Veavage

Veavage (pronounced vee-vig)

(1) The expanse of bare skin a woman displays when wearing a dress (or top) with a neckline cut in a deep (often called plunging) “V”, the vertex (the bottom junction where the two diagonal strokes meet) typically reaching the midriff but the lines can intersect as low as the waist or even the hipline.  As a design, it’s the familiar “V-neckline” taken to its logical conclusion although much the same can be achieved with what technically are “scalloped necklines” or “U-plunges”.

(2) As “veavage dress”, “veavage top” etc, a garment so designed.

2026 (2010 for an earlier, now extinct purpose): A portmanteau word, the construct being ve(e) + (cle)avage.  In English, vee had a long history as an illustration of the pronunciation for the letter “V” but it was in US English in the mid-1860s it began widely to be used in building, architecture and engineering to describe various structures, components or configurations.  Because of the attractive properties of triangles, the “V-shape” would for millennia have been part of the man-made environment (indeed, it exists in botany, animals and geology) but the form “vee” appears in this context to have been well documented only from the mid-nineteenth century and use as a direct substitute for the Latin script letter “V/v” is documented from 1869.  In internal combustion engines, “vee” seems first used of piston engines in this configuration by 1915 although the first known V-twin was built in 1889 and the first V8 in 1903.  Although common as a descriptor of shapes or physical objects, the more abstract re-purposings included (1) a polyamorous relationship between three people, in which one person has two partners who are not themselves romantically or sexually involved and (2) in the (male) gay community, “a Vee” is a verbal shorthand for “a versatile” (one who is not exclusively “a top” (or “pitcher”) or “a “bottom” (or “catcher”) but indulges in both practices.  The coining is too recent for derived forms to have emerged but the possibilities include veavaged, veavaging and veavesque.  Veavage is a noun (and potentially a verb & adjective); the noun plural is veavages.

Of Vee

Cricket's “vee”, recommended for “high-percentage” shots.

Teevee was a respelling of the abbreviation TV (for television) so the two are synonymous but the former (with its four superfluous vowels) survived only as a “niche word”.  In the era between the early post-war years and services like YouTube and its many imitators becoming mainstream, a “teeveen” was a young person who “watched too much TV”.  In SF (sci-fi, science fiction) a three-vee was a screen able to display in three-dimensions; authors used also “3v”, “tri-v” “tri-vid”, “tri-d”, “trideo” & “tridim” and although they didn’t show quite the disdain for capitalization as later would emerge in the business of computer hardware & software, the literary preference seems to have tended to the lower case.  The humorists of the 1980s used a mix of upper and lower when creating shorthand critiques of the US cable television channel (1981) MTV (pronounced emm-tee-vee and an initialism of “Music Television”).  Claiming the channel’s programming was banal, they conjured up “eMpTyV”, “empty-vee”, “Empty-V”, “Emptyv”, “emptyV” & “eMpTy V”, all to be pronounced emp-tee-vee.  That was a variant of the technique used to produce rebus abbreviations (in structural linguistics technically a “gramogram”) such as “NRG” for “energy” or “XLR8” for “accelerate”.  All worked best when written because although non none possessed classic phonetic assimilation, sloppiness in real world use, sloppiness in pronunciation probably often rendered the sound of emm-tee-vee vs emp-tee-vee indistinguishable.  In cricket, the “vee” describes the arc of the field, forward of the batter, from cover to midwicket, in which drives classically are played (a shape better visualized as an “L” because, like many “vee” engines, the vertex is a 90^o angle) and coaches still instruct batters to “play in the vee” because that’s most productive for “high percentage” (ie more runs, fewer dismissals) shots but in the newer, shorter forms of the game, that’s now less relevant.  Whether “veagage” catches as jargon for coaches advocating “playing in the vee” remains to be seen.

