard of that, and like I said, I would have been among you. I'm very new to relearning American history through the lens of Freemasonry. Some known Freemasons — George Washington was a Freemason, Thomas Jefferson was a Freemason, Benjamin Franklin was a Freemason, Buzz Aldrin was a Freemason — don't get me started. For those of you that have been listening to this podcast for a long time, you already know where I'm at — or where I'm at when it comes to NASA and the weird satanic chants that they were doing to establish the Apollo program and all the weird stuff that happened leading up to the moon landing. So I freaked out when I learned Buzz Aldrin was a Freemason.  It's not helping my case in believing those moon landings, I'll tell you that for free.  Franklin Roosevelt was another Freemason.

They're even on the moon: Autographed publicity photo of confessed Freemason Buzz Aldrin issued by NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) prior to the Apollo 11 Moon mission (16-24 July 1969).

Most have concluded Mr Aldrin secretly would have left on the surface of the moon some sort of Masonic symbol or icon.  Of the other eleven men to have walked on the moon, only Apollo 15's James Irwin (1930–1991) and Apollo 16's John Young (1930–2018) are known to have been confessed Freemasons but so secretive is the cult there could be others.  As a footnote, as a member of New Jersey's Montclair Lodge No. 144 which is associated with the Scottish Rite, Mr Aldrin presumably would have worn his apron underneath his jacket, something unique to the Scottish tradition. 

Whether Ms Owens changed her views on matters Masonic after hearing Mr Aldrin had endorsed Mr Trump isn’t known but he issued an unambiguous statement of support, sentiments with which presumably she’d concur.  The former astronaut was especially impressed the Republican candidate had indicated in a second term he would elevate space exploration as a “policy of high importance again” and that his first administration had “reignited national efforts to get back to the Moon and push on to Mars.”  Beyond that, Mr Aldrin noted: “The Presidency requires clarity in judgement, decisiveness, and calm under pressure that few have a natural ability to manage, or the life experience to successfully undertake. It is a job where decisions are made that routinely involve American lives – some urgently but not without thought.  For me, for the future of our country, to meet enormous challenges, and for the proven policy accomplishments above, I believe we are best served by voting for former President Trump. I wholeheartedly endorse him for President of the United States. Godspeed President Trump, and God Bless the United States of America.”  Masonic votes having the same value as any other, Mr Trump welcomed the support.

They're everywhere: Confessed Freemason Most Worshipful Brother Harry S. Truman (1884–1972; US president 1945-1953) in Masonic regalia including Worshipful Master collar and apron (over jacket) with Provincial Honours.  Although he served as US president or vice president for eight years, Truman later wrote: “The greatest honor that has ever come to me, and that can ever come to me in my life, is to be Grand Master of Masons in Missouri.”

Masonic aprons are obligatory wear for any Mason when in a lodge or temple and they’re worn always on the outside except in Scotland where the tradition is for them to sit under the jacket.  Like much else in the cult of Freemasonry, the apron is a symbol of a mason’s place in the hierarchy (as codified a system as the precedence afforded to the orders of knighthood in the UK's imperial honors) and although variations exist, there are essentially five layers of apron-wear:

(1) Enterered Apprentice: The apron of an entered apprentice is plain white to symbolise purity and innocence and usually made of lamb's leather.

(2) Fellow Craft: The Fellowcraft apron has the same white background as that of the Enterered Apprentice except for the addition of two blue rosettes.  Despite much research and speculation, it’s not known why the color blue is used.

(3) Master Mason: The decoration on a Master Mason’s apron is much more elaborate and is recognizably Masonic in a way the simpler constructions are not.  Because many Master Masons elect not to progress to the status of Worshipful Master, for many this will be the apron they wear for their entire Masonic career.

(4) Worshipful Master: The only change to the apron when one enters the chair as Worshipful Master is the blue rosettes are replaced by three levels.  The symbols are distinctive so the wearer instantly is recognizable as being a present or past Worshipful Master of a Lodge.

(5) Provincial Honours: Once a mason has gone through the chair and become Worshipful Master, his title changes from Brother to Worshipful Brother.  As the years pass, he may be granted Provincial honours and his apron will then be changed from light blue to dark blue with gold braid.

Knowing masons are everywhere among us, Ms Owens had been scheduled to speak at a number of engagements in Australia  & New Zealand but interestingly, in October 2024, the Australian government issued a press statement confirming her visa had been "canceled", based on her "capacity to incite discord", leading immediately to suspicions her silencing had been engineered by the Freemasons.  It’s good we have Ms Owens to warn us about liberals and the Freemasons, an axis of evil neglected by political scientists who tend often to take a structralist approach to the landmarks in the evolution of the use of the term “liberal” which they classify thus:

(1) Classical Liberalism which emerged in the seventeenth & eighteenth centuries, was rooted in the ideas of the Enlightenment with an emphasis on limited government, a free market (ideas as well as goods & services), individual liberty, freedom of speech, the rule of law and the enforcement of private property rights.  The movement was a reaction to absolute monarchies and state-dominated mercantilist economies.

(2) Social Liberalism (understood as “liberal” in modern US use) was a layer of rather than a fork off classical liberalism but it did accept a greater role for the state in regulating the economy and providing social welfare to ensure a fairer distribution of wealth and opportunity.  It was a nineteenth century development to address the excesses of “unbridled” capitalism” and its critique of economic inequality was remarkably similar to that familiar in the twenty-first century.

(3) Neoliberalism as a term first appeared in the late 1950s but in the familiar modern sense it was defined in the era of Ronald Reagan (1911-2004; US president 1981-1989) & Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013; UK prime-minister 1979-1990) who embarked on project built around a philosophy which afforded primacy to free markets, deregulation, privatization and a reduction in government spending, often combined with globalization.  Their program simultaneously to restrict the money supply while driving up asset prices had implications which wouldn’t be understood for some decades.  The Reagan-Thatcher neoliberal project was a reaction to the post oil-crisis stagflation (a portmanteau word, the construct being stag(nation) + (in)flation)) and the alleged failure of the welfare state & the orthodoxy of Keynesian economics, named after English economist and philosopher John Maynard Keynes (later Lord Keynes) 1883-1946).

(4) Political Liberalism was most famously articulated by US philosopher John Rawls (1921–2002) in his book A Theory of Justice (1971), a work nobody much under forty should attempt because few younger than that would have read enough fully to understand the intricacies.  In summary, it does sound remarkably simple because it calls for a pluralist society built on principles of justice and fairness, administered by a system of governance which permits a diversity of viewpoints while maintaining a fair structure of cooperation.  Rawls’ political liberalism draws one in to what soon becomes and intellectual labyrinth; once in, it’s hard to get out but it’s a nice place to spend some time and most rewarding if one can maintain the same train of thought for several weeks.

(5) Cultural Liberalism is not new but from the mid-twentieth century, its range of application expanded as previously oppressed groups began to enjoy a recognition of their rights, initially usually as a result of a change in societal attitudes and later, by a codification of their status in law, the matters addressed including ethnicity, feminism, civil liberties, reproductive rights, religion and the concerns of the LGBTQQIAAOP community.

(6) Liberal Internationalism is an approach to foreign policy (really a formal doctrine in some countries) advocating global cooperation, international institutions, human rights, and the promotion of democracy.  Its core tenants included support for multilateralism, international organizations like the United Nations (UN), global trade and the promotion of liberal democratic governance worldwide.  What is called the “liberal world order” has underpinned the western world since 1945 but its dominance is now being challenged by other systems which have their own methods of operation.

Pink

Pink (pronounced pingk)

(1) A definition of perceived color varying between a light crimson to a pale reddish purple (sometimes described as fuchsia); any of a group of colors with a reddish hue that are of low to moderate saturation and can usually reflect or transmit a large amount of light; a pale reddish tint.

(2) Any of various Old World plants of the caryophyllaceous genus Dianthus, such as D. plumarius (garden pink), cultivated for their fragrant flowers including the clove pink or carnation (sometimes referred to as the pink family); the flower of such a plant; any of various plants of other genera, such as the moss pink.

(3) The highest or best form, degree, or example of something (expressed usually as “in the pink” or “the pink of”).

(4) As the disparaging slang "pinko", either (1) a communist or one so suspected (US) or (2) a socialist (UK and English-speaking Commonwealth) (both dated).

(5) In informal use, a document provided in commerce or by government for some purpose which was historically issued on pink tissue paper (usually a carbon copy), the term still in some cases enduring for the modern digital analogue.

(6) In fox hunting as “the pinks”, a coat worn by riders (although actually in a shade of scarlet).

(7) In military tailoring, the pinkish-tan gabardine trousers once worn in some regiments as part of an officer’s dress uniform.

(8) In the stone trade, the general term for marble of this color.

(9) In informal use, of or relating to gay people or gay sexual orientation and used sometimes as a modifier in this context (pink vote, pink dollar, pink economy et al (many now dated)).  The pink triangle was a literal description of the fabric patch worn on the uniforms of homosexual inmates in Nazi concentration camps.

(10) In labour market demography, as pink collar, that part of the workforce or those job categories predominately female (dated and now rare because it's assumed by many to be a gay slur).

(11) In commerce, as a modifier, such products as may be discerned as being of this color (champagne, gin, salmon, diamonds et al).

(12) To pierce with a rapier or the like; to stab (based on the idea of a pinkish stain appearing on the clothing of one so stabbed); figuratively, to wound by irony, criticism, or ridicule.

(13) In tailoring, to finish fabric at the edge with a scalloped, notched, or other pattern, as to prevent fraying or for ornament.

(14) To punch cloth, leather etc with small holes or figures for purposes of ornament; to adorn or ornament, especially with scalloped edges or a punched-out pattern (mostly UK use).

(15) As pink disease (infantile acrodynia), a condition associated with chronic exposure to mercury.

(16) In nautical use, a sailing vessel with a narrow overhanging transom (historically a vessel with a pink stern).

(17) As pinky or pinkie, the fifth digit (little finger).

(18) In gardening, to cut with pinking shears.

(19) In US slang, an operative of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency (archaic but still used as a literary device of detectives generally).

(20) In the slang of fishing, various fish according region including the common minnow and immature Atlantic salmon, the origin of all probably the Middle Dutch pincke.

(21) In snooker, one of the color balls (colored pink), with a value of 6 points and in use since the nineteenth century.

(22) In vulgar slang, sometimes as “pink bits”, the vagina or vulva.

(23) In slang, an unlettered and uncultured, but relatively prosperous, member of the middle classes (similar to the Australian CUB (cashed-up bogan)) (UK archaic).

(24) In informal use, having conjunctivitis (ie pinkeye).

(25) To turn a topaz or other gemstone pink by the application of heat.

