Allegro

Allegro (pronounced uh-ley-groh or uh-leg-roh or ahl-le-graw (Italian)).

(1) In music, a tempo mark directing that a passage is to be played in a quick, lively tempo, faster than allegretto but slower than presto.

(2) In music (more traditionally), an expressive mark indicating that a passage is to be played in a lively or happy manner, not necessarily quickly.

(3) In music, a piece or passage to be performed in this manner (an allegro movement).

(4) In printing & typography, as the font Allegro, a serif typeface released in 1936 (initial upper case).

(5) In the history of the internet's lists of "the worst cars ever made", British Leyland's Austin Allegro (1973-1982) (initial upper case).

(6) In Italian use, a male given name (initial upper case).

1625–1635: From the Italian allegro (lively; happy, cheerful (feminine allegra, masculine plural allegri, feminine plural allegre, superlative allegrissimo)), from the French allègre, from the Latin alacer (nominative alacer) (lively, cheerful, brisk) (from which English later picked up alacrity).  The Italian allegretto (diminutive of allegro) in musical composition is the instruction to be (brisk & sprightly but not so quick as allegro) was coined in 1740 explicitly for its technical purpose in music and the alternative form was the adverb allegro non troppo, the construct being allegro (fast) + non (not) + troppo (too much), thus understood as "play fast but not too fast".   As well as the native Italian and the English allegro, composers in many languages use the term including in French allegro (the post-1990 spelling allégro), the Greek αλέγρος (alégros) & αλλέγκρο (allégkro), the Norwegian allegro, the Portuguese allegro (the alternative spelling alegro), the Turkish allegro and the Persian آلگرو.  Allegro is a noun, adjective & adverb; the noun plural is allegros (Initial upper case if used of the cars of appropriately named Italian males).

Use as a musical term seems not to have been recorded until 1721.  Prior to that, since the early seventeenth century, English had used the word in the sense (brisk, sprightly; cheerful) picked up from Italian and Latin although the original spelling in English was aleger (lively, brisk) from Old French alegre, influenced by the Medieval Latin alacris.  What encouraged use was the adoption of the word (in its literal sense) by John Milton (1608–1674) who included the poem L'Allegro" in his collection Poems (1645); L'Allegro (The happy man) was a pastoral poem and critics regarded it as a companion piece for his Il Penseroso (The melancholy man), a work which in some ways anticipated the Romantic movement of the early nineteenth century.  The literary use extended to the term "allegro speech" (a relatively fast manner of speaking), once often used as a stage notation by playwrights although it seems now less common, replaced by terms better known to the young.  This fragment from Milton's L'Allegro is illustrative of the piece's rhythm and movement:

Haste thee nymph, and bring with thee
Jest and youthful Jollity,
Quips and cranks, and wanton wiles,
Nods, and becks, and wreathbd smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,
And love to live in dimple sleek;
Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter holding both his sides.
Come, and trip it as you go
On the light fantasric roe.

Lindsay Lohan merchandize on allegro.pl, a Polish e-commerce site. 

The site presumably settled on "allegro.pl" to convey the idea of speed (fast service, fast delivery etc).  Although the word allegro was never absorbed into the Polish language, because it appeared with such frequency in augmenting musical notation, it’s a familiar form throughout Europe.  Polish composer Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) used it as a title for Allegro de concert in A major, Opus 46 and his work also included three “allegro” movements: Allegro maestoso (the first movement of the Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, Opus. 11), Allegro vivace (the third movement of the Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, Opus 11) and Allegro vivace (the third movement of the Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Opus 21).  In an appalling example of an attempt at normative moral relativism, while on trial before the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at Nuremberg (1945-1946), Hans Frank (1900–1946; Nazi lawyer and governor of the General Government (1939-1945) in German-occupied Poland during World War II) suggested that in mitigation for his direct complicity in mass-murder, he should receive some credit for establishing the Chopin Museum in Krakow, something “the Poles had never done”.

Voraciously corrupt (even by Nazi standards), Frank was protected by virtue of his past service as Adolf Hitler’s (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) personal lawyer and remained in his palace until the military collapse of the General Government in 1945; under his rule, some four million were murdered.  Remarkably, he handed to the Allies dozens of volumes of his highly incriminating diaries and the IMT found him guilty under Count 2 (War Crimes) & Count 3 (Crimes Against Humanity), sentencing him to death by hanging.  His response to the sentence was to say: “I expected it, I deserved it”, adding: “A thousand years will pass and still this guilt of Germany will not have been erased.”  The latter sentiment he recanted while awaiting execution, suggesting the trial had provided something of a cleansing effect but at the time most regarded that as cynically as they noted the rediscovery of his long abandoned Roman Catholic faith.  Although power corrupted him and led him down a path to depravity, Frank never quite lost his respect for the idea of the rule of law and its fundamental importance in a civilized society but was not in his mind able to resolve the conflict between the legal mystique in which he’d been trained and the reality of the Führerstaat (Führer state) in which the word of Hitler was the law.  Frank did attempt to build a framework in which the many contradictions could be reconciled but soon was made to understand his mental gymnastics would (rightly) be thought mere legal sophistry and anyway be ignored by those in the state who held authority.  Awaiting trial, he told one interrogator Hitler’s lack of reverence for the law was the “one defect in this great man” and regretted he’d never been able to change the Führer’s view he “would not rest until Germans realize it is shameful to be a lawyer.”

The Allegro typeface by German graphic artist Hans Bohn (1891–1980)

Although book burning infamously was associated with the era, much publishing was still done in Germany during the 1930s and the centre of the industry was Frankfurt.  In 1936, the city’s Ludwig & Mayer type foundry released the Allegro typeface which was in the tradition of Didone style which became popular in the nineteenth century but influenced also by art deco designs which had flourished during the inter-war years (1919-1939).  A serif design which relied for its impact on the alternation of thick and thin strokes, it used breaks in the letter where thin strokes might be expected, hinting at the style of stencils with a touch of the inclination associated with calligraphy.  It was a popular typeface for decorative purposes such as book jackets or headings of musical notation but, very much a display font, it worked well only above a certain point size and thus was used at scale, almost exclusively for titles.

The Ford Allegro

Ford Allegro concept cars: 1963 (left & centre) and the 1967 Allegro II (right).

Ford’s Allegro was a concept car developed between 1961-1962 which was well-received during its time on the show circuit, viewers much taken by the dramatic interior which included a cantilever-arm, movable steering wheel with an electronic memory unit and adjustable pedals, features which would appear in production cars within a decade.  Built on the unibody platform of the compact Falcon which had been introduced in 1959, it was powered by a V4 manufactured by Ford’s European operation in Cologne, FRG (Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany; the old West Germany, 1949-1990).  Noting the use in music, the company settled on the “Allegro” name to convey the idea of “brisk and lively performance” but company documents confirm the team responsible for such things pondered “Avventure” and “Avanti” before settling on “Allegro”.  The more obviously speculative Allegro II was displayed in 1967 and a number of the design motifs from both would appear on subsequent Fords as well as Chevrolet’s Vega (1970-1977) and second generation Camaro(1970-1981).

The Austin Allegro

Aesthetic success & failure: The Alfa-Romeo Alfasud (left) and the Austin Allegro (right).

Often featured (usually with several other products of British Leyland in the 1970s) in lists as among the worst cars ever made, the Austin Allegro was in production between 1973-1982 and actually sold in respectable numbers for most of that time although at only a third the rate of its remarkably popular predecessor (ADO16, the Morris 1100/1300 and its five badge-engineered siblings (Austin, MG, Wolseley, Riley & Vanden Plas).  One much criticized aspect of the Allegro was the appearance; it was thought a bloated blob in an era of sharp-edges and wedges and the critique does illustrate just how narrow can be the margin between success and failure in the execution of a concept.  The Alfa Romeo Alfasud (1971-1983 (variants of the original produced until 1989)) adopted essentially the same shape and dimensions yet was praised as an elegant and well-balanced design.  Seen in silhouette, the shapes are similar yet in the metal, the detail differences, a mere inch (25 mm) or two here and there or a subtle change in an angle or curve and one emerges lithe, the other ponderous.

Harris Mann’s 1968 conceptual sketch for the Allegro project.