Playing in the vee.  Australian cricketer Ellyse Perry (b 1990) with the trophies of the two Cricket Australia (the new name for the old Board of Control) Cricketer of the Year awards she won in 2023 (in the T20 and ODI (One Day International) categories). Note the splendid shoulder & upper-arm muscle definition.

In typography & computing, typography, a “vee” was a unit of vertical spacing, typically corresponding to the height of an ordinary line of text.  In machinery, a vee-belt (often as v-belt) was a drive-belt of reinforced rubber or other compounds which was mounted on drive wheels or pullies, the name gained from the V-shaped cross-section (some with notches which were called “toothed belts”).   “Vee Dub” was a slang term for a vehicle produced by Volkswagen (VW) and a “Vee Dubber” was a VW fan boy (some of whom were girls).  A “veejay” was the host of a television programme who presented videos, based on the earlier “DJ” (disc jockey, a radio presenter who introduced music broadcast by playing tracks from discs, a use which has survived many DJs now operating without discs).  A VJ was also a “vertical joist” which was a length of timber used as a vertical upright for structural support.  In vulgar slang, “VJ” also was a term for the vulva or vagina and the user-generated Urban Dictionary has an entry from 2010 listing “veavage” with the construct v(aginal) + (cl)eavage (ie the infamous “camel toe”) but that attracted negligible support.  A veep is “a vice-president”, a form popular use has made associated mostly with the VPOTUS (vice-president of the US).  

Of Veagage

Actor Keira Knightley (b 1985) in a classic black veavage dress, illustrating how the emphasis has shifted to skin rather than cleavage, the latter the traditional focus of the deeper “V-necklines”, things now done with “a hint”: less is more.

With due acknowledgment of the use in 2010 (documented by Urban Dictionary) which never gained traction, “veavage” is a new word but what it describes is not new though the emphasis genuinely is a variation of an old theme.  Veagage is a deeply plunging V-shaped cut in a garment which displays some of the chest & midriff down sometimes as far as the hipline although most stop at the waist.  Obviously something best worn on red carpets or for photo-shoots in controlled environments (light, surface irregularities, wind-speed & direction, crowds etc), it differs from the traditional approach to the female chest in that emphasis is on the skin rather than the breasts, the veagage look de-emphasising those glands so the cut is ideal for those able to summon much of a cleavage only with structural engineering such as a bra or Hollywood Tape (better known by the more evocative “tit-tape”).  So it can be a good, eye-catching choice for those without the anatomical advantage demanded by outfits optimized for “peak cleavage” but it has been criticized as a form of “privilege-dressing”, said to carry the whiff of “white feminism”.

Controversial and not accepted by all as something “real”, “white feminism” is said to be a fork of feminism concerned almost exclusively with concerns of white, middle-class, cisgender, heterosexual women, the problems of women not ticking those boxes ignored.  It’s thus an individualistic strain of feminism which aims to maximize one’s advantage within existing systems rather than seeking systemic reform for the collective benefit.  From there it may seem a bit of a leap to veagage as marker of political exclusion but it’s true a link can be constructed if one wishes to find such a connection (the notion of v=(c+p) (cleavage + privilege = veavage)) in that while it accommodates at least some on the spectrum of breast size, slenderness is essential and for those not genetically lucky or disciplined, there are the GLP-1 (Glucagon-like peptide-1) drugs and overwhelmingly, they remain a tool for those who are (in global terms) “rich”.  Like everything else, the frock is political.

Lindsay Lohan, Olympus Fashion Week, Bryant Park, Manhattan, February 2006.  Although Ms Lohan is more associated with the traditional use of the V-neckline, this is archetypical veavage.

Unlike some “straight-line letters” such as “W” or “X”, the letter “V” is almost always rendered with straight lines but fashion editors are more forgiving than geometers (since the time of the third century BC mathematician of Ancient Greece Euclid, the historic term for those whose primary research field was geometry) who would insist the plunging neckline of Ms Lohan’s red dress is not a “V” but a “curvilinear angle” (an angle with sides of curves rather than straight line segments).  In elementary geometry, the classic angle consists of two straight rays meeting at a vertex, whereas in a curvilinear angle the sides are arcs or other curves intersecting at a point.  In fashion, up to a certain stage, a “curvilinear angle” is still a “V-neckline” because the visual effect is so close but, as the curves become more curved, at some point the cut becomes closed to a “scallop” or “scoop” and is so described.