(26) In (spark ignition) ICEs (internal combustion engines), to emit a high "pinking" noise, usually as a result of ill-set ignition timing for the fuel used.

(27) Of a musical instrument, to emit a very high-pitched, short note.

(28) In color definition, any of various lake pigments or dyes in yellow, yellowish green, or brown shades made with plant coloring and a metallic oxide base (obsolete).

(29) As pinkwashing (al la greenwashing and the figurative use of whitewashing), a fake or superficial attempt to address issues of gay rights (though often applied to LGBTQQIAAOP issues in general).

Circa 1200:  From the Old English pungde (to pierce, puncture, stab with a pointed weapon) which by the early fourteenth century had acquired the sense of "make holes in; spur a horse" the source uncertain but perhaps from a nasalized form of the Romanic stem that also yielded French piquer (to prick, pierce) and the Spanish picar or else from the Old English pyngan (to prick) and directly from its source, the Latin pungere (to prick, pierce), from a suffixed form of primitive Indo-European root peug or peuk- (to prick).  By circa 1500, it had come to mean "to decorate (a garment, leather) by making small holes in a regular pattern at the edge or elsewhere" and that sense endures to this day in pinking shears (although they were not so-named until 1934).  The English pinge, pingen, pinken, pung & pungen (to push (a door)), batter, shove; prick, stab, pierce; punch holes in) was from the Old English pyngan (to prick) and dates from 1275–1325 and may be from (1) the Latin pungere (to prick, pierce), (2) the Low German pinken (hit; to peck) & Pinke (big needle) or (3) the Dutch pingelen (to do fine needlework), the root again the primitive Indo-European peug (to prick).  Pink is a noun, verb & adjective, pinker, pinkest, pinkish and pinky are adjectives and pinkness is a noun

Lustre-Creme shampoo “Pink is for Girls” advertising posters, 1960s.

Lustre-Crème was emphatic “pink is just for girls” which was at the time hardly controversial for most although the claim they produced the “only pink shampoo” might have been ambitious.  It might also have seemed a bit adventurous to suggest there exists a “pink fragrance” but there may be synesthetes who have experiences of smell associated with color and it’s not unknown to have the sense of the senses shifted (in opera it’s common to speak of a soprano’s voice “darkening” as she matures) and Lustre-Crème did note that “…should a certain someone get too close, he'll notice that we have a delightful ‘pink’ fragrance too.”  Covering the market, for the practical young lady mention was made of the “…unbreakable plastic squeeze bottle with the new Flip 'n Tip Spout (no more cap-twisting).”  A "Flip 'n Tip Spout" is one of those small innovations which made life more civilized.  

The "pink is just for girls" equation is however of recent origin.  In the West, until the late nineteenth century, infants tended universally to be dressed in white because doing the laundry was a more tiresome (and certainly labor-intensive) task than today, thus the attraction of white fabric which could be bleached.  Until the early twentieth century, pink tended to be thought a “strong, masculine” color, (apparently on the basis of being a variant of red) while blue was seen as more delicate and so suitable for girls; as well as being considered “dainty”, blue had a strong historic association with the Virgin Mary because of the manner in which she’d been depicted by generations of artists.  As late as 1927, department stores like Marshall Field routinely would suggest pink for boys but within a decade the shift clearly had begun because by the late 1930s the Nazis had (eventually) settled on pink as the color of the identifying triangle worn by prisoners incarcerated under Paragraph 175 of the German penal code (which criminalized homosexual activity between men).  It was in the US in the post-war era of plenty that the “blue for boys, pink for girls” thing was established and it was a product of marketing, the attraction being that with a clear gender divide, parents would have to buy more clothes.  From there, the idea infected just about every industry, even tool manufacturers producing lines of pink tool kits for men dutifull to buy as gifts for Wags (wives & girlfriends).

Speak (2004) by Lindsay Lohan, pink vinyl edition, 2000 of which were in 2020 pressed for Urban Outfitters.  

The words "pinkie" & “pinky” were from the Dutch pinkje, a diminutive of pink (little finger) and of uncertain origin, the earliest known used in Scotland in 1808 and common in Scottish English, US English and elsewhere in the English-speaking world.  The nautical use dates from circa 1450, from the late Middle English pynck & pyncke, from the Middle Dutch pinke (fishing boat).  The flows were so named in the sixteenth century and surprisingly, the use to describe the color didn’t emerge until the eighteenth century, perhaps as a shortening of "pinkeye".  The flower family was so named in the 1570s, the common name of Dianthus, a garden plant actually of various colors.  The family picked up the name “pink” probably because of the idea of the "perforated" (scalloped) petals (ie “pinked” in the earlier sense) although etymologists did suggest there might be a link to the Dutch pink (small, narrow (in the sense of pinkie)), via the term pinck oogen (half-closed eyes (literally "small eyes), borrowed in the 1570s, the speculative link being the Dianthus sometimes has small dots resembling eyes.  The coincidence in the dates is interesting but there’s no documentary evidence.  It was the example of the flower which, by the 1590s, led to the figurative use of "pink" for "the flower" or highest type or example of excellence of anything.

Cadillac “targeted” advertising, gowns for mother and daughter by Jane Derby of New York, 1959 Cadillac Series 62 Convertible, body by Fisher.

1959 Cadillac Series 62 Convertible in non-original pink.

This (unedited) photograph may be compared with the crafted image (above) as an example of the way advertising agencies often preferred simulacrum to reality, some of the representations in the era having a similar relationship to the physical as promotional photographs of hamburgers have to what's really delivered to customers.  With the US cars of the era, the finest practitioners of the era were Art Fitzpatrick (1919–2015) & Van Kaufman (1918-1995) whose best known work was the collection of memorable images for General Motors' (GM) Pontiac Motor Division (PMD) during the 1960s.  What the chains do to advertise hamburgers blatantly (though not legally) is deceptive & misleading but the exaggerations in the graphical art used for the cars was less so because the distortions were so obvious and they were more in the tradition of mannerism, Fitzpatrick & Kaufman never quite becoming surrealists.

The ex-Elvis Presley 1955 Cadillac, now on display at Graceland, Memphis, Tennessee.  Although "peak dagmar" was achieved in 1955, even then the tail-fins had barely grown from those first seen on the 1949 range.

By 1959 Cadillac's advertising had for years emphasized the power and speed of their cars or intricacies such as air suspension or finned brakes.  This was aimed at the men who would be impressed by such things but the company also had advertisements for women, assuring them “…one of the special delights which ladies find in Cadillac ownership is the pleasure of being a passenger” before going on to invite them “…to visit your dealer soon – with the man of the house – and spend a hour in the passenger seat of a 1959 Cadillac.”  All that probably did still accurately reflect US society in 1959 (at least that sub-set which bought cars from Cadillac dealers) but it was in one way misleading.  Although Jane Derby’s (1895–1965) New York fashion house surely made many pink gowns, no pink Cadillac left the factory in 1959.  There are now many, many pink 1959 Cadillacs, the model regarded as having the most extravagant fins available during Detroit's crazy macropterous era, the effect heightened by the equally memorable "twin bullet" tail-lamps (although the fins on the 1961 Imperial were just under an inch (25 mm) more vertiginous) but it was only in 1956 Cadillac had a pink hue on the option chart (as "Mountain Laurel" (code DAL-70663-DQE)).  It was that the popular singer Elvis Presley (1935-1977) gifted his mother a pink Cadillac and the use of the phrase in popular culture (song & film) which made the trend a thing although that car was a 1955 Fleetwood Sixty Special which was originally blue with a black roof.  The roof was later re-sprayed white (the sun is harsh south of the Mason-Dixon Line although the car was factory-fitted with air-conditioning) but people adopting the "Pink Cadillac" motif usually go monochromatic and pastels ("baby pink" the best known) seem more popular than "hot pink".

Elvis Presley's pink "Guitar Car", pictured with creator Jay Ohrberg (b 1943) (left) and with model in a period promotional photograph (right).

Jay Ohrberg over the decades fabricated literally of dozens of the well-known cars used for film and television productions but one like no other was the pink “Guitar Car” built as a promotional tool for Elvis Presley.  Some 41 feet (12.5 metres) in length, it was based on a 1970 Cadillac Eldorado, improbably a FWD (front-wheel-drive) machine running a 500 cubic inch (8.2 litre) V8 rated that year at a muscle car-like 400 hp.  It was the FWD configuration which made possible the Guitar Car's unique design, the only mechanical components running within the “fretted neck” (a tubular steel structure) things like control lines for the steering, brakes, transmission and such; the engineering for those would have been challenging enough.  While the front end was recognizably still a 1970 Eldorado, the rear section (connected by the fretboard) featured bespoke coachwork including a pair of tail-fins (complete with the “twin bullet” taillights made famous on the fins of the 1959 Cadillac) on a scale which might be expected on an aircraft or machine built to contest the world land-speed record (LSR) with the driver sitting under a tinted Perspex dome, mounted atop the “soundhole”.  

The Guitar Car as advertised on eBay, April 2025.  A restoration will be required but 1970s Eldorados are not hard to find and the bespoke bodywork is fibreglass so there will be no rust.  The challenge will be fabricating the custom parts such as the canopy, fretboard and tuning keys.  

Note the Guitar Car’s registration plate (just behind the model's knees).  While registering such a machine for use on public roads might seem unlikely, there was a time when in certain places in the US, such things were possible, Porsche in 1974 modifying a 917 race car (chassis 917-30 which qualified third in the 1971 Austrian 1000 km endurance event) to make it possible to be registered for the road by an appropriately accommodating organ of the state.  In the state of Alabama (in circumstances still not wholly understood), Count Teofilo “Theo” Guiscardo Rossi di Montelera, Prince of Premuda (1902–1991) found such an institution and, unlike the humourless Germans or the French who demanded it first be subject to a crash-test, all the authorities in Alabama stipulated was the 917 never appear on the state’s roads.  Having little business to conduct in Alabama, the count agreed, paid however much he paid and duly received his plate & papers.  Count Rossi's connection with the Porsche factory was by virtue of his family's Martini e Rossi distillery firm which sponsored the Martini & Rossi motor racing team running Porsche 917s during the early 1970s but negotiations in Alabama presumably were conducted in the traditional way and Mr Presley’s people must have found equally helpful staff at the Las Vegas DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles).

Porsche 917-30 in France, now (somehow) on UK registration 959 DAK.