The Allegro’s portly appearance wasn’t the original intent.  Tasked with designing a replacement for ADO16, the stylist Harry Mann (1938-2023) sketched a modernist wedge, designed to accommodate what was at the time an advanced specification which included all-independent hydraulic suspension, front wheel drive, disk brakes and crucially, new, compact engines.  Mann however began the project while employed by BMC (British Motor Corporation of which Austin was a part) but by the time substantive work on the Allegro began, BMC had been absorbed into the Leyland conglomerate, a sprawling entity of disparate and now competing divisions which, if agonizingly reorganized, might have succeeded but such were the internal & external obstacles to re-structuring that, coupled with political turmoil and the economic shocks of the 1970s, it staggered to failure, something the later nationalization could only briefly disguise.  Mann’s team learned the clean-lined wedge would have to be fattened-up because, not only were the old, tall, long-stroke engines to be re-used but the new units to be offered as options were bulkier still.

If installed at an angle (which would have demanded some re-engineering but would have been possible), that might have been manageable but what was not was the decision to use the corporate heater unit, developed at an apparently extraordinary cost; it could be installed just one way and it was a tall piece of machinery.  Allegro production ended in 1982 but what its appearance of all those "worst car ever" lists tends to obscure is it wasn't a commercial failure.  Although it sold only about a third the volume of its predecessor (the ADO16 ranges) which was for most of the 1960s the UK's best-selling car (and an export success, especially in New Zealand), the Allegro existed in a much more competitive market.  Essentially, the Allegro was nearly a very good car and had it been produced by an outfit less inept than British Leyland, it'd probably now be better-remembered.  While it's now sometimes dismissed as "all agro" ("agro" a slang form of "angry", the phrase meaning something like "nothing but trouble"), in its time the Allegro sold well and enjoyed a better than average reliability record.

1976 Triumph TR7 coupé (left) and 1980 Triumph TR8 convertible (right).  It is wholly emblematic of British Leyland that just as the TR8 had become a good car with much unexplored potential, production ceased. 

Mann didn’t forget his 1968 sketch and when the opportunity later came to design a new sports car, his wedge re-appeared as one of the cars which most represented the design ethos of the 1970s: The Triumph TR7 (1974-1981) & TR8 (1977-1982) which weren't quite trouble-free but which sold quite well and, as the TR8 (which used the 3.5 litre (215 cubic inch) Rover V8), represented something in which the potential of the original was finally realized but it was too late for by then the disaster that was British Leyland had eaten itself.  

1960 Plymouth Fury four-door hardtop (left), 1974 Austin Allegro 1750 Sport Special (centre) and 2024 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 coupe (right).

The Allegro is remembered also for a steering wheel which was neither circular yet not exactly square.  Dating back decades, the idea wasn’t novel and such things had in the early 1960s appeared of a few American cars but, fitted to the Allegro, it attracted much derision, something not diminished by Leyland’s explanation it afforded "an ideal view of the instruments".  Leyland also attracted the scorn of mathematicians when they called the shape “quartic” on the basis of it being “a square with rounded corners”.  However, technically, a quartic is “an algebraic equation or function of the fourth degree or a curve describing such an equation or function” while sqound (a portmanteau word, the construct being sq(uare) + (r)ound) is the ultimate niche word, the only known use by collectors of certain Chevrolet C4 Corvettes (1984-1996), describing the shift in 1990 from round to “a square with rounded corners” taillights.  Mathematicians insist the correct word for a "square with rounded corners" is "squircle" (in algebraic geometry "a closed quartic curve having properties intermediate between those of a square and a circle"), the construct being squ(are) +c(ircle).

Few etymologists (and certainly no lexicographers) appear to have listed sqound as a "real" word but it's of minor interest because as a rare example of a word where "q" is not followed by "u"; such constructs do exist but usually in the cases where initialisms have become acronyms such as Qantas (Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services).  Such words do appear in English language texts but they tend to be foreign borrowings including (1) qat (or khat) (a plant native to East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, often chewed for its stimulant effects, (2) qi (a term from Chinese philosophy referring to life force or energy), qibla (the direction Muslims face when praying, towards the Kaaba in Mecca and (4) qiviut (the soft under-wool of the musk-ox, valued when making warm clothing).  For a while, Leyland pretended to ignore the pedants but within a year replaced the wheel with a conventional circular design.  Whatever the name, variations of the shape have since become popular with high-end manufacturers, Ferrari, Aston-Martin, Lamborghini and others all pursuing non-circular themes and one is a feature of the latest, mid-engined, C8 Chevrolet Corvette in which, unlike the despised Allegro, it's much admired.

How to make an Allegro look worse: 1976 Vanden Plas 1500, the variant coming too late to receive the quartic wheel.  The consensus among testers was the best place to enjoy a Vanden Plas 1500 was sitting inside, amid the leather and walnut, most readers drawing the inference that was because one wouldn't have to look at the thing.  One less charitable scribe described it as "mutton dressed up as hogget". 

In another sign of the times, unlike ADO16, one basic vehicle which was badge-engineered to be sold under six brands (Austin, Morris, Riley, Wolseley, MG & Vanden Plas with the Italian operation Innocenti among the overseas builders, some of which added "modernized" front and rear styling), the only variation of the Allegro was a luxury version by in-house coach-builder Vanden Plas (although there were Belgium-built Allegros and Leyland's Italian operation produced some 10,000 between 1974-1975 as the Innocenti Regent), laden with leather, cut-pile carpeting and burl walnut trim including the picnic tables so beloved by English coach-builders.  It didn't use the Allegro name and has always elicited condemnation, even from those who admired the Vanden Plas ADO16, presumably because the traditional upright grill attached to the front suited the earlier car's lines whereas the version which had to be flattened to fit the Allegro's pinched, pudgy nose was derided as coming from the hand of a vulgarian.  Still, there's clearly some appeal because the Vanden Plas cars have the highest survival rate of all Allegros and now enjoy a niche (one step below the GDR's (Deutsche Demokratische Republik (German Democratic Republic; the old East Germany, 1949-1990) Trabant (the infamous "Trabbi")) on the bottom rung of the collector car market.  One thing which may disappoint collectors is the Vanden Plas 1500 & 1750 (1974-1982) never used the "quartic" steering wheel although a photograph of one so-equipped did appear in the early brochures, printed before the decision in mid-1974 to replace it with a conventional (circular) design.  The photograph was of what the the industry calls a "final pre-production prototype", a common practice.

Leyland's other misadventure in 1973: The P76     

The antipodean Edsel: 1973 Leyland P76 Super V8.

Although 1973 was the last “good year” for the “old” UK economy and one during which British Leyland was looking to the future with some optimism, the corporation’s troubles that year with steering wheels were, in retrospect, a harbinger.  In addition to the Allegro, also introduced in 1973, on the other side of the planet, was the P76, a large (then a “compact” in US terms) sedan which Leyland Australia hoped would be competitive with the then dominant trio, GMH’s (General Motors Holden) Holden, Ford’s Falcon and Chrysler’s Valiant, the previous attempts using modified variants of UK models less than successful although the adaptations had been both imaginative and achieved at remarkably low cost.  Whatever the hope and dreams, publicly, Leyland Australia kept expectations low, claiming the target was nothing more than a 10% market share and the initial reception the P76 received suggested this might more than be realized, the consensus of press reports concluding the thing was in many aspects at least as good as the opposition and in some ways superior, the country’s leading automotive periodical that year awarding the V8 version the coveted CotY (Car of the Year) trophy.  

The answer to the question nobody asked: 44 gallon drum in a P76 boot.  In fairness, the marketing gimmick was a device to illustrate the car had "a bigger boot than the competition" rather than an indication many buyers routinely (if ever) carted such a thing but it soon became a matter of ridicule.

Unfortunately, the circumstances of 26 June 1973 when the P76 was launched didn’t last, the first oil crisis beginning some four months later which resulted in a spike in the price of oil which not only suddenly dampened demand for larger cars but also triggered what was in the West then the most severe and longest-lasting recession of the post-war years.  Some basic design flaws and indifferent quality control contributed to the debacle which is now remembered as the Australian industry’s Edsel and in October 1974 production of the P76 ended; Leyland closed its Australian manufacturing facilities, never to re-open.  Not even the much-vaunted ability of the P76 effortlessly to carry a 44 (imperial) gallon (53 US gallon; 205 litre) drum in its trunk (boot) had been enough to save the outpost of the old empire.

1973 P76 with the original (sharp-edged) steering wheel (left) and the later version, designed for the Force 7 (right) which was fitted also to the Targa Florio version released to celebrate a P76 setting the fastest time on the stage of the 1974 London–Sahara–Munich World Cup Rally held on the historic Targa Florio course in Sicily (in the rally, the P76 finished a creditable 13^th).  The steering wheel was one of many flaws which were planned to be rectified (or at least ameliorated) in the "facelifted" version scheduled for 1975 but, before the end of 1974, the decision had been taken in London to axe the entire Leyland Australia manufacturing venture.    