Model & writer Hari Nef (b 1992) in Schiaparelli.  Like the trade-off in warship design between armor & speed, less gland means more veavage so those not best suited to cleavage in a V-neckline have an alternative.

So with V-shaped necklines descending to the navel (or a little beyond) hardly a novelty given their not infrequent appearances over the last two-decades-odd, why did the word “veavage” suddenly make an appearance in 2026?  The obvious answer is of course “click-bait” but that’s not of necessity a bad thing because, in a sense, that trick is supply anticipating demand and there are aspects of the internet (which at least for now seem to have become structural) that should arouse more concern.  It’s a good word and a welcome addition to the fashion business; presumably an industry commentator noted a spike in the “deep vee” showing up on the catwalks or red carpets and, things “on trend” needing a tag, conjured up (or re-purposed) “veagage”.  The speculative link to the look becoming more prevalent because GLP-1s have rendered more women with physiques suitable for such things is intriguing but wholly impressionistic and trends anyway tend to wax and wane although, in its niche, veagage seems here to stay.

Of Cleavage

Actor Sydney Sweeney (b 1997) with a more traditional implementation of the V-neckline.  Empirically, this look is likely to remain the dominant approach although, as it has for years, the veavege will run in parallel. 

The noun cleavage seems first to have appeared in the 1805, the construct being cleave + -age.  It was used first in geology and mineralogy to describe “the tendency (of rocks or gems) to break cleanly along natural fissures” with the generalized meaning “action or state of cleaving or being cleft” emerging in the mid 1860s.  Although the artistic record confirms the popularity of the look had over the centuries come and gone in the cyclical way fashion behaves, use of “cleavage” in the sense of the “the hollow between a woman's breasts (usually when artificially supported), especially as exposed by a low-cut garment” appears not to have been seen in print prior to the use in an article in Time magazine discussing the (nominally) self-censorship codes of practice adopted (not entirely willingly) by the Hollywood film studios.  In finding a single word, Time’s editors proved good practitioners of journalistic succinctness because what they were reducing to a word had been described in the industry’s bureaucratese as “the shadowed depression dividing an actress' bosom into two distinct sections.”  Cleavage caught on although to this day the more up-market fashion glossies still hanker after the French décolletage.

Variations on a theme of Vee: Lindsay Lohan (during blonde phase) in V-neckline, V Magazine's Black and White Ball, Standard Hotel, New York City, September 2011.

Cleave was in use prior to 950 and was from the Middle English cleven, from the Old English strong verb clēofan (to split, to separate), from the Proto-West Germanic kleuban, from the Proto-Germanic kleubaną, from the primitive Indo-European glewb- (to cut, to slice).  It was a doublet of clive and cognate with the Dutch klieven, the dialectal German klieben, the Swedish klyva, the Norwegian Nynorsk kløyva; it was akin to the Ancient Greek γλύφω (glúphō) (carve) and the Classical Latin glūbere (to peel).  Given the time and place of cleave’s emergence, etymologists suspect the original sense was likely related to the handling of timber (ie to split or divide by or as if by a cutting blow, especially along a natural line of division, as the grain of wood).  The suffix -age was from the Middle English -age, from the Old French -age, from the Latin -āticum.  Cognates include the French -age, the Italian -aggio, the Portuguese -agem, the Spanish -aje & Romanian -aj.  It was used to form nouns (1) with the sense of collection or appurtenance, (2) indicating a process, action, or a result, (3) of a state or relationship, (4) indicating a place, (5) indicating a charge, toll, or fee, (6) indicating a rate & (7) of a unit of measure.  The French suffix -age was from the Middle & Old French -age, from the Latin -āticum, (greatly) extended from words like rivage and voyage.  It was used usually to form nouns with the sense of (1) "action or result of Xing" or (more rarely), "action related to X" or (2) "state of being (a or an) X".  A less common use was the formation of collective nouns.  Historically, there were many applications (family relationships, locations et al) but use has long tended to be restricted to the sense of "action of Xing".  Many older terms now have little to no connection with their most common modern uses, something particularly notable of those descended from actual Latin words (fromage, voyage et al).