What the precious Alabama papers at the time permitted was use on European roads, although for all sorts of reasons it wouldn’t have been possible to obtain registration in most of Western Europe, even with one’s lawyer threading clauses through loopholes.  The 917 was later registered in Texas, another place where things are done which never would be contemplated in California, Massachusetts or other “blue” (ie Democrat) states and currently it exists in France on UK registration 959 DAK.  There is also a road-registered 917 (917-037) in Monaco, another jurisdiction where the rich find not only the taxation authorities friendly and before being re-converted to race-specification, 917-012 (not 917-021 as is sometimes reported) was, briefly, road-registered.  A few days before the Guitar Car was advertised, 917-30 showed up in a teaser video from Porsche dropping the hint the factory might soon release a road-legal version of one of its current racing cars (probably the 963 prototype) and an announcement is promised for June, presumably to coincide with the 2025 24 Hours of Le Mans.  Whatever is released will doubtless be a fine machine but what won't change is the 917 will remain the greatest Porsche ever.

Count Rossi with Porsche 917-30 Strasse (Street) on Alabama registration 61-277 37 (1975). 

Count Rossi did sometimes take 917-30 on the roads of Germany & France and Mr Presley really did drive the Guitar Car to a show at (of course) Las Vegas but after that it mostly vanished from public view apart from a sighting in the Middle East until, in April, 2025, in a dilapidated condition, it was advertised for sale in France.  The asking price was listed as €10,000 (US$11,500) and quite what value that represents will be in the eye of the beholder because, being unique, there’s little with which it can be compared.  Overseas buyers should note the largest standard shipping container has an external length of 40 feet (12.2 metres) with the internal dimension slightly less so some disassembly (and subsequent reassembly) might be required and a warehouse or aircraft hanger will provide a more appropriate storage space than most garages. 

Pink Pig Porsche 917-20, 1971.

Although it raced only once, the “Pink Pig” (917-20) remains one of the best remembered 917s.  In the never-ending quest to find the optimal compromise between the down-force needed to adhere to the road and a low-drag profile to increase speed, a collaboration between Porsche and France's Société d’Etudes et de Réalisations Automobiles (SERA, the Society for the Study of Automotive Achievement) was formed to explore a design combine the slipperiness of the 917-LH with the stability of the 917-K.  Porsche actually had their internal styling staff work on the concept at the same time, the project being something of a Franco-German contest.  The German work produced something streamlined & futuristic with fully enclosed wheels and a split rear wing but despite the promise, the French design was preferred.  The reasons for this have never been clarified but there may have been concerns the in-house effort was too radical a departure from what had been homologated on the basis of an earlier inspection and that getting such a different shape through scrutineering, claiming it still an “evolution” of the original 917, might have been a stretch.  No such problems confronted the French design; SERA's Monsieur Charles Deutsch (1911-1980) was Le Mans race director.  On the day, the SERA 917 passed inspection without comment.

Der Trüffeljäger von Zuffenhausen (The Trufflehunter from Zuffenhausen), a fibreglass display (some 45 inches (1150 mm) in length) finished in the Pink Pig’s livery.  It includes battery-operated LED (light emitting diode) fixtures within the nostrils, activated by a toggle switch under an access panel on the neck.  Weighing some 50 lb (23 kg), it measures (length x width x height) 45 inches x 20 x 32 (1140 x 510 x 810 mm).  In an on-line auction in 2024, it sold for US$3800.

Pink Pig Porsche 917-20, Le Mans, 1971.

At 87 vs 78 inches (2200 mm vs 2000 mm), the SERA car was much wider than a standard 917K, the additional width shaped to minimize air flow disruption across the wheel openings.  The nose was shorter, as was the tail which used a deeper concave than the “fin” tail the factory had added in 1971.  Whatever the aerodynamic gains, compared to the lean, purposeful 917-K, it looked fat, stubby and vaguely porcine; back in Stuttgart, the Germans, never happy about losing to the French, dubbed it Das Schwein (the pig).  Initially unconvincing in testing, the design responded to a few tweaks, the factory content to enter it in a three hour event where it dominated until side-lined by electrical gremlins.  Returned to the wind tunnel, the results were inconclusive although suggesting it wasn't significantly different from a 917K (Kurzheck (short tail) and suffered from a higher drag than the 917-LH (Langheck (long-tail)).  It was an indication of what the engineers had long suspected: the 917K's shape was about ideal.

Pink Pig Porsche 917-20, Le Mans, 1971.

For the 1971 Le Mans race, the artist responsible for the psychedelia of 1970 applied the butcher’s chart lines to the body which had been painted pink.  In the practice and qualifying sessions, the Pig ran in pink with the dotted lines but not yet the decals naming the cuts; those (in the Pretoria typeface), being applied just before the race and atop each front fender was a white pig-shaped decal announcing: Trüfel Jäger von Zuffenhausen (the truffel hunter from Zuffenhausen); the Pink Pig had arrived.  Corpulent or not, in practice, it qualified a creditable seventh, two seconds slower than the 917-K that ultimately won and, in the race, ran well, running as high as third but a crash ended things.  Still in the butcher's shop livery, it's now on display in the Porsche museum.

Pink Pig Porsche 917-20, 1971.

Scuttlebutt has always surrounded the Pink Pig.  It's said the decals with the names of the cuts of pork and bacon were applied furtively were applied, just to avoid anyone demanding their removal.  Unlike the two other factory Porsches entered under the Martini and Rossi banner, the Pink Pig carried no corporate decals, the rumor being the Martini & Rossi board, their aesthetic sensibilities appalled by the porcine lines, refused to associate the brand with the thing.  Finally, although never confirmed by anyone, it's long been assumed the livery was created, not with any sense of levity but as a spiteful swipe at SERA although it may have been something light-hearted, nobody ever having proved Germans have no sense of humor.

A coffee table in Pink Pig livery built on a M28 Porsche V8 engine (introduced in 1977 for use in the new 928 and, much updated, still in production).

Coffee tables in this form are not uncommon as display or promotional pieces and are sometimes advertised as “the gift for the man who has everything”; whether the pink paint will extend the attraction to many women seems improbable but, despite the perceptions, there are women who share the stereotypically male attachment to cars and their components.  Almost all coffee tables built around engine blocks use a glass top so the interesting bits are visible; if there’s thus a flat surface they are as functional as any of the same dimensions.  Some however have some of the mechanical bits protruding, usually just for visual impact although there have been some V8s and V12s where the heads are not installed, the open cylinders used as somewhere to place jars of sauces, dressings and such.  On this table, the intake manifold extends above the table-top through a surface cut-out so it reduces the usable area but the tubular intake rams are there to be admired.  Although all-aluminium, the M28 was built for robustness and was no lightweight: the table weighs some 240 lb (110 kg) and measures (length x width x height) 43 x 20 x 32 inches (1090 x 940 x 432 mm).  In an on-line auction in 2024, it sold for US$5300.

In the pink: 1983 Porsche 928S in  a “rauchquarzmetallic” wrap.  The 928 was the first Porsche to use the M28 V8. 

In production between 1977-1995, with a front-mounted, water-cooled V8, the 928 was a radical departure from the configuration of their previous road cars, all air-cooled flat fours or sixes and mostly with a true rear engine layout (the power-plant installed aft of the rear axle).  By the early 1970s the Porsche management team had come to believe (1) the fundamental limitations and compromises physics imposed on cars with so much weight at the rear extreme meant such engineering was a cul-de-sac, (2) demand for the by then decade-old 911 would continue to decline and (3) US regulators (then much in the mood to regulate) would soon outlaw rear engines and air-cooling, along with convertibles.  As things turned out, the election of Ronald Reagan (1911-2004; US president 1981-1989), a one-time Hollywood film star with fond memories of convertibles and some distaste for “excessive and intrusive regulations” was elected with the (never explicitly stated but well-understood) agenda to make America great again and a new mood prevailed in Washington, convertibles and much else surviving the expected fall of the axe.  The 928 was well-received by the press but like Toyota’s Lexus which never quite managed to achieve the reputation it deserved because it was “not a Mercedes-Benz” (actually perhaps “not what a Mercedes-Benz used to be”), the 928 suffered from being “not a 911”.  Although the 928 joined the list of machines out-lived by those which they were intended to replace, it was a success and in production for some eighteen years although in the twenty-first century depressed values in the after-market meant it became associated with drug dealers and people with maxed-out credit cards (at some points, certain used 928s were the cheapest 160 mph (260 km/h) cars on the market).  The perception has now improved and around the planet there are solid 928 communities although the members have nothing like the devotional feelings of the 911 congregation.

1968 Lamborghini Espada Series I with interior re-trimmed in hot pink leather (left) and 1974 Lamborghini Espada Series III re-painted in baby pink (right).  Neither of these colors were at the time available from the factory. 

First shown Geneva Auto Salon in March 1968, the Espada was conventionally engineered (by the standards of exotic Italian thoroughbreds) but audaciously styled, the design brief to create something with genuine seating for four while retaining the dramatic lines which had become a signature of the company which was then barely five years from having branched out from building tractors.  On the prototypes, the designers had flirted with both gullwing doors and an orthodox four-door layout but the conclusion quickly was reached the former was not suited to series-production and the latter would appeal less than a two-door.  It was one of those machines which from some angles was seductively attractive yet from other aspects could look ungainly but it did work in that although ingress and egress was compromised, four comfortably could be accommodated and after 1974 Chrysler’s robust and versatile TorqueFlite automatic transmission became available, the market appeal extended further.  In what became a difficult era, it proved Lamborghini’s most successful model with 1226 produced in three series: (176 Espada 400 GT Series I (1968-1969), 578 Espada 400 GTE Series II (1970-1972) & 472 Espada 400 GTS Series III (1972-1978).

1967 Lamborghini Marzal.

Even at the time some might not have agreed the Espada’s styling was “audacious” because it verged on the restrained compared with what had the previous year been shown as a tempting vision of a true, four-seat Lamborghini (prior to the offerings had been strictly for two or rather cramped 2+2s and there was even a small runs of a most unusual 2+1 arrangement).  A one-off concept car first shown at the 1967 Genera Auto Salon, the Marzal was a marvellously impractical design by Bertone’s Marcello Gandini (1938–2024) which featured two vast gull-wing doors to provide access to what genuinely was a four-seat interior, noted for the thematic use of hexagons.  It was powered by a transversely-mounted 2.0 litre (120 cubic inch) straight-six (essentially half of the company’s V12) which was fitted behind the rear axle, making the rear-bias in weight distribution rather pronounced.  It was one of the most dramatic designs of the decade and although production was never contemplated, traces of the silhouette can be seen in the Espada which featured notably less glass than the Marzal and many have expressed doubts the air-conditioning system able to be used in the Marzal would in high temperatures have coped with the heat-soak and build-up.

Bit of a stretch: Model Adriana Fenice (b 1994) in pink stretch top.  Stretch fabrics are useful for the industry because they allow a manufacturer to produce a single garment able to accommodate a ranges of sizes.