Given the geo-political situation, rampant inflation and troubled industrial relations of the time, the P76’s steering wheel is really just a footnote in the sad tale but, like the Allegro’s “quartic” venture it was emblematic of the self-inflicted injuries to which Leyland would subject itself, both in the UK and its antipodean offshoot.  When the P76 made its debut in 1973, there was some comment that the steering wheel’s boss had a horn-pad in the shape of a boomerang, emphasizing its credentials as a locally developed product, but what was criticized was the rim which had bizarre, concave cross-section, meaning a quite sharp edge faced the driver, leaving an impression on the palms of the hands after only a few minutes driving.  The industry legend is the shape was a consequence of the typist (second wave feminism hadn't yet left the bookshelves and arrived in boardrooms so in 1973 it remained SOP (standard operating practice) to wherever possible "blame the woman") who prepared the final specification-sheet having mixed up “concave” & “convex” but even if true it’s remarkable such an obvious design-flaw wasn't rectified at the prototype stage.

Some have doubted the veracity of the story but such things do happen including in space.  The problems of the HST (Hubble Space Telescope, 1990) were a famous example and on 23 September, 1999, NASA (the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration) lost the US$125 million Mars Climate Orbiter spacecraft after its 286-day journey to Mars and that was a time when US$125 million was still a lot of money.  There was of course the inevitable review which found the craft’s directional thrusters had, over the course of several months, been incorrectly fired because the control data had been calculated in incorrect units.  The contractor (Lockheed Martin, responsible for the calculations) was sending data in Imperial measures (pounds) to NASA, while NASA's navigation team, expecting metric units, interpreted the numbers as Newtons.  As far as is known, neither contractor nor agency attempted to blame a typist.

1974 Leyland Force 7V.

Compounding the error on an even grander scale, Leyland even planned to release a P76 coupé.  Of the 60-odd built, only 10 of the prototype Force 7V coupés survived the crusher and although it offered the novelty of a practical hatchback, the styling was ungainly and the execution expensive (no external panels shared with the sedan, then the standard practice for such variants).  However, what was more critical was the very market segment for which it was intended was close to extinction and the five vehicles intended as its competitors (Ford's Falcon Hardtop & Landau, Holden's Monaro coupé and Chrysler's Valiant Hardtop & Charger) would be all dropped from production by 1978.  Even had the range survived beyond 1974, success would thus have seemed improbable although the company should be commended for having intended to name the luxury version the Tour de Force (from the French and translated literally as "feat of strength"), the irony charming although En dépit de tout (In spite of everything) might better have captured the moment.  Industry historians have long concluded that even had the P76 survived, the Force 7 would have been a short-lived failure.     

Seriously, the New Zealanders did, by at least the hundreds.

One darkly amusing footnote in the dismal decline and fall of the P76 is that between 1971-1976, Rover's highly regarded 3500 (P6B, 1968-1977) was assembled from CKD (completely knocked down) packs at the NZMC (New Zealand Motor Corporation) plant in Nelson, some 2,400 finished cars shipped to Australia.  To an economist that probably sounds an unexceptional trans-Tasman commercial transaction but in return, NZMC received from Leyland Australia CKD packs of P76 V8s to an equivalent NZ$ value.  Most concluded the Australians got the better part of the deal although the P76 is now a fixture in the lower reaches of the local collector market where they sell for rather more than 3500s so there's that.

There seems no publicly available record of how many CKD packs were shipped to New Zealand but a fully-assembled, ADR (Australian Design Rules) compliant 3500 would have had a higher book value than a CKD pack P76 of any specification so, given the retail pricing at the time, a ratio between 3-4:1 may be a reasonable guess, the labor component in any assembly a substantial part of the calculated value.  That means it must have been a partial exchange because however calculated, 650 CKD packs of P76s would be only a fraction the value of 2400 complete P6s.  During the mid 1970s, the NZ$-Aus$ exchange rate bounced between (roughly) 1.10-1.22 so, depending on contractual terms, that may also have influenced the two-way volumes.  By the mid-1970s the Bretton Woods system (1944-1973) of fixed exchange rates was over but Western countries still set rates in a system called a “managed float”, periodically using a “basket” of currencies (US$ the benchmark; cross-rates from the basket).  “Managed float” sounds an oxymoron but the process wasn’t wholly different from modern practice (the interplay of forex markets and central bank interventions).

GQ Magazine (British edition), September 1995.  GQ stands for “Gentleman's Quarterly” but perhaps, by the 1990s, there was some irony in the title.

While it may be unfair, the P6-P76 exchange may be compared with the “Seriously, would you trade her in for Paula Yates?” caption which appeared on the September, 1995 cover of the British edition of the periodical GQ, used for a photograph of an alluringly posed Helena Christensen.  The piece was a comment on the news Australian singer Michael Hutchence (1960–1997) had “traded in” Danish supermodel Helena Christensen (b 1968 and his long-time girlfriend) for English media personality Paula Yates (1959–2000), the unsubtle implication being Ms Christensen was rather more attractive than Ms Yates, GQ's view apparently a woman's desirability should be determined on no other basis.  There are reasons the grimier end of English journalism gained its reputation.  

Paula Yates.

Many might make a similar point between the Rover P6 and the Leyland P76 although, like the two women, the pair do share some fundamental DNA, both V8s based on the original aluminium unit developed by GM (General Motors) for BOP (the corporation’s Buick, Oldsmobile & Pontiac divisions); not wholly suited to US use, GM produced the 215 cubic inch (3.5 litre) V8 only between 1960-1963 before selling the rights and tooling to Rover.  GM would come to regret that decision but nevertheless got good value from the design, similar engines with iron blocks used between 1964-1980 although the greatest benefit came from a V6 derivative which, in various forms in places around the world, was in continuous production between 1964-2008.  Best remembered as the long-serving “3800”, the V6 proved one of Detroit’s most robust, reliable and easily serviced engines.  For the P6, Rover used the original 3.5 litre configuration (although the company made the first of their many improvements) while Leyland Australia created a “tall deck” block and achieved a 4.4 litre (269 cubic inch) displacement with a perfectly square bore & stroke (both 88.9 mm (3.5 inch)).  Had the rest of the car been up to the standard of the 4.4, the P76 may have succeeded.

Helena Christensen.

Introduced in 1963 as the Rover 2000 (with a unique 2.0 litre (121 cubic inch) in-line four-cylinder engine), the P6 was one of the outstanding products of the post-war British car industry (genuinely, despite the perceptions of some, there were a few fine machines) with an advanced specification in a conveniently sized package.  It was the first ECotY (European Car of the Year) and all it needed was more power (a flirtation with enlarging the 2.0 to a 2.5 litre (151 cubic inch) in-line five aborted), that deficiency in 1968 addressed with the release of the 3500, the range in 1971 augmented by the 3500S (unrelated to the automatic 3500S sold briefly in the US) with a four-speed manual gearbox, the revised configuration making these P6s genuine 125 mph (200 km/h) cars.  Although by then a nearly decade-old platform, the 3500S impressed testers with it pace, the usual competence of the de Dion rear suspension and brakes which were state of the (pre-ABS) art; the fuel gauge also attracted comment, praised for its unusual accuracy.  Regrettably, the P6's fine platform was under-exploited although the Swiss coach-builder Graber was among several which built nicely-executed coupés & cabriolets while in England there were the inevitable estates (station wagons) although the latter were not ascetically pleasing because of the need to follow the slope of the roof-line.  Along with much of the UK industry, Rover rather lost its way after the high water mark of the 3500.  

The Alfa Romeo Alfasud

The fate of many Alfasuds.

Sea water played a part in the story of the Alfasud.  The Alfasud name (the construct being Alfa + sud) was an allusion to it being produced in a newly built factory in the Naples region, the decision taken after financial inducements were offered by the government, anxious to do something about the levels of unemployment and lack of economic development in the south of the country.  The Italian sud (south) was from the French sud, from Old English suþ, from Proto-Germanic sunþrą.  As a plan it made sense to politicians and economists but, industrial relations being what they were at the time, the outcome was less than ideal.    