Bella Hadid (b 1996, right), Cannes Film Festival, 2021.

A veavage can of course be an eye-catching billboard and the obvious stuff to advertise is jewellery (left).  Model Bella Hadid showed how it could be done with scalloped neckline, wearing a black Schiaparelli gown (cut for the purpose with an untypically wide aperture) used to frame a sculptural piece, fashioned in gilded brass to resemble an anatomical cast of the lungs’ bronchi (the paired series of cartilaginous, tube-like airways branching from the trachea into each lung, acting as the primary passage for air distribution).  However, in while in commerce a handy advertising space, those adopting a veavage seem most inclined to restrict adornments to earrings or other accessories which don't interrupt the line of skin between neck and waist, the trick being to achieve a “lengthening effect”  

Golfer and multi-media personality Paige Spiranac (b 1993).

Despite the etymological implication, a veagage is about the display of skin and is not dependent on being framed in a “V” but the point about it is the de-emphasis of the breasts (and thus the cleavage).  What Paige Spiranac wore to Sports Illustrated 60^th anniversary event could (with some strategically placed double-sided tape) be used for the purpose but technically the ensemble was a variant of the “curtain reveal” motif (in “open” mode).  Whether it would produce a veagage or a cleavage would depend on the wearer.

In the 1980s, US political scientists used the term “cross-cutting cleavages” to describe what had been revealed as a phenomenon both increasing frequency and spreading demographically and geographically.  The term referred to a social structure in which different lines of division in society intersect rather than coincide (ie groups created by one social division are mixed across the groups created by another division, instead of aligning with them).  In the West, as an identifiable trend, this likely was something that had ebbed and flowed since the decline of feudalism but in the post-war years it became of interest to political scientists because it was clearly something influencing social conflict and voting behaviour, the issue-by-issue alignment within and between sectional classifications no longer as predictable.  What had become obvious was the membership of groups in one dimension was overlapping with multiple groups in another.

Influencer Sophadophaa (she stresses : “It’s Sophia not Sophie”) in red gown with plunging vee.

Because the veagage effect is most effective when at its most 2D (two dimentional), when that’s what’s wanted, the usual approach is to have the fabric cling to the skin (with double-sided tape as required) but V-necklines can be executed differently for other outcomes; the double-sided tape is still applied but in different places.

Overlap was not new in that “coalitions of interest or concern” had long been known to be subject to these “crossovers” (especially at the margins) but in the days before big machine databases transformed this into something political parties could not merely manage but exploit, it was a genuine problem.  The more optimistic academics suggested cross-cutting cleavages operated to stabilize democracy because, with individuals simultaneously belonging to many groups (class, religion, occupation, region), the overlap prevented politics from collapsing into a series of polarized conflicts, what some called “the Balkanization of society”.  The argument was the behaviour compelled political parties to build broad coalitions across multiple groups, moderating the inherent tendency to conflict and reducing the likelihood of groups becoming the captives of extremist positions.  There may have been something in this because in the US, between the 1930s & 1980s it was those broad (notably geographical) coalitions which characterized US politics; political conflict didn’t go away but it was diffuse rather than binary.  In operation, that mid-century model was very different from Europe.  There, “cleavage theory” was a descriptive model of the way several centuries of major (and often bloody) social conflicts (cleavages) worked finally as the catalyst for state formation and industrialization.