Espada is a Spanish word meaning “sword”, the reference specifically to the blade a torero uses in bullfighting to kill the unfortunate beast and to this day Lamborghini still uses terms from the tradition for its models.  That’s perhaps surprising given bullfighting is now not as socially respectable as it was during the 1960s although disapprobation of the “sport” is not new and Pius V (1504–1572; pope 1566-1572) as early as 1567 called the practice: “alien from Christian piety and charity”, “better suited to demons rather than men” and “public slaughter and butchery” fit for paganism but not Christendom and word nerds will be delighted to note Pius V’s ban on bullfighting was technically a “papal bull”.  De Salute Gregis Dominici (On the Salvation of the Lord’s Flock) was issued on 1 November 1, 1567 as a formal proclamation with the papal lead seal (bulla) attached (hence such edicts being known as the “Papal bulls”), the seal authenticating the document and, as an official decree, it was binding upon Church and Christian princes.  Appalled by the cruelty, Pius called bullfighting “a sin” and condemned the events as “spectacles of the devil”, prohibiting Christians from attending or participating under pain of excommunication.  However, like many papal though bubbles down the ages which never quite make it to the status of doctrine, his ban was soon ignored and after his death the edict quietly was allowed to lapse.  Predictably, in Spain and Portugal, where bullfighting had deep cultural & political roots, the bulla was either ignored or resisted and Philip II (1527–1598; King of Spain 1556-1598), while as devout a Catholic as any man, was known as Felipe el Prudente (Philip the Prudent) for a reason and quietly he turned the royal blind eye, allowing bullfighting to continue.

1966 Lamborghini Miura P400 re-painted in what most would probably call hot pink but professionals list as fashion fuchsia (Hex: #F400A1; RGB: 244, 0, 161; CMYK: 0, 100, 34, 4).  The Miura (1966-1973) was named after a breed of fighting bull and was the first Lamborghini to borrow an identity from bullfighting and the first to wear the corporate logo featuring a bull.  In the film The Italian Job (1969), an orange Miura is shown being crushed by a bulldozer but that was filmic trickery and the car seen driven through the Alps still exists.  The term “hot pink” (Hex: #FF69B4; RGB: 255, 105, 180; CMYK: 0, 59, 29, 0) is used very loosely and has become the general term for bright shades while “baby pink” is used casually of most pastels.  In theory, the color palette is infinitely variable but the practical limitation is the range able to be perceived by the human eye, illustrated by the announcement in April, 2025 of the “discovery” of a “new color”; new in the sense no human had ever seen it although it may well be common around the universe.

An artist's depiction of what is closest to "olo", able to be perceived by normal human vision.

Named “olo”, the “new color” was a deeply saturated blue-green (which many would probably call “teal” or “turquoise”) and the novelty was it was able to be seen only by test subjects who had laser pulses fired into their eyes, stimulating specific cells in the retina (a light-sensitive layer of tissue at the back of the eye responsible for receiving and processing visual information; it converts light into electrical signals, which are then transmitted to the brain via the optic nerve, enabling us to see).  What the scientists did was aim the beam at one of the retina’s three cones (there are “S”, “L” & “M” cones, each one sensitive to different wavelengths of blue, red and green respectively).  Because, in normal vision, “any light that stimulates an M cone cell must also stimulate its neighbouring L and/or S cones (because its function overlaps with them)”, by using a laser to stimulate only the M cones, it became possible to “send a colour signal to the brain that never occurs in natural vision.”  Obviously, by adjusting the aim, it may be there are new hues of pink waiting to be discovered although that olo can be perceived only if laser beams are fired into the observer's eye does limit its use in fashion and such but the researchers note the findings suggest the technique could be applied to research into colour blindness.  The name “olo” has a marvellously nerdy origin: It was an allusion to the binary code “010” which signifies the specific combination of cone cells in the eye that were stimulated to create the new color perception.  Specifically, “0” represents the absence of stimulation in the short (S) and long (L) cones, while “1” indicates full stimulation of the medium (M) cones.  Math nerds like in-jokes as much as anyone.

Flamingo's Exotic Dancer's boots in baby pink are available in in calf (left), ankle (centre) and thigh (right) length in a variety of heel and sole heights.  Because of the commonality of design elements and interchangeability of components, there's a degree of production-line rationalization which means the range economically can be produced.  

Actor Florence Pugh (b 1996) in hot pink Valentino Tulle gown with Valentino Tan-Go pink patent platform pumps, July 2022.

The noun meaning "pale red color, red color of low chroma but high luminosity" was first noted in 1733 (although pink-colored dates from the 1680s), developed from one of the most common and fancied of the flowers and pink had come into use as an adjective by 1720.  As a physical phenomenon, the color pink obviously pre-dated the word pink as a descriptor and the earlier name for such a color in English was the mid-fourteenth century incarnation (flesh-color) and as an adjective (from the 1530s) incarnate, from the Latin words for "flesh".  These however had other associations and tended to drift in sense from “flesh-color” & “blush-color” toward “crimson” & “blood color”; it is thus a discipline to “translate” even early Modern English.

Lindsay Lohan in pink pantsuit with Valentino’s Rockstud pumps, New York, October 2019.

The noun pink-eye (and pinkeye) (contagious eye infection) was an invention of US English from 1882 although, dating from the 1570s, it one meant "a small eye".  The adjectival pink-collar (jobs generally held by women or those considered characteristically feminine (1977) or the female workforce generally (1979) was a back-formation based on the earlier blue-collar, white-collar etc.  Pinky as an adjective (pinkish, somewhat pink) dates from 1790, building on the earlier pinkish (somewhat pink), noted since 1784.  The derogatory adjectival slang pinko (soon also a noun in this context) was used of those with social or political views "tending towards “red” (ie sympathetic to communism, the Soviet Union (USSR) etc) since 1927 although as a metaphor that had existed at least since 1837.  It was in the context of the time a euphemistic slur; a way of calling someone a communist (or at least a fellow traveler) without actually saying so.  In Australia, old Sir Henry Bolte (1908-1990; premier of Victoria 1955-1972) would often refer to the local broadsheet The Age as “that awful pinko rag” although he wasn’t unique in his critique, the paper’s one-time headquarters known by many as the “Spencer Street Soviet”.

On any Wednesday.

In idiomatic use, to be "in the pink" is to be healthy, physically fit, or in high spirits; to be "tickled pink" dates from 1909 and is to be very happy with something.  The "pink slip" (apparently originally a "discharge from employment notice" and historically issued on pink tissue paper (usually as a carbon copy)),  is attested by 1915 and pink slips had various connotations in employment early in the twentieth century, including a paper signed by a worker attesting he would leave the labour union or else be fired.  The term pink slip came to refer to a wide variety of documents (in the US it was often the title to a car) provided in commerce or by government for some purpose (although not all literally were pink) the term still in some cases enduring for the modern digital analogue.  To “see pink elephants”, a euphemism for those suffering alcohol-induced hallucinations, dates from 1913 when it appeared in Jack London's (1876-1916) autobiographical novel, John Barleycorn although such things are not always apparitions.  Some languages such as Chuukese and German use pink but other descendants include the Afrikaans pienk, the Finnish pinkki, the Irish pinc, the Japanese pinku (ピンク), the Korean pingkeu (핑크), the Marshallese piin̄, the Samoan piniki, the Scottish Gaelic pinc, the Southern Ndebele –pinki, the Swahili -a pinki, the Tokelauan piniki, the Tok Pisin pinkpela, the Welsh pinc and the Xhosa –pinki.

In the natural environment, pink is all around.  Sexy pink orchids in Fuschia (left), an Amazon River Dolphin (Inia geoffrensis, centre) and a pink baby elephant (right).

Pink elephants are of course hard to find in London but they're rare anywhere.  On the internet, there have been claims the creatures can be found in parts of India, the color the result of the red soil in the environment, the creatures spraying dust on their hides to protect themselves from biting insects.  However, it turned out to be fake news, the supporting evidence created with Photoshop and wildlife experts that while elephants cover themselves in mud, this doesn’t change the colour of their skin.  It's true there is a rare genetic disorder (technically a form of albinism) which can result in the skin of young African elephants displaying a slight pink hue but it's nothing like the vivid hot pink in the Photoshopped fake news.  While in London, famous Australian concierge Elvis Soiza (once a leading figure in the Secret Society of the Les Clefs d’Or) managed, at remarkably short notice, to procure a pink (painted) elephant to be led through the streets of Chelsea to delight one of the wives of a visiting dignitary from the Middle East.  It’s apparently not since been done.

Flying the pink pride flag: Members of Gay Men Fighting AIDS with their pink SPG, London for Pride Parade, 24 June 1995.

In service with both the British and Indian armies variously between 1965-2016, Vickers built 234 of the FV433 "Abbot" 105 mm Self-Propelled Gun (SPG) Field Artillery vehicles, using the existing FV430 platform with the addition of a fully-rotating turret.  The factory project code (and informal military designation) was “Abbot”, in the World War II (1939-1945) British tradition of using ecclesiastical titles for self-propelled artillery (following the Bishop, Deacon & Sexton).  The official model name was “L109” but to avoid confusion with the US-built 155 mm “M109” howitzer, 144 of which also entered British Army service in 1965, this rarely was used.  While the sight of a cluster of gay men atop a pink SPG might have frightened a few, the thought of one in the hands of a pack of lesbians truly is terrifying.

The Playmate-Pink Cars, 1964-1975

Hugh Hefner (1926-2017; founder and long-time editor-in-chief of Playboy magazine) in his 1955 Cadillac Series 62 Convertible. 1955 was Cadillac’s year of “peak dagmar” and amateur psychoanalysts should make of Mr Hefner’s taste in automobiles what they will although, sometimes, a Cadillac is just a Cadillac.

The Playboy Motor Car Corporation was established in New York in 1947 by a pre-war car dealer who believed there would be much demand for a smaller, less expensive car than those in the ranges offered by the established manufacturers, almost all of which essentially differed little from the models which abruptly had ceased production in 1942.  In some ways it was a modern concept, in-house manufacturing minimized in favor of outsourcing and, wherever possible, the use of standard, off-the-shelf parts.  Conceived as a small convertible with three-abreast seating, it offered the novelty of a multi-part, retractable hard-top, something not new but which would not be offered by a volume manufacturer for almost a decade (before being mostly abandoned for forty years).  Like many thousands (literally) of optimistic souls who have for more than a century succumbed to the temptation of entering the car business, the hopes of Playboy’s founders were high but many factors conspired against the project, not the least of which was the car’s tiny size and under-powered engine; it offered economy in an age when austerity was becoming unfashionable and not even a hundred were built before the company entered bankruptcy in 1951.

Not Hugh Hefner's sort of car: 1949 Playboy Convertible.