In one aspect, the Allegro and Alfasud (1971-1989) were wholly un-alike, the latter infamous for its propensity to rust, a trait shared with many mass-produced Italian cars of the era, the only consolation for Alfasud owners being the contemporary Lancia Beta (1972-1984) suffered even more.  The Alfasud's rust-resistance did improve over the years but it remained a problem until the end of production and the industry story has always been that in the barter economy which was sometime conducted between the members of the EEC (European Economic Community (1957), the Zollverein that would evolve into the EU (European Union (1993)) and those of the Warsaw Pact (the alliance between the USSR and the satellite states within Moscow's sphere of influence which essentially duplicated the structure of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 1949), Italian manufactured goods were exchanged for Russian steel which reputedly was re-cycled but anyway turned out to be of poor quality and essentially porous.  The story certainly is a good fit for the narrative of mal-administration and corruption that was Italy in the 1970s but subsequent research has revealed it to be a myth, the sheet metal used in the Neapolitan factory at Pomigliano d’Arco where Alfasuds were made the same stuff Alfa Romeo used in the facility at Arese in Milan where the Giulia range was produced and its reputation for resisting rust was above average.  The evidence suggests all the steel used by the company's local operations came from the state owned Taranto steel mills and intriguingly, the factories south & north all used the same paints and the ovens & paint booths were a decade-odd newer in Naples.

Variations on the Alfasud theme: The Sprint (1976-1989, left) and Giardinetta (station wagon or estate-car) (1975-1980, right).

Given all that, the startlingly premature corrosion surprised many within Alfa Romeo and in 1977 a project-team was formed to investigate the causes and it was afforded some urgency given the reputational damage being suffered by the whole company (ie profits were suffering).  Having determined the core components (paint & steel) weren't to blame, the engineers deconstructed the production process including the system of movement (how the partially completed cars proceeded from start to finish).  What the team found was that while the electrophoresis baths at Pomigliano were state of the art, the inexperienced (and sometimes indifferently-minded) workforce operated them without adequate supervision and quality control, something exacerbated by the chronically bad labor relations, the factory beset by rolling strikes which meant unpainted bodies were often sitting for days.  In the humid climate of the south, condensation gathered, many cars already rusting even before eventually receiving a coat of paint and that the plant was less than 10 miles (16 km) from the coast and prevailing winds blew from the sea added to the problem, the unpainted Alfasuds often for days sitting unpainted accumulating salty moisture.

1983 Alfa Romeo Alfasud Ti Quadrifoglio Verde (Green Cloverleaf), one of the industry's longer model names and clipped usually to "Alfasud QV".

The team's findings resulted in a change to the production process for the revised Series 2 Alfasuds launched in December 1977.  The critical parts of the bodyshell now used "Zincrometal" (steel coated with a primer) which was a mix of chromium, zinc and an organic bonding resin, baked at 160°C (320°F) and that was as good a system as anything then used in the European industry.  As a added precaution, a polyurethane foam was injected into the body's boxed sections with a flexible plastic sealant applied at the seams to prevent moisture intrusion.  That had the added benefit of reducing noise vibration & harshness (NVH) while adding only a little extra weight.  Unfortunately, the tests the engineers conducted to prove the design was waterproof relied on perfectly applied sealant at the junctions but the poor quality control continued so many seams were improperly sealed which meant the foam acted as a moisture store, making the problem worse.  By contrast, whatever its other faults (and there were a few), the Allegro resisted rust like few cars built anywhere during the era, the body-engineering sound and that 1970s British Leyland paint thick and durable.  In the years that followed, many would criticize the sometimes lurid and even sickly shades but as a protective coating, it did the job.

Ultimate Alfasud: The Giocattolo (left), the world's best Alfa Romeo Sprint which included the world’s best tool kit (right).  Unrelated to either, Il giocattolo (the Toy, 1979) was an Italian film noir from the Anni di piombo (Years of Lead) era, directed by Giuliano Montaldo (1930-2023).

The much admired coupé variant of the Alfasud was sold as the Alfasud Sprint (1976-1983) and Sprint (1983-1989); it proved rather more rust resistant.  It was subject to continuous product improvement and fitted with progressively bigger and more powerful engines although none were larger than 1.7 litres (104 cubic inches) which limited its use in competition to events where outright speed mattered less than balance and agility.  The handling was about as good as FWD (front wheel drive) then got and in events such as hill climbs the things are competitive even today.  However, rising to the challenge, between 1986-1989, an Australian company solved the two problems afflicting the Sprint (FWD & lack of power).  Thus the Giocattolo (a play on the Italian word meaning “toy”), a batch of 15 built in the Queensland coastal town of Bundaberg before the economic downturn (remembered locally as "the recession we had to have", the then treasurer's (Paul Keating (b 1944; Prime Minister of Australia 1991-1996)) rationalization of why it was essential to kill off the inflation which had become entrenched in the mid 1970s) ended the fun.  The Giocattolo was fitted with a mid-mounted 304 cubic inch (5.0 litre) Holden V8, driving the rear wheels through a ZF five-speed transaxle, the combination yielding a top speed of 160 mph (257 km/h), a useful increase of 40 mph (65 km/h) over the fastest of the factory's Sprints.  As impressive as the mechanical specification was, the Giocattolos are remembered also for the unusual standard feature of a 375 ml bottle of Bundaberg Rum (the region's most famous product which began as a way to use a waste-product of sugar-cane processing) and two shot glasses as part of the toolkit.  Many who worked on Italian cars probably thought they deserved a drink so it was a good idea but these days, a company would risk being cancelled for such a thoughtful inclusion.

Button

Button (pronounced buht-n)

(1) A small disk, knob, or the like for sewing or otherwise attaching to an article, as of clothing, serving as a fastening when passed through a buttonhole or loop.

(2) Anything resembling a button, especially in being small and round, as any of various candies, ornaments, tags, identification badges, reflectors, markers, etc.

(3) A badge or emblem bearing a name, slogan, identifying figure, etc., for wear on the lapel, dress, etc.

(4) Any small knob or disk pressed to activate an electric circuit, release a spring, or otherwise operate or open a machine, small door, toy, etc.

(5) In botany, a bud or other protuberant part of a plant.

(6) In mycology, a young or undeveloped mushroom or any protuberant part of a fungus.

(7) In zoological anatomy, any of various small parts or structures resembling a button, as the rattle at the tip of the tail in a very young rattlesnake.

(8) In boxing slang, the point of the chin.

(9) In architecture, a fastener for a door, window, etc., having two arms and rotating on a pivot that is attached to the frame (also called turn button).

(10) In metallurgy, when assaying, the small globule or lump of metal at the bottom of a crucible after fusion.

(11) In fencing, the protective, blunting knob fixed to the point of a foil.

(12) In horology, alternative name for the crown, by which watch is wound.

(13) In the graphical user interface of computers and related devices, a small, button-shaped or clearly defined area that the user can click on or touch to choose an option.

(14) Slang term for the peyote cactus.

(15) A small gathering of people about two-thirds of the drinks are spiked with LSD.  Those who drink the un-spiked are the buttons responsible for babysitting the trippers (1960s west coast US use, now extinct).

(16) A series of nuts & bolts holding together a three-piece wheel.  Such wheels are very expensive because of the forging process and the ability to stagger offsets to create large lips.

(17) In boiler-making, the piece of a weld that pulls out during the destructive testing of spot welds

(18) In rowing, a projection around the loom of an oar that prevents it slipping through the rowlock.

(19) South African slang for methaqualone tablet.

(20) A unit of length equal to one twelfth of an inch (British, archaic).

(21) Among luthiers, in the violin-family instrument, the near semi-circular shape extending from the top of the back plate of the instrument, meeting the heel of the neck.

(22) In the plural (as buttons), a popular nickname for young ladies, whose ability to keep shirt buttons buttoned is in inverse proportion to the quantity of strong drink taken.

1275-1325: From the Middle English boto(u)n (knob or ball attached to another body (especially as used to hold together different parts of a garment by being passed through a slit or loop)), from the Anglo-French, from the Old & Middle French boton (button (originally, a bud)), from bouter & boter (to thrust, butt, strike, push) from the Proto-Germanic buttan, from the primitive Indo-European root bhau- (to strike); the button thus, etymologically, is something that pushes up, or thrusts out.  Records exist of the surname Botouner (button-maker) as early as the mid-thirteenth century (and the Modern French noun bouton (button) actually dates from the twelfth century).  It was cognate with the Spanish boton and the Italian bottone.  The pugilistic slang (point of the chin) was first noted in 1921.  First use of button as something pushed to create an effect by opening or closing an electrical circuit is attested from 1840s and the use in metallurgy and welding is based by analogy on descriptions of mushrooms.  The verb button emerged in the late fourteenth century in the sense of "to furnish with buttons" which by the early 1600s had extended (when speaking of garments) to "to fasten with buttons".  The button-down shirt collar was first advertised in 1916.  In fields in which there are structures or entities which in part or in whole are “buttonlike” in appearance, there are many uses of “button” as a descriptor (button mushroom, button seal, button willow, button quail etc), botany, zoology anatomy, architecture, cooking and engineering all using the word thus.  There are also a number of idiomatic forms including “cute as a button” (very cute), “on the button” (correct) and “buttoned down (or up)” (conservative to the point of being repressed.Button is a noun & verb, buttoning is a noun & verb, buttoned is a verb & adjective, buttonize is a verb, and buttonlike & buttonable are adjectives; the noun plural is buttons.