Wonderbra New Deep Plunge Bra.

The manufacturers have for decades noted the appeal of the V-neckline and have created a vibrant market in accessories and devices.  Up to a point, the conventional cantilever method works but there are practical limits.  However, while physics can’t be fooled, optics can and what Wonderbra did for the New Deep Plunge Bra was replace the conventional fabric-covered gore with one of translucent plastic, thus creating a “one skin tone fits all” fitting.  Except on close inspection, it was close to invisible.

The West (and especially the US) is of course now in the age of “mega identity politics” and the parameters of those identities are in the effective control of a relative handful of extremists (“absolutists” or “purists” the more polite forms) who have the historically unique (in reach, immediacy and scope) platform of social media set agendas and cancel transgressors; even in groups originally created because of oppression, now routinely oppress heretics who depart from the orthodoxy.  This does not imply political parties have become “single issue” operations but substantially they are tending towards the ideologically monolithic as aggregations of what scholars have labelled “stacked identities” and the process of “purification” is not organic: within the party machines, those seeking absolute control undertaking purges, witness the gradual preponderance within the Republican Party of the MAGA (Make America Great Again) over those condemned as “pseudo conservatives”, the RINOs (Republicans in Name Only).  In the Democratic Party, identities have come to trump (the verb) all else and few now dare to raise the matter of trans-females competing in sporting competitions for women because the “trans rights” have become a litmus-paper test of adherence to orthodoxy.  So, the machinery which decades ago assembled coalitions of interest now creates tribes with much of what that word implies, political scientists sanitizing things a bit with the tag “affective polarization”.  While the cause-and-effect processes in all this were not wholly binary, it has rendered conflict now identity-based in that conflicts are between world views and way of life rather than the minutiae of policies.

Ultradeep U-Plunge.  Where the vee didn't plunge so deep, a more conventional construction could be used although many did include "clear" shoulder straps, made of the same kind of material as sometimes used for the gore.

So, whereas the national and state legislatures once thrashed things out and often managed to achieve compromises, that’s now less common because a “compromise” is seen as a “surrender” or “betrayal” and the consequences for that included being “cancelled” or “primaried”, two weaponized devices able successfully to be deployed by a remarkably small number of committed extremists.  None of this is any secret but there’s no obvious solution because the simple fix (mass active participation of the electorate (the so-called “sensible centre”) in party politics) has little appeal for either the voters or those running the party machines, both groups for their own reasons appalled by the notion.  The days are gone when the Republicans had their “moderate” faction (the so-called Rockefeller Republicans (named after Nelson Rockefeller (1908–1979; US vice president 1974-1977 and who earned immortality by having “died on the job”) and the Democrats their “Southern Conservatives” (the so-called “Dixiecrats” in the not always attractive tradition of figures like old Strom Thurmond (1902-2003; senator for South Carolina 1954-2003)).  By the 2020s, that overlap has almost completely disappeared with politics now more polarized than at any time in living memory and political scientists lament the shift but they should recall a remark in the paper Toward a More Responsible Two‑Party System (1950), published by the APSA (American Political Science Association): “The two parties do not differ enough.”  Expanding on that, the authors added: “Alternatives between the parties are defined so badly that it is often difficult to determine what the election has decided even in broadest terms.”  As a critique this came to be called the “Tweedledum & Tweedledee problem” (two characters in Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871) by Lewis Carroll (pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832–1898)) who had different names but look the same and behave in identical ways.

Das U-boob Theorie.

Orla U-Plunge Backless Adhesive Bra in Black (left) and Salma Hayek (b 1966, right) demonstrates the uvage, Evening Standard Theatre Awards, London, November 2015.  Orla's “adhesive” is a reference to the side panels which adhere directly to the skin (using the same technology as surgical tape), allowing the bra to a achieve a “backless” effect.  Because the cut of some gowns obviously is a “U” rather than a “V”, the fashionistas might feel compelled to add “uvage” (pronounced yoo-vig, the construct being u + (clea)vage)) to the lexicon because, if the two styles appear together on the catwalk, single-word differentiation might be helpful.