With that, the Playboy name might have passed forgotten into the annals of the New York Bankruptcy Court.  However, not long after the company’s demise, Hugh Hefner received a C&D (“cease and desist” letter) from counsel for Stag magazine (a men’s adventure title), advising a trademark protection suit would be filed were he to proceed with the release of the magazine he intended to launch with the title Stag Party.  A new name was thus required and after pondering Pan, Sir, Top Hat, Gentleman, Satyr & Bachelor, Hefner’s friend (and Stag Party’s co-founder), Eldon Sellers (1921-2016) (apparently prompted by his mother who had worked for the failed car company) suggested it was the ideal name.  Hefner agreed although whether that had anything to do with the clever mechanism with which the little car could be made topless has never been discussed.  With Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962) on the cover, Hefner in 1953 issued the first edition of Playboy magazine and the rest is history.  One footnote in Playboy’s history is that between 1964-1975, the car gifted to the playmate of the year (PotY) was usually pink.  After that, the gifts were still given but no longer in pink:

1964: Donna Michelle Ronne (1945-2004), Ford Mustang convertible.

The Mustang was the industry’s big hit for 1964, setting sales records which even now are impressive.  It was also highly profitable, most mechanical parts borrowed from existing Ford lines and the very platform on which it was built was that of the humble Falcon, introduced a few years earlier as a compact (in US terms), economy model.  Only the body was truly new but it was “the body from central casting” and while it didn't (quite) invent the “pony car” segment, it certainly defined it and the linguistic connection lent the sector its name.  The lines, which in 1964 created a stir, established the motif which would be imitated by many and, sixty-odd years on, Mustangs, Dodge Challengers and Chevrolet Camaros still were all variations of the 1964 original.  That original had wide appeal, able to be configured with relatively small six-cylinder engines (in the sexist language of the age: "secretary's cars") or larger V8s, soon to include even highly-strung solid-lifter versions, a sign of things to come.  Aged 18 at the time of her shoot, Ms Ronne (who modelled as "Donna Michelle") remains the youngest PotY.

The 1964 PotY’s car was finished in a special-order color which anyone could order but it quickly became known to the public as “Playmate Pink” or “Playboy Pink” although it was only later Ford added the latter to the option list as code #WT9301.  That would be one of four shades of pink the corporation would offer between 1964-1972 including Dusk Rose (code #M0835 and offered originally on the 1957 Thunderbird), Passionate Pink (code #WT9036 which was part of a Valentine’s Day promotion in February 1968) & Hot Pink (code #WT9036).  Interestingly, regarded as niche shades, most of the hues of pink rarely appeared on the mass-distribution brochures and could be viewed only on DSO (Dealer Special Order) charts.  Social change, workforce participation and the contraceptive pill combined in the 1960s to let women emerge as influential or even autonomous economic units and Ford was as anxious as any of the cogs of capitalism to attract what was coming to be described as the "pink dollar".  The tie-in with Playboy wasn’t the only time a pink Mustang was a promotional prop, the Tussy Lip Stick Company offering three 1967 Mustangs as prizes for contest winners, each finished in a shade of pink which matched the lip sticks Racy Pink, Shimmery Racy Pink Frosted & Defroster.  Defroster sounds particularly ominous but to set minds at rest, Tussy helpfully decoded the pink portfolio thus:

Racy Pink: "A pale pink".

Racy Pink Frosted: "Shimmers with pearl". 

Defroster: "Pours on melting beige lights when you wear it alone, or as a convertible top to another lip color".

The fate of the cars is unknown but nerds might note the three prizes were 1967 models while the model (as in the Mustang) in the advertisement is from the 1966 range.  That's because the advertising copy had to be made available before the embargo had been lifted on photographs of the 1967 range.  The men on Madison Avenue presumably dismissed the suggestion of what might now be thought "deceptive and misleading" content with the familiar "she'll never know".

1965: Jo Collins (b 1945), Sunbeam Tiger.

Although from a different manufacturer, the 1965 PotY’s car actually had the same engine as her predecessor’s gift.  Introduced in 1961 with a capacity of 221 cubic inches (3.6 litres), Ford’s small-block V8 (known as the Windsor after the location of the foundry in the Canadian province of Ontario at which it was first built), it pioneered the use of “thin-wall” casting techniques and, on sale between 1961-2002, would be enlarged first to 260 cubic inches (4.2 litres), then 289 (4.7), 302 (4.9) and 351 (5.8) and installed in everything from pick-up trucks to the GT40 (#1075) which won the Le Mans 24 hour classic in 1968 & 1969.  AC used a 221 as a proof of concept exercise in what, with the 260, would be released as the first Shelby American Cobras, the most numerous of which used the 289, the most famous either the 427 or 428 cubic inch (7.0 litres) FE V8.

In England, Sunbeam (then part of Rootes Group) had been attracted by the Windsor’s light weight and compactness, finding, with a little modification and some help from Carroll Shelby (1923–2012), it could (just) fit in the bay of their little Alpine sports car, otherwise never powered by anything larger than a 1.7 litre (105 cubic inch) four.  Fit it did although one modification was the inclusion of a hatch in the footwell to permit a hand to reach one otherwise inaccessible spark plug, an indication of how tight was that fit.  However, the project proved successful and the Tiger sold well although Sunbeam never offered the high-powered versions of the Windsor Shelby used in the Cobras, the platform really at its limit using the more modestly tuned units.  The US was a receptive market for the little hot rod and one featured in the Get Smart TV series, although it’s said that for technical reasons, a re-badged Alpine was actually used, the same swap effected for the 2008 film adaptation, a V8 exhaust burble dubbed where appropriate, a not unusual trick in film-making.  In 1967, after taking control of Rootes Group, Chrysler had intended to continue production of the Tiger (by then powered by the 289) 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”.  Ms Collins received a rarity; in production for only three years, during which just over 7000 were made, the PotY’s Mark II model was one of only 663 fitted with the 289.  Now painted red, the car still exists.

1966: Allison Parks (1943-2010), Dodge Charger.

Detroit in the 1930s had produced fastbacks because "streamlining" had become a fashion and in the 1940s even had mainstream ranges of two & four door models but the fad proved brief.  However, there was a comeback because by the early 1960s experience on the NASCAR ovals had demonstrated how much more aerodynamically efficient were steeply sloped rear windows compared with the more upright “formal roof” (which would come to be described as “notchback”) that designers and public alike had preferred for the additional headroom the packaging efficiency created.  So buoyant was the state of the US industry at the time, the solution sometimes was to offer both and the most slippery form of all was the fastback, a roofline which extended in one curve from the top of the windscreen all the way to the tail.  As a generation of Italian thoroughbreds had shown, the fastback could be a dramatic and aesthetic success on smaller machines but on the big Americans, it was a challenge and one never really solved on the full-sized cars although the by the late 1960s, a formula had been found for the intermediates, necessitated by the shape delivering higher speed and lower fuel consumption on the NACSAR ovals.

Electroluminescent instruments in 1966 Dodge Charger.

In 1966, the formula was still being mixed and while the Dodge Charger’s wind-cheating tail (after some tweaks) delivered the extra speed, the slab-sidedness attracted criticism and, after an initial spurt, sales were never impressive and it wouldn’t be until the revised version was released to acclaim in 1968 that the promise was realized.  In fairness, the 1966 Charger, while not as svelte as its successor, was a better interpretation of the big fastback than some others, notably the truly ghastly Rambler (later AMC) Marlin.  Mechanically, the Charger was tempting, the top engine (though not the biggest, a tamer 440 cubic inch (7.2 litre) V8 also available) option the newly released 426 cubic inch (7.0 litre) Street Hemi which was a very expensive, slightly detuned race engine and the dashboard featured Chrysler’s intriguing electroluminescent instruments which, rather than being lit with bulbs, deployed a phenomenon in which a material emits light in response to an electric field; the ethereal glow much admired.

Apparently the 1966 PotY wanted something roomy and practical with which to take her family to swimming practice so the spacious Charger was a good choice and the rear bucket seats, although separated by a full-length console, could be folded flat, creating a surprisingly capacious compartment.  Wisely, the Playboy organization didn’t give her a Hemi Charger, the dual quad monster inclined to be noisy, thirsty and even a little cantankerous, the pink car fitted with a 383 cubic inch (6.3 litre) V8, the engine nominated by Chrysler’s engineers at the time as the best all-round compromise, the two-barrel version their usual recommendation, a four-barrel for those prepared to sacrifice economy for performance.  The fate of the car is unknown.

1967: Lisa Baker (b 1944), Plymouth Barracuda fastback.

However ungainly the fastback may have appeared on the Charger, it worked well on the smaller Barracuda although there are students of such things who maintain the almost Italianesque lines of the notchback version are better and there was a convertible too, matching the coachwork by then offered on the Mustang.  What all agreed however was the second series Barracuda, released in 1967, was a vast improvement on its frumpy predecessor, now noted mostly for the curiosity of its huge, wrap-around rear-window.  Things could have been different because the original Barracuda, using the same concept as the Mustang (a poetic form disguising a prosaic structure) was actually released a few weeks before the sexy Ford and was in some ways a superior car but it had nothing like the appeal, being so obviously based on an economy car whereas the Mustang better hid its humble origins.

The second series Barracuda looked much more attractive although, being less changed underneath, didn’t fully emulate the “long hood, short deck” motif with which the Mustang had created the pony car template.  Still, it’s reception in the marketplace encouraged Chrysler and soon, to match the now widened Mustang, big block engines began to appear.  The Barracuda was not actually widened but this was the 1960s and though Chrysler couldn’t easily install a big-block, they could with difficulty and so they did although the 383 was a tight fit and compromises were required, the exhaust system a little restrictive and niceties like power steering weren’t offered; with the big lump sitting over the front wheels, at low speed they did demand strength to manhandle.  Almost 2000 were built with the 383 V8 but there were some who wanted more and in 1969, in a package now called ‘Cuda, a few were fitted with the 440.  At first glance it looked a bargain, the big engine not all that expensive but having ticked the box, the buyer then found added a number of "mandatory options" so the total package did add a hefty premium to the basic cost.  The bulk of the 440 was such that the plumbing needed for disc brakes wouldn’t fit so the monster had to be stopped with the antiquated drum-type and again there was no space for power steering.  The prototype built with a manual gearbox frequently snapped so many rear suspension components the engineers were forced to insist on an automatic transmission, the fluid cushion softening the impact between torque and tarmac but, in a straight line, the things were quick enough to entice almost 350 buyers.  To this day the 440 remains the second biggest displacement engine Detroit put in a pony car, only the 455 (7.5 litre) Pontiac used in the Firebird and Trans-Am was larger.