John Button (1987) (1933-2008; senator for Victoria (ALP (Australian Labor Party) 1974-1993), oil on canvas by Andrew Sibley (1933–2015), National Portrait Gallery, Canberra, Australia.

New uses continue to emerge as technology evolves:  The phrase button-pusher to describe someone "deliberately annoying or provocative" was first recorded in the 1970s and hot-button issue appeared in political science journals as early as 1954, apparently a derivation of the brief use in the press of big red-button and hot-button to (somewhat erroneously) describe the mechanics of launching a nuclear attack.  Hot button issues can be useful for political parties to exploit but what the button triggers can shift with generational change: As late as the 1990s the Republican Party in the US used "gay marriage" as a hot button issue to mobilize their base but within 25 years the electoral universe had shifted and the issue no longer had the same traction; there had been generational change.  In the 1980s, the now mostly extinct button-pusher had been co-opted as a somewhat condescending description of photographers both by journalists and snobby art critics, the former suggesting some lack of affinity with words, the latter, an absence of artistic skill. 

How it came to be done: 2022 Mercedes-Benz EQS 56 inch (1.42 m) single-panel screen.  There are no physical buttons on the dashboard, something which provoked a reaction and, for certain critical features, there's been a welcome "button revival".

In cars, as in aircraft, the shifting of controls for core and ancillary systems from individual buttons and switches to combined or multi-function controllers began to accelerate during the 1960s, a reaction to the increasing number of electrically activated functions being installed to the point where, if left individualised, in some of the more electronic vehicles, space for all the buttons would have been marginal and ergonomics worse even than it was.  Some very clever designs of multi-function controllers did appear but in the twenty-first century, by the time LED flat-screen technology had become elsewhere ubiquitous, it became possible to integrate entire system control environments into a single screen which, able to display either one or a combination of several sub-systems at a time, meant space became effectively unlimited, arrays of virtual buttons and switches available in layers.  That didn't mean thing became easier or more convenient to use but production costs were lower.  Of late, in response to consumer pressure, some manufacturers have admitted the approach went to far and what might be appropriate for someone sitting at their desk using a desktop PC (and the only way things can be done on a phone), might not be a good idea when driving a car at speed, in traffic.  Thus, for core critical functions (ie those drivers most often perform) such as adjusting settings on entertainment and HVAC (heating, ventilation & air conditioning) systems, buttons are making a welcome comeback.

For those who can remember the ways things used to be done: 1965 Jaguar Mark X 4.2 with burl walnut & red leather.  Jaguar's cockpits in the 1960s were among the most atmospheric of the era although, even at the time, the less than ideal ergonomics attracted criticism.  Something has been lost with the decline of the sensual, tactile, analogue world of buttons, knobs & switches.

There were buttons and there were switches.  Jaguar used toggle switches until US safety regulations in 1967 compelled a change to rocker switches with softer edges and less forward projection, similar concerns resulting in the top section of the dashboard gaining a padded vinyl covering.  Indeed, at the time, there was in the UK and Europe a suspicion US regulators might ban the use of decorative timber in car interiors and the models Mercedes-Benz released in 1971 & 1972 had none but the austerity didn't last, the veneers soon restored.  The functionality of the rocker switches was exactly the same as that of the toggles and they were certainly less prone to damage but for some the tactile experience was lacking, the ASMR less satisfying.  ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response) describes the physical & psychological pleasure derived from specific stimuli (usually a sound).  A highly segmented market, among the aficionadi there are niches as varied as those who relish the clicking of an IBM Seletric typewriter or Model M keyboard, the sight & sound of South Korean girls on TikTok eating noodles, the mechanical precision of the fore-end slide of pump-action shotgun being operated or the flicking toggle switches.

The accounting departments of car manufacturers liked the change to touch-screens because it was cheaper to produce and install the things rather than an array of individual buttons, switches, instruments and lights, behind each of which ran at least one and sometimes several wires or lines, requiring schematics that could be baffling even to experts who needed sometimes to track (literally) miles of cabling.   While now using sometimes even more wiring, the new systems are capable although their long-term reliability remains uncertain and in many cases, a button or switch is both easier to use and falls more conveniently to hand; that makes sense because with buttons one's sense of touch (finger-tips most sensitive) effortlessly can distinguish whereas all of a touchscreen feel the same.  It would be possible to make a a touchscreen "feedback" different vibrations or sounds depending on which icon is touched but that may create more problems than it solves and is anyway a complicated solution to a simple problem.   It's better just to provide some switches.  

1991 Mercedes-Benz 600 SE (W140).

Built on the SWB (short-wheelbase) platform, the 600 SE was offered only during the W140's first year, the V12 sedans subsequently available only as the LWB (long-wheelbase (V140)) 600 SEL (S 600 after 1993 when the corporate naming system changed).  The duplication on the glovebox of the trunk (boot) lid badging was also a single-year fitting and even if a buyer opted for the "badge delete option" the characters on the glovebox remained.  The badge delete option had existed for a long time but enjoyed a spike in popularity beginning during the 1970s when it became obvious the more expensive models were more likely to attract the eye of terrorists, kidnappers and such.  While outfits like the Baader–Meinhof Gang (technically the RAF (Red Army Faction)) had some fondness for stealing smart cars (the BMW 2002 ti_i and Porsche 911S apparently their favorites), they didn't approve of those driving (or being driven in) conspicuously expensive vehicles.  On the 450 SEL 6.9 (V116, 1975-1980), the factory's delete option code was 261 and in the FRG (Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany; the old West Germany) 1949-1990) it was ticked by those who like to go fast on the Autobahn but not attract the attention of kidnappers or assassins.  One advantage the 6.9 did confer was, if pursued by kidnappers, one could outrun the BMWs and all but the fastest Porsches.

The noun buttonology genuinely does exist.  It was a calque of the Swedish knappologi and used to refer to the fashion for pedantic and often pointless systematization.  The construct followed the Swedish model (knapp (button) +‎ -ologi, coined by Swedish author August Strindberg (1849–1912) and appearing in the short story De lycksaliges ö (The Isle of the Blessed) which although written in 1884, wasn’t published until 1891 when it appeared in the compilation Svenska öden och äventyr (Swedish Destinies and Adventures).  Buttonology is used most often as a generic term to decry the exaggerated, obsessive or pointlessly pedantic systematization, especially of trivial subjects but literally it can describe the study or categorization of buttons (in the sense of clothing fasteners).  In a light-hearted vein, in the training of software engineers and designers, it’s the component of the course focusing on user interfaces (where there can be many buttons).  In US military slang, buttonology is used of user interfaces generally.

Button porn: Centre console in 1991 Mercedes-Benz 600 SEL (V140).

Although a sight to delight button-nerds, "peak button" unfortunately coincided with the "biodegradable wiring incident" (1991-1995) in which the soy-based insulation for the cables deteriorated some decades before the supplier's projected end-of-life, the issue exacerbated by the taste of soy which would attract rodents and other creatures happy to chew on the stuff for a quick snack.  The basic shape of the gear selector knob dates from one introduced in 1971, the design a product of analysing data from the Swedish government's mandatory post mortems (autopsies) of road-accident fatalities (under Swedish law, such corpses were for 48 hours the property of the state).  What the pathologists' findings revealed was lives could be saved if engineers could devise as a shift lever handle too large to penetrate the eye socket.  While there's an element of the macabre in such research and it wasn't something the factory choose widely to publicize, the design was a classic example of what's called "passive safety".

A tanned young lady in a bikini with a piece of belly button jewellery (sold also as "navel jewellery").