Heart & wedge: Luciana Heart Cut Out Long Sleeve Mini Dress in black (left) and French content creator & author Léna Situations (Léna Mahfouf, b 1997), in Georges Hobeika (b 1962) black gown with inverted V-neckline (technically a wedge), Academy Awards ceremony, Los Angeles, March 2026.  Ms Mahfouf uses “Léna Situations” as an online pseudonym because that was the name of the fashion & lifestyle-focused blog she, as a teen-ager, created in 2012; it gained her a “brand identity” and was thus for some purposes retained in adulthood.  The blog would have seemed familiar to the members of the long defunct Situationist International because her concept was sharing fragments of her life in different “situations” which might be defined by the place, the outfit worn or what was being experienced so was thus a series of spectacles, able to be understood as individual relics of time & place or a series of narratives.  Using that model, platforms like Instagram have allowed just about everybody to become a situationist and while the original situationists would have recognized “social lives mediated by images, media & commodities”, they'd not have approved.

However, although tempting, being too specific about geometry might lead to a proliferation of terms because designers have proved inventive when shaping “cut-outs” in gowns.  A heart shape could perhaps attract “cardivage” (pronounced kar-dee-vig, the construct being cardi(ac) + (clea)vage) and an inverted vee could be called a “wedgeage” (pronounced wed-jige, the construct being wedge + (cleav)age).  In formal logic, the wedge symbol (∧) represents “AND” (the logical conjunction); in its opposite orientation (V) the symbol is called a “vee” and represents logical “OR”.  So, imposing precision may be a needless solution to a non-existent problem and the industry seems likely to continue to tolerate what Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) in 1906 called “terminological inexactitude” (used as a euphemism for the un-parliamentary “lie” and coined because in the House of Commons, Mr Speaker had long since proscribed use of  “mendacious”).  Beyond the "V", "U", "heart" and "wedge", there are more shapes so veavage seems likely to serve as a generic for all.

Charli XCX (stage-name of English singer-songwriter Charlotte Emma Aitchison (b 1992)) in a Christopher John Rogers (b 1993) white fit & flare dress with ruffled peplum, featuring a more conventional implementation of the V-neckline.

Ms Mahfouf's retention of a youthful online pseudonym is not unique, Charli XCX another example.  The star herself revealed the stage name is pronounced chahr-lee ex-cee-ex; it has no connection with Roman numerals and XCX is anyway not a standard Roman number.  XC is “90” (C minus X (100-10)) and CX is “110” (C plus X (100 +10)) but, should the need arise, XCX could be used as a code for “100”, on the model of something like the “May 35th” reference Chinese internet users, when speaking of the “Tiananmen Square Incident” of 4 June 1989, adopted in an attempt to circumvent the CCP's (Chinese Communist Party) “Great Firewall of China” censorship apparatus.  In 2015, Ms XCX revealed the text string was an element in her MSN screen name (CharliXCX92) when young (it stood for “kiss Charli kiss”) and, after appearing in the early publicity for her music, it gained critical mass so Charli XCX we still have.

In 1950, the political scientists had concluded there was “too great a degree of internal heterogeneity” in that, housing both liberal and conservative wings, the forces tended to “cancel each other out” with the consequence being party programmes which were vague and often similar, meaning voters found it hard to identify clear policy alternatives.  In a sense, that took the “science” out of “political science” and the academics didn’t like it, preferring clear battle-lines (Roundheads vs Cavaliers; democracy vs fascism and such) for without clear differences, there really was no politics; all that remained was the dreary business of management.  In retrospect, the APSA likely agrees people should be careful what they wish for and and many contemporary political scientists now argue the system has moved too far in the opposite direction, producing intense polarization and reinforcing cleavages.  Still, we may as well get used to the system because, with cleavages widening and edges hardening, most conclude it’ll likely get worse before it gets better.