The 1969 440s weren’t exactly anti-climatic but true megalomaniacs had in 1968 been more impressed when Plymouth again took the metaphorical shoehorn used to fit the 383 and installed the 426 Street Hemi, 50 of which were built (though one normally reliable source claims 70) and, with fibreglass panels & much acid-dipping to reduce weight, there was no pretence the things were intended for anywhere except a drag strip, living out sometimes brief lives in quarter mile (402m) chunks.  The power-to-weight ratio of the 1968 Hemi ‘Cudas was the highest of the era but lurking behind the Sturm und Drang stirred by the big blocks was one of the best combinations of the era: The 'Cudas fitted with Chrysler's 340 cubic inch (5.6 litre) (LA) small block V8 were superior machines except in straight line speed and the visceral reaction a Hemi can inspire.

Dior Rouge 999.

The Hemi ‘Cuda reached its apotheosis in 1970 when, on a unique widened (E-body) platform, it and the companion Dodge Challenger were finally fully competitive pony cars.  Unfortunately, just as the 1967 Barracuda would likely have been a bigger success if released in 1964, so the 1970 car was three years too late, debuting in a declining market segment.  In 1970, an encouraging 650 odd Hemi ‘Cudas were sold but the next year, under pressure from the soaring costs of insuring the things, sales collapsed, barely reaching three figures.  The smaller engined versions fared better but the emission & safety regulations added to the negative market forces and the first oil shock in 1973 was a death knell, both the Barracuda and Challenger cancelled in 1974, the four-year E-body programme booking a significant financial loss.  In the agonizing reappraisal undertaken in the aftermath of what was labeled "a debacle", careers were said to have suffered.  It was as an extinct species the later ‘Cudas achieved their greatest success... as used cars.  In 2014, one of the twelve 1971 Hemi ‘Cuda convertibles sold at auction for US$3.5 million and in 2021, another attracted a bit of US$4.8 million without reaching the reserve.  If it survives, the 1967 PotY’s pink Barracuda wouldn’t benefit from quite that appreciation but it would have some appeal and there were reputedly another ten pink cars built for the occasion, all from the one California plant, the paint code #999, which, coincidently, is shared with Dior’s cor Rouge 999 lip stick and nail enamel.  Red rather than pink, the 999 reference was  borrowed from the gold industry, a purity of 99.9-something percent as pure as gold gets.  Known also as "24 karat" or "pure gold", because of the softness, it's not suitable for all decorative or industrial uses but is a required standard for investment purposes such as bars, bullion or coins.  The 999 standard permits an alloying with 0.1% impurities or other metals (usually silver, copper or lead) and some metals exchanges even specify the proportion of the other metals which may be included in the 0.1%.

1968: Angela Dorian (b 1944), AMC AMX.

Before Tesla, American Motors Corporation (AMC) was the last of the "independents" (some of which formed agglomerations in an attempt to survive) which tried to compete with Detroit’s big three, General Motors (GM), Ford & Chrysler.  In the post-war years this was mostly a struggle and AMC’s brightest years had come in the late 1950s when, then run by George Romney (1907–1995 and father of Mitt Romney (b 1947; Republican nominee for US president 2012)), the company began to compete against small, imported cars, then a market segment in which the big three offered no domestically produced vehicles.  That however changed in the early 1960s and AMC’s halcyon days soon ended although they continued for years along the road to eventual extinction and one of their more interesting ventures was the short-lived AMX (1968-1970).

The AMX exemplified the AMC approach in that it was conjured up something new by taking an existing model and, at low cost, modifying it to be something quite different, an approach which, for better and worse, they were compelled to follow to the end.  The AMX was a short-wheelbase, two-seater version of AMC’s Javelin pony car which, introduced in 1967 to contest the then booming segment, had been well-reviewed by the press and, despite the latter-day perception of its lack-lustre performance in the market, sometimes out-sold the Barracuda and actually out-lived it by a few months but unlike some Barracudas (actually the 'Cuda derivative), neither Javelins nor AMXs command multi-million dollar prices at auction.  The corporation originally used the AMX name (standing for “American Motors experimental”) for a “concept car” and two show cars (somewhat misleadingly at the time referred to as “prototypes”) which toured the show circuit in 1966-1967.  All were a radical departure from the staid image associated with the economical, practical vehicles on which the company had built its reputation (and most of its profits) but the response was positive and with the post-war baby boom having created a large number of males aged 17-25 who were the most affluent young generation in history, AMC decided to enter the “sporty” car market.  In fairness, at the time, it would have seemed not only a good idea but also an obvious one given the extraordinary success of machines like the Ford Mustang & Chevrolet Camaro.  Like many manufacturers, AMC liked three letter designations and they also had a trim package called “SST” which, according to internal documents, stood for “Super Sport Touring” and not “Stainless Steel Trim” as is sometimes suggested (although use was made of the metal for some of the bright-work so the assumption was not unreasonable).  Doubtlessly AMC expected some positive association in the public mind with the SST (supersonic transport) projects several US aerospace manufacturers were in the era pondering as competition for the Anglo-French Concord(e).

AMX 36-24-35, post-restoration, 2015.

Still, the AMX was an interesting, even a "brave" (in the sense Sir Humphrey Appleby (the fictional senior bureaucrat in the BBC's Yes Minister (1980-1984) & Yes, Prime Minister (1986-1988) series) might have used the word) innovation, a two-seat coupé added to a market in which there was no similar model (Chevrolet’s Corvette was a true sports car), the last attempt at such a thing the two-seat Ford Thunderbird (1955-1957) which had been retired and replaced by a vastly more successful four-seat version.  That was not encouraging but AMC persisted, able to leverage its resources and produce lines at lower cost than the big three could manage.  The AMX, like the Javelin was a piece of typically solid AMC engineering, enjoyed some success in competition and quixotically, two dozen were assembled in Australia in right-hand-drive configuration, sold under the old Rambler name which had so well served George Romney, the marque lingering on there for a few more years where, remarkably to Americans, it was marketed as a "prestige" product.  However, the costs involved in maintaining the shorter AMX platform were too great and when a revised Javelin was released in 1971, AMX became just an option package.  The Javelin too would be axed in 1974 but AMC continued to use the AMX name (which had actually started life in 1966 for concept cars on the show circuit) until 1980.

By 1968, the deeply religious George Romney was long gone from AMC, having moved into Republican politics; like his time in the car business, his second career had its ups and downs and (like his son and many others) he never realized his goal of reaching the White House.  Had he still been in the chair, it may be that never would he have countenanced the idea of AMC getting mixed up with Playboy magazine and, even if persuaded, probably would have drawn the line at the PotY’s vital statistics blatantly being celebrated.  As it was, with no Mormon veto, the AMX, one of several said to have been painted “Playmate Pink” was delivered to Ms Dorian with a plaque on the dashboard engraved AMX 36–24–35 (the numbers verified by the staff at Playboy, experts in such matters).

Ms Dorian too had her ups and downs, eventually parting with AMX 36-24-35 after forty-two years but keeping the Walther (9mm) PPK handgun which had been a gift from a friend, the film-maker Roman Polanski (b 1933), the two having met when Dorian appeared as a recovering heroin addict in Polanski's Rosemary's Baby (1968).  She was also a friend of the director's then wife Sharon Tate (1943-1969) and in August 1969, after followers of cult leader Charles Manson (1934-2017) murdered the eight months pregnant Tate (and four others), Polanski gave his personal Walther PPK to Dorian for self-protection and it was with this that in 2010, after an argument, a 66 year-old Angela Dorian shot her husband of two decades.  He survived the shooting and was quoted by the press lamenting "I loved her for nearly 25 years. A divorce would have been sufficient, not a bullet...", which, in the circumstances, does seem generous.  Charged with attempted murder (later reduced to attempted voluntary manslaughter to which she pleaded no contest), she received a nine year sentence and was released on parole in April 2018.  AMX 36-24-35 also had its ups and downs, repainted (like many of the playmate cars) in something less eye-catching before being found in a dilapidated state.  It’s since been restored to its original pink splendor and remains in its original configuration, equipped with the base (short-deck) 290 cubic inch (4.8 litre) V8, automatic transmission, air conditioning, tilt wheel, AM radio & 8-track stereo player and the optional rear bumper guards.  It remains unique as a PotY car but the factory’s records do list one other “Playmate Pink” AMX, “special-ordered” late in 1968 by a dealership in Potosi, Missouri and it would have been a bit quicker, running the (short deck) “AMX” 390 (6.4), coupled with an automatic transmission, the “GO" option (a high-performance & dress-up package), air conditioning, and leather trim.

1969: Connie Kreski (1946-1995), Shelby Mustang GT500 with the ultimate hood ornament between the NACA ducts.

In their run of half a decade, Carroll Shelby’s Mustangs were transformed from race cars which, conveniently, could be road-registered and driven to the track, into elaborately embellished, luxuriously equipped cars usually just a little more powerful than those upon which they were based yet managing still to look faster still.  In 1965, Shelby was aware of the Mustang’s potential in competition and looking for a profitable line to sell, the new seven litre (427 & 428 cubic inch) Cobra giving every indication it would become the loss-making venture it proved (although they became an extraordinarily profitable investment for anyone buying at the right point).

The 1969 & 1970 Shelby Mustangs featured an impressive five NACA ducts on the hood (three to let air in, two to allow it to escape).

Shelby American created the first of their Mustangs in 1965, using basic, fastback cars sent by Ford to the factory in Venice Beach, the facilities later moved to 6555 West Imperial Highway (now the Qantas freight terminal) adjacent to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) when more space was required.  All the cars built in 1965-1966 used the familiar Windsor 289 in essentially the same sate of tune as the Cobras and the drive-train was beefed-up to handle both the additional output and the lateral forces encountered in the extremes of competition.  The Cobra DNA in the early Shelby Mustangs was thus no affectation and the “Cobra” name was often applied to the cars, both in marketing materials and on parts prominently displayed.  The cars however were as much about what was left out as what was put in.  Shelby had been a race driver (winning the 1958 Le Mans 24 Hour) and understood the significance of lightness which improved performance, tyre wear & fuel consumption and reduced the stresses to which mechanical components were subject so, reflecting his philosophy that a sports car was one “with noting on not there for the purpose of making it go faster”, the Shelby Mustangs were stripped of whatever wasn’t essential, including carpets and sound deadening.  That helped the performance on the track but did make driving a noisy, uncomfortable experience.  At the time, the 1965 Shelby Mustang GT350 was memorably described as “a brand new, clapped-out racing car”.  Sometimes the weight-saving was necessitated by the letter of the law, the rear seat removed so the things could be defined as “two seat sports cars” and thus be eligible for competitions run by the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA), a modification which proved handy because it allowed the spare tyre to be kept where once the seat sat, improving weight distribution.  It was definitely not for everyone but 562 were sold, 34 of which were the specially prepared GT350R which for three years won its SCCA championship class.