The 140-series sedans (1991-1998) and companion coupé (C140, 1992-1999) were peak-button and it won't happen again, touch-screens now much cheaper to install and although buttons are making something of a comeback, they'll not again be seen on such a grand scale.  The 140-series cars were end-of-era stuff in many ways and the last of the old-style exercises in pure engineering with which Mercedes-Benz re-built its reputation in the post-war years; what followed would increasingly show the influence of accountants and the dreaded "sales department".  Most charismatic of the 140s were the early, 402 bhp (300 kw) 600s tuned for top end power; the 6.0 litre (365 cubic inch) V12 (M120; 1991-2001 (although it would appear in cars by other manufacturers until 2012)) would later be toned-down a little with a greater emphasis on mid-range torque and thoughts of the 8.0 litre V16 and W18 prototypes entering production were shelved as the economic climate of the early 1990s proved less buoyant than had been expected.  Subsequent concerns about climate changed doomed any hope of resurrection but as something of a consolation, AMG for a while offered larger versions of the V12 (as big as 7.3 litres (445 cubic inch)).  Diana, Princess of Wales (1961-1997) died in her hotel's hire-car (S 280 with a 2.8 litre straight-six (171 cubic inch)) version of the 140.

Coincidently, it was in the "peak button" era that Mercedes-Benz revised the convention of model nomenclature, inverting the alpha-numeric placement which had evolved since the 1920s.  Until the 1980s, old nnn.xxx convention (mostly) made sense once the logic behind the sequence had been explained but even then there had long been inconsistencies with the letters doing "double duty" and the numerals not always aligning with displacement (as well as one off aberrations like "219") but by the 1990s the proliferation of ranges and models had made the old system more or less unmanageable.  Every series of cars was changed but most affected were the various C140s and they were especially unusual in being the last of the “SECs” and the first of the “CLs” with a mid-life spent as an “S”, the confusing alpha-numeric trajectory of the C140 600 being:

1992 600 SEC (Not sold in North America)

1993 600 SEC (Global)

1994-1995 S 600 (Global)

1996-1997 S 600 (North America) & CL 600 (RoW (rest of the world))

1998 CL 600 (Global)

1999 CL 600 (North America only)

1993 Cadillac Allanté in standard form (left) and with “wood grain kit” fitted (right).  Cadillac in the peak-button era did its bit and for most owners the look either was “enough” or “too much” but although the Allanté was then a very different sort of Cadillac targeting a demographic younger than the marque’s usual buyer profile, third party suppliers (which for generations had been selling all sorts of Cadillac accessories of dubious taste such as Rolls-Royce style grills & badges in anodized gold or “neo-classical” external spare tyre housings) saw possibilities and offered “wood grain kits”, pieces of plastic appliqué which could be glued to the dashboard and anywhere else there was an accommodating surface.

1991 Cadillac Allanté: Although the lines were neither adventurous or innovative, it was an accomplished design.

The Cadillac Allanté (1987-1993) was an ambitious project, a two-door, two-seater roadster produced in an expensive, travel & labor-intensive process which required trans-Atlantic transport (in modified Boeing 747 freighters) for the bodies from Pininfarina’s Italian factory to Cadillac’s assembly line in Detroit where final assembly was undertaken.  The US industry had in the 1950s & 1960s dabbled with this approach and even then it made little financial sense but it was a time when indulgences could be tolerated as a part of “image building”.  The economics of the late 1980s were very different but Cadillac early in the decade had, with a mix of jealousy and lust, been pondering the numbers achieved by the Mercedes-Benz R107 SL roadster (1971-1989), then quite ancient in automotive terms yet still habitually selling in numbers which belied its high price and vintage design.  Sharing mechanical components with higher-volume models and with the tooling for the structure long since amortized, Cadillac knew the thing was absurdly profitable despite being visually almost unchanged since its debut.

1988 Cadillac Allanté: One tangible advantage was the Allanté's removable hard-top was of aluminum and thus a relatively svelte 58 Lbs (26 kg) compared with the R107's steel unit which weighed in at a hefty 96 (44).  Roof-mounted hoists were popular with R107 owners.

Thus the Allanté, the company’s first two-seat roadster since the 1930s and one with the exclusivity of being built by an Italian coach-builder famous for having designed some of the most admired Ferraris.  Mechanically, the Allanté was unchallenging in that it was built on a shortened version of an existing platform which meant the use of FWD (front wheel drive) and the 4.1 litre (250 cubic inch) HT-4100 V8, both factors which meant there was no need to build new assembly lines or make expensive changes to existing facilities.  While the notion of an expensive “FWD roadster” may now seem strange, dynamically it made less difference than might be imagined because the Mercedes-Benz R107 was no sports car and for the Allanté’s intended market, the advantage of more interior space was thought more important than behaviour on a skid-pan.  The HT engine however proved more troublesome although that was a product of design flaws, not its placement in the Allanté.

Buttons come in many shapes, shades and sizes although most still are circular.  A button with four "sew holes" is called a "four-eye button".

The critical response was unexpectedly favorable.  In a comparison test published in the in February 1989 edition of C&D (Car and Driver magazine, not noted for being lavish in its praise of the US industry’s output), the writers declared it a better car than the Mercedes-Benz 560 SL (which may seem a slight achievement given the R107 was then some 18 years old and on a platform which had been designed in the late 1960s) and didn’t much dwell on either the Cadillac being some 15% cheaper nor it delivering slightly better fuel economy; their judgement was all about the driving experience likely to be typical of buyers (many of whom probably wouldn't notice the difference between FWD and RWD) although perhaps the sight of the “Pininfarina” script on the flanks lent some rose-tinting to their spectacles.  The testers noted the US-Italian hybrid was better suited to the urban conditions where most people would be operating most of the time, finding the Allanté more nimble and decidedly more modern although what was left unstated was it was remarkable the trans-continental effort managed to be only slightly better in some aspects than what was a design two decades old and in its final months.

Last days of the baroque: 1989 Mercedes-Benz 560 SL in Light Ivory over Brasil Dark Brown leather.

The RoW (rest of the world) R107s & C107s didn't suffer the disfiguring modifications (headlights for the whole model life, bumper bars after 1973) fitted to the NA (North America) market cars to ensure compliance with various US regulations.  In the US, there's now a minor industry importing the RoW headlights and bumper bars to restore cars to the appearance the designers intended. 

In one area though, the 560 SL proved its mettle, the 5.5 litre (338 cubic inch) V8 out-running the Cadillac by 10 mph (16 km/h) in top speed and effortlessly out-accelerating it in any range about 25 mph (40 km/h), the advantage increasing as speeds rose.  Despite all the effort and expense, in some seven years, fewer than 21,500 Allantés were built while Mercedes-Benz shipped 237,287 R107s plus 62,888 LWB coupés (C107, 1971-1981) on the same platform, an average annual build rate over 18 years of some 17,000, two-thirds of which were exported to North America where, in places like Los Angeles, 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 in 1989 been of age, she'd have been at the wheel of a 560 SL.  Cadillac has had its failures (infamously the Cimarron) but it's believed never to have booked more of a loss on a single model than was the accountants' final reckoning of the (by then virtual) red-ink in which the Allanté's numbers were written.  By comparison, the write-down suffered with the cancellation of the division's remarkable Blackwing V8 (2018-2020) was relatively modest.  

1933 Cadillac 355C Coupe Convertible.  In 1933, Cadillacs had buttons but not many because there was then not so much stuff to activate although a valve-radio was on the options list.  As a nice touch (and a hint Cadillac understood their target market), a “golf bag compartment” was fitted behind the passenger’s door.  The external trunk and folding luggage rack were optional extras.

Introduced for 1931 as a lower cost range because the effects of the Great Depression drastically had reduced demand for Cadillac’s V12 & V16 lines, the V8-powered 355s (1931-1935) were, until the Allanté in 1987, the last Cadillac to be offered as a two-seat convertible although La Salle (its lower-cost stable mate) would offer the style as late as 1940, the year the brand was retired after a seven year stay of execution.  Cadillac called the coachwork a “Convertible Coupe” because “roadster” was associated with smaller, lighter machines; had it been built in England this would be dubbed a DHC (drop head coupé) while continental manufacturers would have preferred “cabriolet”.  In the elaborate Mercedes-Benz naming system it would be a “Cabriolet A” which designated “a two, door, two seat cabriolet with no rear quarter glass panes”.  The existence of supplemental passenger accommodation in the rumble seat does not affect the use of “Cabriolet A” because (1) Daimler-Benz never created a designation to describe the configuration (although “Cabriolet E” seems not to have been allocated if the factory is in the mood for retrospection) and (2) “Cabriolet A” anyway included certain models with provision for a third occupant in the rear of the passenger compartment. 