Of Vee Engines

Ford FE V8 (left) and Y-Block (right). The frontal view of the FE engine illustrates both why the configuration is called a “vee” and why it would have been understandable had the 90^o engines been dubbed “L8s”.  Ford’s first OHV (overhead valve) V8 (for pick-up trucks & passenger vehicles) picked up the nickname “Y-Block” because the skirt extended to an unusually low point, the additional cast iron thus recalling the tail of the letter “Y”.

The “V” in certain engines (V4, V8, V16 etc) is a reference to the angle of the banks of the block’s cylinder banks when viewed along the line of the crankshaft and the configuration in ICE (internal combustion engines) was used within half-a-decade of the “first” automobile appearing on the roads in 1886, Wilhelm Maybach (1846-1929) and Gottlieb Daimler (1834-1900) in 1889 installing a 565 cm³ (34 cubic inch) V-twin (ie two cylinder) unit in the Daimler Stahlradwagen (steel-wheeled car).  The Stahlradwagen’s V-twin used what was, by the standards of which would follow, a very narrow angle for the vee (quoted usually a 17^o but listed also “in the 20^o class”) and over the years, “vee” engines have appeared with angles ranging between 12.5 and 180^o (while the latter may seem a contradiction in terms, the 180^o vee (e a straight line) is accepted engineering jargon).  The first V8 (1903) & V12 (1904) appeared in what was for each the “ideal vee angle” (90 & 60^o respectively), the number dictated by desire for the even firing intervals to ensure the smoothest power delivery and those pioneers set the template which has tended since to be followed although there have been many exceptions.  Of course, a V8 in a 90^o configuration really should be a “L8” but because the Maybach & Daimler V-twin had established the terminological model, regardless of the angle, such things have always been “V-something”.  

Ferrparts schematic of crankcase parts for the 365 GT4 BB's 4.4 litre (270 cubic inch) flat-12.  According to engineers, this is a "flattened vee".

That’s fine because, conceptually, there’s always a vertex but according to Ferrari, the “Flat 12” engine fitted the various iterations of the Berlinetta Boxer (1973-1974) was also a type of “vee”, despite the two banks of six being horizontally opposed (ie at 180^o); they called it a “flattened vee” which, as Euclid would have told them, there being no vertex, that means they’re describing a “straight-line segment”.  The engineers would have acknowledged the wisdom of the geometers but argued the use was an established convention in engineering to distinguish the two types of “flat” engines (those with pistons which move in and out simultaneously (on the model of a boxer’s gloves) being “boxers” and those in which the pistons move in unison being “flattened vees” or “180^o vees”.  The Ferrari website explains all this while variously and cheerfully calling the engine a “flat 12”, “boxer-type” or “180^o V12”; so, take your pick.  It’s on that site the factory acknowledged the true story about how the original 365 GT4 BB (1973) picked up the “BB” designation and why “Berlinetta Boxer” was concocted as a cover story.

1930 Cadillac V16 452.

At one end of the spectrum, Lancia produced a range of what they described as “narrow-angle” small-displacement V4s and that was apt because the vee was set at 12.5^o, the compactness of the jewel-like power-plant permitting outstanding packaging efficiency.  Less obviously efficient was Cadillac which, for a brief, shining moment, made a 452 cubic inch (7.4 litre) V16 with the two banks eight arrayed in a 45^o vee; that made it a photogenic piece of machinery but it had the misfortune of being introduced in 1930, right at the onset of the Great Depression and although an encouraging 2,500 left the line in the first year of production, demand collapsed and it was only for reasons of prestige GM (General Motors) kept it in the catalogue.  By the time it was withdrawn from sale in 1938, not even a further 1400 had been ordered.  It was in that year replaced by a technically less intriguing 431 cubic inch (7.1 litre) V16 which, built with a 135^o vee, was even less successful, a reported 516 engines leaving the plant although it’s believed only 499 were installed in rolling chassis.  Also with a  vee was the most charismatic V16 of all, the BRM V16 (1947-1955) which was one of those “glorious failures” at which the British are so adept but no grand prix car since has sounded so good.