The retreat from rawness began in 1966, the need to homologate for competition having been satisfied.  An automatic transmission became optional and the cars, now labelled as Shelby GT350s, were no longer fitted with some of the suspension, exhaust and other modifications which had distinguished the 1965 run although the rarely-ordered option of a Paxton supercharger (a version of the old Mcculloch unit rebranded after the company was absorbed by STP) was added to a growing list.  Famously too, in that year some 1000 GT350Hs were built on order from the Hertz Rental Car Company and there are stories, some of which may be true, of them being rented on Saturday, raced on Sunday and returned on Monday.  These days, the deal with Hertz might be called a “related party transaction", Ford (a big holder of Hertz stock) having prevailed on their management to place the order.

1967 Shelby GT500 (427, "Super Snake").

In 1967, the trend towards civility continued, a prototype convertible built (although technical problems prevented production) and all were now full-fledged road cars, Shelby’s interest now entirely in cheque-books rather than chequered flags.  Ford had given the 1967 Mustangs a wider platform so the 390 cubic inch (6.4 litre) big-block (FE) V8 could be fitted and this enabled Shelby to introduce the GT500 which used the 428, until then something used effortlessly and quietly to propel luxury sedans and coupés.  Shelby used the 428 in "Police Interceptor" specification, added the brace of four barrel carburetors and tuned things a little but the quest had shifted from raw performance to making slightly faster versions of Mustangs which looked faster still and could attract a higher price.  Later GT500s used Ford's factory supplied 428 CobraJet which, with a single four-barrel carburetor was more powerful.  However, in a glimpse of what might have been (and was not quite realized even when the Boss 429 Mustang later appeared), Shelby did build one GT500 with a 427 FE.  With fractionally less displacement than the 428, the 427 was a genuine racing engine, more oversquare in configuration with enhanced lubrication and a strengthened bottom end; it twice won at Le Mans and had been intended as an option for the 1968 Mustangs before the accountants worked out quite how expensive that would prove.  Dubbed the "Super Snake", Shelby’s 427 GT500 was used to test tyres in high-speed use and remained a one-off, selling at auction in 2013 for US$1.3 million.

In 1968 the convertible was added as an option and from then on, the Shelby GT350s and GT500s became less interesting and more successful, the engines sometimes growing larger but less powerful, Shelby’s decisions vindicated by rising sales and healthy profits.  However, Ford was less content and, the arrangement having served its purpose, the corporation gradually assumed control, the 1969 models the end of the line although a few cars built that year were re-listed as 1970 models and sold in the first few months of that year.  The PotY GT500 (Shelby serial #1027 & Ford vehicle identification number (VIN) 9F02R481027) was regular production item with a 428 cubic inch (7.0 litre) Cobra Jet V8, an automatic transmission and no air-conditioning.  Not accounted for in the Shelby registry, its fate is unknown though one quirk of note is that it left the line finished in Pastel Grey (code M3303A) and was re-painted prior to delivery, making it the only car known to have emerged from Shelby American's facility in pink.

1970: Claudia Jennings (1949-1979), Mercury Capri.

From a Shelby GT500 to a Mercury Capri isn’t quite the sublime to the ridiculous but it’s quite a change.  That said, the Capri, a product of Ford’s European operation and built in both England and Germany, was always regarded as “Europe’s Mustang” and borrowed the same successful and lucrative model of construction: sexy shape, basic underpinnings.  So, on the uninspiring but reliable and cheap to produce platform of the Cortina (UK) and Taunus (Germany), a two-door fastback coupé appeared in 1968 and, over three generations, it remained in production until 1986.  In the US, sold by Mercury dealers, it enjoyed great success and was at one point the highest-selling import and although advertised as the "Mercury Capri", never did a "Mercury" badge appear.  Imported from Germany, the last were sold in the US in 1978, the strengthening of the Deutsche Mark against the US dollar rendering the project unviable.

In Europe, it was available initially with an engine as small as 1.3 litres (79 cubic inches) but the bigger sellers were 1.6 (98 cubic inch) & 2.0 litre (122 cubic inch) fours (some of which, unusually, were V4s) and the V6s of 2.3 (140 cubic inch), 2.6 (159 cubic inch), 2.8 (170 cubic inch) & 3.0 litres (183 cubic inches).  Additionally, a few 3.1 liter (189 cubic inch) V6s were built for homologation and even some 3.4 litre (207 cubic inch) engines appeared purely for use in competition.  Ms Jennings missed out on the 2.6 which came later in the US; she was just in the right place at the wrong time.  In 1970, the only engine Ford offered in the Capri was the 2.0 litre in-line four shared with the the Pinto which would be introduced that year.  At least she didn’t get one of them (although in the early years the Pinto didn’t carry the stigma which would be attached by later events).  What the US and most of the world also missed was the best Capri of them all, something enjoyed only by South Africans.  That was the Perana, a creation of Basil Green (1937-2022) who had created his own 3.0 V6 Capris before Ford.  When the factory produced their own, Green responded by slotting in the 302 cubic in (4.9 litre) Windsor V8, Basil Green Motors between 1970-1973 selling over 500 before the first oil crisis put an end to the fun.  

Ford Capri RS and BMW 3.0 CSL, Spa Francorchamps Belgium, 1974.

The so-called Cologne Capris were among the most famous to compete in European touring car racing during the 1970s and to counter the threat BMW produce their 3.0 CSL, the be-winged, lightweight version of their E9 coupé (dubbed the "batmobile"), the battles between the two the stuff of legend.  For many seasons sharing space on European circuits, the more unfortunate link between the two was a vulnerability to rust, E9s and Capris prone to rot at a rate bettered only south of the Dolomites, certain Fiats, Lancias & Alfa Romeos of the era crumbling more quickly still.  On the road, even with the bigger or the later turbocharged V6s, the Capri was always competent rather than dominant and the only ones to make a serious attempt to make genuine high-performance version were the South African Peranas which were both rapid on the road and dominant on the track.  Again, the fate of the pink car is unknown but given the Capri's propensity to rust, hopes are not high.

1972: Sharon Clark (b 1943), Spectra 20 Ski Boat.

That Ms Clark received a boat (and one more red than pink) rather than a car attracted comment.  Many concluded she just liked boats or perhaps skiing and that seems to be the case because Playboy's archives record that she met the boat’s designers after recognizing them as the fathers of two of her high-school friends, the donation of a Spectra 20 Ski Boat as her prize happening some months later so there’s presumably some relationship between events.  It proved synergistic, the publicity said to have improved sales to the extent that Spectra offered her a weekend job taking prospective customers on test rides at Long Beach.  Later she would work full-time for Spectra.

1972: Liv Lindeland (b 1945), De Tomaso Pantera.

The De Tomaso Mangusta (1967-1971) was achingly lovely but adapting a race car for the road necessitates compromises and the Mangusta had a few.  The 32/68% front/rear weight distribution delighted racing drivers but induced characteristics likely to frighten everybody else and the interior was cramped, something tolerated in competition vehicles but not endearing to buyers looking for something with which to impress the bourgeoisie.  However, it sold well enough to encourage de Tomaso to pursue the concept and the better designed (if less beautiful) replacement, the Pantera, lasted from 1971 to 1993, over seven-thousand being sold, most fitted with US or Australian-built versions of the Ford 351 cubic inch (5.8 litre) Cleveland V8.

1969 De Tomaso Mangusta.

The Pantera was designed from the start as a road-car and was thus a far more satisfactory experience for most drivers and the Ford Motor Company, interested in having in their showrooms a competitor for Chevrolet’s Corvette, began to import the car into the US in 1972.  Predictably, there were quality control problems (Elvis Presley famously shot his when, once too often, it refused to start) which compelled some investment from Ford and although the sales volumes never challenged those of the Corvette, in the four years it was available in the US, well over five-thousand were sold.  After being withdrawn from the US market in 1975, De Tomaso maintained production on a smaller scale, the majority sold in Europe and it enjoyed a long Indian summer, the final examples not leaving the factory until 1993 by which time the output was reduced to a trickle.

1985 De Tomaso Pantera GT5.

Disappointingly, despite on paper appearing to possess a promising specification, there was never a stellar career in competition although factory support was offered and private teams ran regular campaigns.  Conspiracy theorists have long attributed the paucity of success to the more established players like Ferrari and Porsche having undue influence on the regulatory bodies, nudging them always in directions favoring their machines.  The factory arranged small runs of Panteras which conformed to Group 3 and Group 4 racing regulations, some of which owners later converted to Group 5 specifications but consistent success proved elusive.  De Tomaso however knew their market.  Even if their cars couldn’t often beat the Porsches and Ferraris on the track, as the years went by the Panteras adopted increasingly wild styling and they certainly looked the part.  

The playmate-pink Pantera re-imagined, for better or worse, 2022.

Panteras have a high survival rate and the pink car still exists, though no longer is it recognizable as the playmate’s prize.  Extensively modified (as are many Panteras) and now painted a vivid (almost a Dior 999) red, the engine has been enlarged to 397 cubic inches (6.5 litres), the interior refinished and wheel-arch flares added to accommodate wider, staggered-diameter wheels.  It sold at auction in June 2022 for U$110,000, a not exceptional price for the breed and it may have been more valuable if left in the original pink livery.

1973: Marilyn Cole (b 1949), Volvo 1800ES, the last descendent of the P1800.

Still one of the more admired Volvos (although, given the appearance of most of those produced in recent decades, that may be faint praise), the 1800ES (1972-1973) underwent an exquisitely executed conversion from a coupé (1961-1972), the re-design undertaken entirely in-house, the proposal by Pietro Frua's (1913-1983 and the P1800's original designer) thought too avant-garde for Volvo buyers.  They may have had a point because Volvo owners do seem impressed more by frugality of operation and longevity than anything flashy and there are several 1800s which are documented as having covered more than a million miles (1.6 million km).  The coupé gained much from its use in a popular TV series shown in the early 1960s, a promotional opportunity made possible only because Jaguar declined to loan the production company one of its new E-Types (XKE) which had debuted in the same year as the P1800.  Still, the seductive E-Type hardly needed an image-boost from a TV.  Doubtlessly the equally seductive Ms Cole won PotY on merit but her photo-shoot was the first in which a "full-frontal nude" image appealed in the magazine so that alone may have been enough to persuade the judges.  When Ms Cole took her prize back to London, she had it repainted, choosing tan.  Eye-catching the pink may have been but it seems when Playboy models are clothed, there are times when they prefer anonymity; it was the fate of most of the pink prizes.  Despite being involved in an accident in 2005, it’s still registered for road use in the Netherlands although it’s not known if it’s been restored to the pink.