1933 Cadillac 355C Coupe Convertible. 

Somewhat unusually for the industry, Cadillac’s alpha-numerics were from day one locked in (355A (1931), 355B (1932), 355C (1933), 355D (1934) & 355E (1935)) so the “A” was not a retrospective appendage, unlike the Chrysler 300A which (informally) became the description of the 1955 C-300 only after, impressed by the sales of what had been intended as a one-off model to homologate parts for use in competition, the company for 1956 released the 300B.  Retiring the 355 range after 1935 meant Cadillac in 1939 never had to face the problem which afflicted not only Chrysler (when updating the 300H) but also bra manufacturers (what to slot-in between a 32H & 32J?) and the USAF (US Air Force) (when updating the Boeing B-52H).  The issue always was the desire to avoid an “I” being confused with a numeric “1”.  Chrysler and Boeing solved the problem by skipping the letter “I” and going straight to “J” while in the bra business there are very few “I cups”, the usual convention being to offer an “HH” (“double-H” in retail slang) or a “J”.  Although nominally a two-seater, three (snugly) could be accommodated and two more could fit in the rumble seat, the so-called “mother-in-law seat”, an appellation which makes most sense if she’s put there while the soft-top is in the raised position.  Unlike the Allanté, the 355 Coupe Convertibles were bodied in the US by Fisher, a GM (General Motors) coach-building division which was shuttered in 1984.

Reset button on early (clone) PC.

The stability of the PC (personal computer) has improved since August 1981 when the first IBM PC-1 appeared, triggering several waves of transformative changes which profoundly have altered the world; the AI (artificial intelligence) cycle is merely the latest of these “revolutions” and is unlikely to be the last.  One feature common on PCs during their first two decades of existence was the “reset button”, an oft-resorted to device because of the propensity of the things to “freeze” or lock-up, rendering the keyboard (until the late 1980s, mice were rare, expensive and used mostly by a lunatic fringe) useless.  While it might seem a redundant feature given each machine came with an on/off switch or button, the two performed distinct functions related to the limitations of the hardware and operation systems of the era.  The on/off switch performed a “cold start”, cutting and then restoring power to all components, an inherently slow and potentially stress-inducing process.  By contrast, the reset button triggered a “warm reset” which electrically asserted the CPU’s (central processing unit) RESET line (which, as implemented by many manufacturers, also often often reset the system bus) without cutting power; what it did was immediately restart execution at the firmware’s entry point (BIOS (basic input output (I/O) system) on genuine IBM PCs) while leaving the power-flow to the system uninterrupted.  The most obvious practical advantage of using the reset button was a faster restart and a reduction in mechanical wear on hard & and floppy drives by not subjecting them to spin-down & spin-up cycles.

Front panel on early (clone) PC.

The key (to the right, below the on/off power switch) enabled users to "lock" the keyboard, preventing use of the machine.  This mechanical security layer was required because the early operating systems had no accounts requiring a login and no password protection, meaning anyone who turned the thing on had unfettered access (very few programs offered application-level security).  The "Turbo" button was there to permit users to "throttle-back" to CPU to the 4.77 MHz speed used by the 8086 & 8088 CPUs in the original PCs.  That was needed to ensure some older software (especially games) would still run on newer hardware, running at a dazzling 7.16 or 9.54 MHz.  

Because almost all the early operating systems (PC/MS-DOS, CP/M-86 and the various UNIX ports) had no memory protection and only primitive fault recovery, a single misbehaving program could (1) disable the interrupts upon which hardware depended, (2) corrupt the system state and (3) make the keyboard wholly unresponsive.  Not only did all these things happen, they happened with some frequency so the advantages of the reset button offered were a real benefit to users.  The hardware also enjoyed a protection layer because the power switches on early PCs were "hard mechanical mains" switches, often directly switching line voltage which meant rapid power cycling could stress the power supply, cause voltage transients harmful to expansion cards and risk data corruption or loss because robust “parking” mechanisms were rare on the early hard drives.  As operating systems gained protected mode, multitasking, and graceful reboot mechanisms, the need for reset buttons diminished and gradually they disappeared from the standard specification.

Reset button: Sergey Lavrov (left) and crooked Hillary Clinton, Geneva, 2009.  The delicious irony is that one of crooked Hillary's few diplomatic successes came from a mistake in translation.  

Having failed in 2008 to secure the Democratic Party’s nomination to contest that year’s presidential election, crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947) between 2009-2013 to the consolation prize of becoming US secretary of state, the job she decided was a prelude to her becoming POTUS in 2016, a position to which she believed she was entitled.  Things didn’t quite work out as she’d hoped and her tenure at Foggy Bottom was marked by scandal (related, predictably, to her chronic untruthfulness) but one potential “diplomatic incident” was allowed to pass without adverse comment on the basis “she meant well”.  Following a not untypically troubled recent past, Barack Obama (b 1961; POTUS 2009-2017) decided to try to improve Washington’s relations with the Kremlin.  As a gesture in this vein, in 2009, crooked Hillary presented Sergey Lavrov (b 1950 Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs since 2004) with a red button (of the type often used in heavy machinery as an “emergency stop”) on which was printed “Reset” and a Roman alphabet transliteration of the Russian Cyrillic перегрузка (peregruzka).  The idea was, with the arrival in Washington of a new administration, the two states should “re-start” their relationship and try to pretend to forget as much as possible of the past.  Unfortunately, the department got the translation wrong and used the Russian word for “overload”; it should have read перезагрузка (perezagruzka).  Mr Lavrov however was also at the time anxious to improve things and accepted the gift in the spirit in which it was intended, he and crooked Hillary pushing the button simultaneously for several photo opportunities.

Lindsay Lohan’s belly button adorned  with belly button jewellery, Los Angeles, 2009.

The noun buttonology genuinely does exist.  It was a calque of the Swedish knappologi and used to refer to the fashion for pedantic and often pointless systematization.  The construct followed the Swedish model (knapp (button) +‎ -ologi, coined by Swedish author August Strindberg (1849–1912) and appearing in the short story De lycksaliges ö (The Isle of the Blessed) which although written in 1884, wasn’t published until 1891 when it appeared in the compilation Svenska öden och äventyr (Swedish Destinies and Adventures).  Buttonology is used most often as a generic term to decry the exaggerated, obsessive or pointlessly pedantic systematization, especially of trivial subjects but literally it can describe the study or categorization of buttons (in the sense of clothing fasteners).  Obviously, practitioners of buttonology are buttonologists.  In a light-hearted vein, in the training of software engineers and designers, it’s the component of the course focusing on user interfaces (where there can be many buttons).  In US military slang, buttonology is used of user interfaces generally.

Childless cat lady Taylor Swift (b 1989) with Ragdoll Benjamin Button, named after the eponymous character in the movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), Time Magazine cover for “Person of the Year” edition, 25 December, 2023.  Ragdoll cats make good stoles because (attributed to a genetic mutation), they tend to “go limp” when picked up.

An owner of three most contented felines, gleefully, Ms Swift in 2024 embraced the appellation “childless cat lady” after wide publicity of its earlier use as a slur by James David (J.D.) Vance (b 1984; VPOTUS since 2025), something prompted by Mr Vance being named as Donald Trump’s (b 1946; POTUS 2017-2021 and since 2025) running-mate in the 2024 US presidential election.  The now famous phrase had been used in a 2021 interview with then Fox News host Tucker Carlson (b 1969) when he lamented the decline in the state of the nation: “…we are effectively run in this country via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too.”  Mr Vance may have struck an electoral chord because while Kamala Harris (b 1964; US vice president 2021-2025) presumably gained the childless cat lady vote, the Trump-Vance ticket won the election: 77,302,580 (49.8%) to 75,017,613 (48.3%) in the popular vote and 312 to 226 in the Electoral College on a turnout of 64.1%.

Pressed or pushed, many buttons needed.

The literal (physical) button-hole was noted in tailoring first during the 1560s, the figurative sense "to detain (someone) unwillingly in conversation” dating from 1862, a variation of the earlier button-hold (1834) and button-holder (1806), all based on the image is of holding someone by the coat-button so as to detain them.  The adjectival push-button (characterized by pressing a button used to activate something) emerged in 1945 as a consequence of the increasing public appreciation of the extent to which military weapons systems had become electronically controlled.  The earlier form “push-buttons" was from 1903, a modification of the noun push-button (button pressed with the finger to effect some operation) from 1865, then applied to mechanical devices.  The earlier adjectival form was “press-button” (1892) derived from the noun (1879).  For no apparent reason, it was the earlier “press of a button” which tended in the 1950s & 1960s to be preferred to “push of a button” to express the concern felt at the ease with which the US and USSR could trigger global thermo-nuclear war although “flick of a switch” also achieved much currency.  None were exactly usefully descriptive of a complex chain of events but it’s true that in a launch of nuclear weapons, many buttons and switches still are involved.