Ms Cole was the first English PotY, taking her car home to England and the range has an English connection, the first 6000-odd of the coupés built at Jensen’s West Bromwich Albion factory.  Those early models (1961-1963) were called P1800 but when production moved to Sweden, the name 1800S was adopted (1963-1970), changed again in 1970 to 1800E (1970-1972) to mark the addition of fuel injection.   The "E" stood for Einspritz (German for "injection") and the Swedes used "E" because the Germans were pioneers in the development of fuel injection (the Luftwaffe doing much of the product testing); the use by Mercedes-Benz of "E" to indicate certain models were fuel-injected had in Europe become widely understood.  Interestingly, when BMW added fuel-injected models, just to be different, they used a lower case "i" and Volvo would have anticipated that had they used the Swedish injektion.    Another quirk in Volvo nomenclature was it continued to be labelled "1800" even after the engine's displacement was in 1969 increased to 2.0 litres.  It transpires too there are other uses for an 1800 coupé, one gifted amateur engineer, taking advantage of a similarity in dimensions and angles, using one to build his own (partial) replication of the 1967 Ferrari 275 GTB/4 NART Spyder.

1974: Cyndi Wood (b 1950) in (genuine) pink gown with "pink" Mercedes-Benz 450 SL (R107).  

The Mercedes-Benz R107 (1971-1989) had a unexpectedly long life, a longevity which slightly exceeded even the 600 (W100; 1963-1981) although across the Grosser’s eighteen years, the only obvious change was when the two-piece hubcap & trim-ring combination (the appearance of which suited the design) was replaced with a one-piece wheel cover (which wasn't as satisfactory) whereas during much the same duration, eight different engines and several transmissions were fitted to the R107:

280 SL: 2.7 litre (168 cubic inch) straight 6 (M110)

300 SL: 3.0 litre (183 cubic inch) straight 6 (M103)

350 SL: 3.5 litre (215 cubic inch) V8 (M116)

380 SL: 3.8 litre (231 cubic inch) V8 (M117)

420 SL: 4.2 litre (256 cubic inch) V8 (M117)

450 SL: 4.5 litre (274 cubic inch) V8 (M117 (iron-block))

500 SL: 5.0 litre (301 cubic inch) V8 (M117)

560 SL: 5.5 litre (338 cubic inch) V8 (M117)

1988 Mercedes-Benz 560 SL.

Not all versions were sold in all markets, the sixes never offered in the US, the 420 sold mostly in Europe and the 560, an emission-controlled special restricted mostly to Australia, Japan and the US.  Some 500s are seen in the US and Australia but all are private or grey market imports and it remains the most powerful (and among the most toxic) engine offered in the roadster.  The labelling of the early US versions was however confusing; although called a 350 SL (as it was in the rest of the world where it used the 3.5) it was fitted with the 4.5 litre V8, chosen because (1) the 4.5 was certified for sale in the US, (2) the improved low-speed torque characteristics of the long-stroke 4.5 was better suited to US driving conditions and (3) the increased displacement partially offset the power loss caused by the early, primitive anti-emission equipment.  The US market cars were later re-badged 450 SL, matching RoW (rest of the world) production.  Fuel consumption of both the 3.5 & 4.5 was poor, even by the slight standards of the time, the larger 6.3 litre (386 cubic inch) and 6.8 litre (417 cubic inch) big-block V8s surprisingly little more thirsty when cruising though those were fitted to much heavier cars.  The 3.5 litre 350 SLs are notable for being among the final Mercedes-Benz V8s available with a manual transmission, the last apparently sold as late as 1980.  Not exactly Lotus-like in precision of operation, the gear-shifts can be a little clunky but, as a manual V8, those 350 SLs (there were also some fitted to 350 SLCs (C107, 1971-1980; a long wheelbase 2+2 coupé version of the SL) do enjoy a cult following among collectors.  It now surprises some to learn that in Europe the four-speed manual could be ordered in the 3.5 V8 versions of the W111 coupé & cabriolet (1969-1971) and the W108 (1965-1972) & W116 (1972-1980) sedans.  Remarkably, it was available even on the long wheelbase (LWB) versions of the sedans (W109 & V116).

The R107 had always been intended to be exclusively V8 powered but the 280 SL entered the line in 1974 in response to the first oil shock (1973) and in many markets, a six cylinder version remained available to the end.  That the end didn’t come until 1989 is because for much of the R107’s early life, the very future of convertibles in the US was uncertain, threatened by what was thought to be impending US legislation which would ban the things.  That never transpired but much of the 1970s and 1980s were troubled times and there were other priorities so the R107 remained the only convertible offered until replaced in 1989 and a four seat drop-top didn’t return to the line until 1992.  SL actually stands for “super light” which was sort of true when first it was used of a race car in 1952 but by 1971 was misleading at least, the R107 no lightweight and a grand tourer rather than a sports car.  For years, the factory never much discussed what the abbreviation "SL" stood for and the assumption had long been it meant Sports Light (Sports Leicht), based presumably on the SSKL of 1929-1931 (Super Sports Kurz (short) Leicht) but the factory documentation for decades used both Sports Leicht and Super Leicht.  It was only in 2017 it published a 1952 paper discovered in the corporate archive confirming the correct abbreviation is Super Leicht. However defined, the R107 is heavy, the removable hard-top famously so and although that roof was fashioned in the "pagoda" shape, a la its (W113) predecessor, it was only the earlier model which picked up the nickname.

A whiff of scandal attaches to the 1974 “PoTY pink” 450 SL: it was white.  Vogue's artists made their models thinner, Playboy's made their cars pinker.

Whether Mercedes-Benz couldn’t or wouldn’t supply a pink car isn’t known and in photographs, Ms Wood seems untroubled.  Playboy's pre-digital production staff famously were adept with the air-brush and other editing tools so making a white car appear pink would not have been challenging, even if the body was a little more rectilinear than their usual fare.  Whether it survives isn’t known but anyone who fancies a pink R107 should find one to paint, a remarkable 227,000-odd produced over 18 years and they were for decades the preferred (one suspects almost obligatory) transport for types such as interior decorators, successful hairdressers, the wives of cosmetic surgeons and bare-shouldered Hollywood starlets.  Had Lindsay Lohan been of age in 1974, she'd have been at the wheel of a 450 SL though probably not a pink one.

1975: Marilyn Lange (b 1952), Porsche 911S.  The bumper bars were fitted to the post 1974 911s (the so-called "short hood" models) to comply with US law and while disfiguring, proved an ideal height for a Playboy PoTY adopting a variation of the "flamingo pose".  

Ms Lange’s 911S proved to be the first of eight Porsches awarded over the years to subsequent PotYs.  First displayed in 1963, the 911 is the improbable survivor of Europe’s rear-engined era and by 1974, even Porsche thought it was in its final days, Volkswagen and many others having long concluded the tail-heavy configuration had no place in the modern world.  Indeed, work was by then well advanced on Porsche’s new generation of front-engined cars which would use water-cooled four & eight cylinder engines.  In time, augmenting these, there would be a line of mid-engined sports cars which would benefit from the lessons learned by Porsche in the development of machines like the 908, 914 and, of course, the famous 917.  Both visions were realized but the 911 endured.

It was a vision of the future which made complete sense to everyone except 911 buyers who made it clear they would accept no other configuration and regarded any quirks inherent in the layout not as insoluble problems or dangerous characteristics, but charming idiosyncrasies to be cherished in a way drivers of bland, predictable machinery would never get to experience or understand if they did.  The customer being always right, their view prevailed and the 911 survived, emerging much changed but still rear-engined and still recognizable, sixty-odd years on.  Nor have those inherent problems proved insoluble, modern electronics and tyres permitting Porsche’s engineers to create 911s with driving characteristics indistinguishable from more conventional layouts unless driven by experts at speeds higher than should ever be attempted on public roads.

Alternative approach: 1981 Porsche 911 SC (1978-1983, the "SC" said to stand for "Super Carrera") Targa with 500 cubic inch (8.2 litre) Cadillac V8.  Handled with care, the driving experience would be entertaining and it's not as extreme a thing as it may first appear because someone modified a 1986 Yogo by discarding the 1.1 litre (67 cubic inch) in-line four and installing two of the 500 cubic inch Cadillac V8s (one to the front, one to the rear).  The engine in the 911 is the same unit fitted to Elvis Presley's Guitar Car but may not be in the 400 hp tune which was unique to the 1970 Eldorado.

So the 911 survived but the playmate-pink tradition did not, subsequent cars finished in colors chosen seemingly at random.  Quite why this happened is speculative but may be as simple as pink becoming less fashionable (even within the Playboy organization where the hues in the publication and the clubs were tending darker) and there’s no record of a feminist critique, even though the tradition began just as second-wave feminism was gaining critical mass.  There is a bulky literature documenting the many strains of feminist criticism of pornography and it's likely the matter of pink cars, if noticed, was thought not substantive.  Of course it may be that some feminists really like pink, a secret which few now dare speak.

Paris Hilton (b 1981) with her 2008 Bentley Continental GT during a photo-shoot to note the release of Hold Me Closer (2022), a variant of Tiny Dancer (1971) by Elton John (Reginald Dwight; b 1947) & Bernie Taupin (b 1950) and performed as a duet by Mr John and Britney Spears (b 1981), Los Angeles, August 2022.

It's not known if Ms Hilton was influenced in her choice of car by the Continental being introduced at the 2002 Paris Motor Show but the color was apparently a nod to her fondness for the Barbie Doll aesthetic (it really is a thing).  The first generation Bentley Continental GT (2003-2011) was powered by Volkswagen's twin-turbocharged 6.0 litre (363 cubic inch) WR12 which isn't very interesting compared with the modifications Ms Hilton commissioned from West Coast Customs (WCC) including pink wheels with the PH logo in rhinestones, a pink over black interior with a diamante-encrusted dashboard, rhinestones on the gear shifter and a doggie (as in poodle) seat.  Throughout the interior, there's a generous scattering of the PH logo, all in diamante.

Paris: The Memoir (Harper Collins London, (2023), pp 336, ISBN 0-0632-2462-3).  Note pink-themed cover and dual images of subject.

Ms Hilton does of course need logos because Paris Hilton (the flesh & blood creature) has a full-time job being Paris Hilton (the public construct), a dualism she explored in Paris: The Memoir which, while genuinely a memoir, is interesting too for the deconstruction of the subject the author provided in a number of promotional interviews.  There have over the years been many humorless critics who have derided Ms Hilton for “being famous merely for being famous” but the book made clear being the construct that is Paris Hilton really is a full-time job, one which demands study and an understanding of the supply & demand curves of shifting markets; a personality cult needs to be managed because, while some aspects must remain static, others need to evolve.  She displayed also a sophisticated understanding of the point made by comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) who once explained the abstraction of a personality cult by pointing to one of his many huge portraits and saying “…you see, even I am not Stalin, THAT is Stalin!”  In the acknowledgments, Ms Hilton thanked the ghostwriter who “helped me find my voice.”