Highly qualified content provider Busty Buffy (b 1996) during “button-theory” test session.  Button theory involves trying on “button-up” tops of various sizes and subjecting each to normal human movement, the test “passed” when no buttons “pop open”.

In fashion, the number of a top’s buttons “left undone” is a signifier of various things and the range extends from “all done up” to “all undone”, the latter usually restricted to catwalks and red carpets when stability of fabric sometimes is achieved with the use of adhesive, double-sided tape.  While not culturally specific, the meanings signified by the number left undone (usually from top-to-bottom) can differ depending on certain circumstantial variables (time, place, temperature, wearer, presence of paparazzi etc).

No fear of button theory: Button theory suggests buttons can be done-up or undone.  Noted empiricist Lindsay Lohan has for some years been undertaking a longitudinal study to test theory.

The fear of buttons is koumpounophobia, the construct being the Modern Greek κουμπί (koumpí) +‎ -phobia and the word, like many describing phobias is a neologism.  Koumpi was from the Ancient Greek κομβίον (kombíon) translates as button in its two literal senses (a fastener for clothing or a device for instrument or remote mechanical control).  A button in Greek is thus κουμπί (koumpí) (the plural κουμπιά) and the verb is κουμπώνω (koumpóno).  In the Ancient Greek the lexemic unit koump- didn’t exist although it did have κομβίον (kombíon (which exists in Modern Greek as komvíon)) which meant buckle.  It may seem as strange omission because Ancient Greek had κουμπούνω, (koumpouno) which meant “to button” but the root was κύαμος (komos or koumos) meaning “broad bean” and, because there were no buttons in the Greece of Antiquity, they used appropriately sized & shaped beans as clothes fasteners.  The construct of koumpouno (to button) koum(os) + + πονέω (poneo) (to work; to exert), the idea of a bean which is used again and again.  The suffix -phobia (fear of a specific thing; hate, dislike, or repression of a specific thing) was from the New Latin, from the Classical Latin, from the Ancient Greek -φοβία (-phobía) and was used to form nouns meaning fear of a specific thing (the idea of a hatred came later).  In medicine, the absence of the belly button is a rare congenital defect, the medical term for which is omphalocele, usually something ultimately of no physiological significance but because it can cause psychological distress, plastic surgeons can re-construct one, a relatively simple procedure.  The alternative for an omphalocelic is to shun omphalophiliacs and hook up with someone who suffers omphalophobia (fear of the belly button); they should live happily ever after.  The phobia koumpounophobia is unrelated and references only the manufactured objects.

Lindsay Lohan in trench coat buttons up.  As fashionistas know, with a trench the belt is tied, only the military buckling up.

So, in the narrow technical sense, an etymologist might insist koumpounophobia is the fear of clothing fasteners rather than buttons of all types but that seems not helpful and it’s regarded as a generalised aversion and one said sometimes associated with kyklophobia (the fear of circles or other round objects) and especially the surprisingly common trypophobia (fear of holes (particularly if clustered or in some way arranged in a pattern)).  Estimates of the prevalence of the condition have been given by some but these are unverified and it’s not clear if those who for whatever reason prefer zips, Velcro or some other fastener are included and with phobias, numbers really should include only those where the aversion has some significant impact on life.  The symptoms suffered can include (1) an inability to tolerate the sight, sound, or texture of buttons, (2) feelings of panic, dread, or terror when seeing or thinking about buttons, (3) an acknowledgment that the fear is either wholly irrational or disproportionate to the potential danger.  Koumpounophobia reactions are usually automatic & uncontrollable and the source may be unknown or experiential (exposure to some disturbing imagery or description of buttons or an actual event involving buttons such as swallowing one when a child).  Like many phobias, the physical reactions can include a rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath, trembling, excessive sweating, nausea, dry mouth, inability to speak or think clearly, tightening of stomach muscles, and an overwhelming desire to escape from button-related situations.  All are likely to involve an anxiety attack to some extent and the recommended treatment is the staggered exposure therapy used for many phobias; the patient slowly learning to wear, use and live with buttons; antidepressants, tranquillisers & beta-blockers are now considered medications of last resort.

Buttons are hard to avoid.

What is sometimes treated as koumpounophobia can be a manifestation of a different phobia.  In the literature there are examples of buttons triggering anxiety when touched or viewed but the reaction was actually to texture, color or a resemblance to something (typically a face, mouth or teeth).  The button is thus incidental to the reaction in the same way that those with mysophobia (in popular use the germophobic) may react to buttons because of the association with uncleanliness.  One documented aspect of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is that many sufferers immediately wash their hands after touching a button; the increased prevalence of this behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic in relation to buttons touched by other (keyboards, elevators etc) is not thought indicative of a phobia but would be if it manifests as life-long behaviour.

Apple Magic Mouse, Multi-Touch Surface in white @ US$99.00 (left), Logitech Signature M650 L, full-size wireless two-button Scroll Mouse with Silent Clicks in blue @ US$37.99 (centre) and Steve Jobs' vision of hell: Canon 5565B001 X Mark I Slim 3-in-1 wireless mouse with keypad calculator @ US$49.95. 

Steve Jobs (1955-2011; co-founder, and sometime chairman & CEO of Apple) was said to have an aversion to buttons, something linked to his fondness for button-free turtleneck clothing but given he spent decades using keyboards without apparent ill-effect, it’s doubtful a clinician would diagnose koumpounophobia and it's more likely he was just convinced of the technological advantages of going button-less.  Without buttons, manufacturing processes would be cheaper, water-proofing devices like iPhones would become (at least theoretically) possible and upgrades would no longer be constrained by static buttons, the user interface wholly virtualized on one flat panel, able to be changed (the industry's term for "change" is "upgrade" although users don't always agree there has been an improvement) purely in software.  It apparently started with the button-less Apple mouse, the industry legend being Mr Jobs saw a prototype (which the designers regarded as nothing more than speculative) and insisted it become Apple’s standard device.

Whether or not it happened that way, the story is illustrative of the way business was done at Apple and it’s notable his veto on offering a stylus with which to interact with apps or the operating system didn’t survive his death.  His response to the idea of a stylus was reportedly “yuk” and he seems to have decided all his users would think the same way and probably he was right, Apple’s users tending usually to do what Apple tells them to do.  Indeed, one of reasons Apple has found the Chinese market so receptive to the iPhone is that the company's approach accords with "the Chinese way": First, their parents tell them what to do, then their teachers tell them what to do, then the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) tells them what to do; Apple found it most agreeable they also did what it told them to do.  However, for those who find the sleek Apple mouse better to behold than use, third-party products with buttons and scroll wheels are available, sometimes for half the cost of the genuine article.  Since the death of Mr Jobs, Apple has relented on the "stylus question".

Shiny on the outside: Finished in Bianco Avus over black leather with Rosso Corsa (racing red) instruments, of the 400 Ferrai Enzos (2002-2004) chassis 133023 (2003) was the only one the factory painted white.  Some Ferraris really suit white, notably the elegant 365 GT4 2+2 and the successor 400 and 412 models (1972-1989).

The dreaded “Ferrari sticky buttons” is a well-known phenomenon, the stickiness coming from the rubberized material preferred by the factory because of the superior feel offered.  However, under just about any climatic conditions, continuous use will induce a deterioration which resembles melting, "mushiness" the final outcome.  The internet is awash with suggestions, the simplest of which involves products like rubbing alcohol (the use of which can cause its own destructiveness) and the consensus seems to be that in many cases only replacement buttons will produce a satisfactory result.  The choice is between obtaining the real Ferrari part-number (if available) with the knowledge the problem will re-occur or use third-part replacements which are made of a more durable material, the disadvantage being the feel won’t be quite the same and there’s a reluctance among some to use non-factory parts, an attitude enforced by the "originality police". 

Sticky on the inside: Ferrari 485 California F1 gearbox buttons, sticky (left) and not (right).

Ferrari does use the suspect material for a reason and it’s applied to interior components such as trim, bezels, buttons & switches, and heating, ventilation & air-conditioning panels.  The coatings are usually referred to as “soft-touch” and designers like them for the soft, velvet-like feel imparted.  Used also on computer mice and electronic remote controls, the low gloss sheen is in cars helpful because being absorptive, glare is reduced and Ferrari uses both a clear and black finish.  It’s an issue not exclusive to Ferraris although owners of those do seem most concerned and while using rubbing alcohol might sound a tempting Q&D (quick & dirty) fix, for those with sticky buttons this is probably a job best left to experts of which there are now a few and they're finding business good.