Factory cutaway diagram of Daimler-Benz DB 605 Inverted V12 as fitted to Messerschmitt Bf-109.

The DB 60X series was literally “an upside-down V12” but it was regarded thus only because the convention had been to mount them in the still familiar aspect.  Equipped with a dry-sump and direct fuel-injection, the angle assumed in flight made little difference to the engine, unlike the early Allied aero-engines which were carburetor-fed.  In combat, that was a great advantage for the German pilots who were fortunate the British didn't accept a spy's offer to supply them with a stolen example of the vital DB fuel pump.  As it was, the RAF (Royal Air Force) had to wait until Bendex developed a "pressurized carburetor" (a type of throttle-body fuel-injection) although the stop-gap "fix" which proved a remarkably effective partial amelioration was "Miss Shilling's orifice".   

In the first half of the twentieth century, the V12 engine held great appeal for the designers of military aircraft because the layout solved several critical aerodynamic and mechanical problems which would have remained insurmountable (and probably exacerbated) had the traditional in-line engines been further extended or enlargedused.  More cylinders meant more power and this the V12s achieved without the excessive length (and thus the dreaded “crankshaft flex”) which would have been suffered by an in-line 12.  The virtues the designers sought were (1) robustness, (2) lightness, (3) power and (4) compactness, the quest always for a better power-to-weight ratio and for this the V12 proved the “sweet-spot”.  The British industry in the inter-war years developed many V12 aero-engines (notably the Rolls-Royce Merlin which became famous by powering all the early Supermarine Spitfires) but because the Germans didn’t return to military aviation until the mid-1930s, they had the advantage of working on a “clean sheet of paper”, one of their many innovations being the “inverted V12”, the most numerous the Daimler-Benz DB 600 series.  In these, the crankshaft was above the cylinders so the cylinder banks pointed downward and this offered several advantages including (1) improved pilot visibility, (2) greater propeller ground clearance (meaning also the larger propellers became possible without needing longer landing gear), (3) easier access to accessories (fuel pumps, magnetos and such at atop, meaning mechanics could fix or replace components more quickly), (4) the fitting of a Motorkanone (a cannon firing through the propeller hub) became viable (5) shorter exhaust stacks and (5) the plumbing for the advanced MFI (mechanical fuel injection) system was both simplified and made more accessible.

Exhaust stubs of left-hand bank of a BRM V16.

Like the DB inverted V12s, some of the BRM V16 had low-mounted exhaust stubs but whether the flow of the gasses had any effect on aerodynamics was never studied although, the breathing must have been efficient because the 1.5 litre (91 cubic inch) V16 could at 12,000 rpm generate up to 600 HP.  At full cry it produced the most glorious sound ever heard in Formula One but unfortunately it was at the threshold of pain for those standing close so the system was revised to use a pair of long "dump pipes".

Almost as a footnote, the German designers noted they were able also to exploit the location of the stubs to gain unanticipated benefits from the path of the inverted V12’s exhaust thrust and cowling flow.  It’s overstating things to call it a “jet thrust” effect but that’s how it can be visualized, high-velocity exhaust gases exiting the stacks producing a small rearward thrust component and the engineers experimented to find the optimum length and angle, calculating the “effective thrust” at between 50–150 lb (220–670 N) depending on the power setting and throttle used.  In real-world conditions, this translated into perhaps an additional 25-odd horsepower which may not sound significant in engines generating over a thousand but in combat, it could be the difference between life and death.  Additionally, the aeronautical engineers used an aspect of fluid dynamics to improve the “boundary-layer management” along the cowling (ie using the hot, high-energy exhaust stream flowing along the sides of the cowling to “energize” the boundary layer of air "attached" to the fuselage surface).  What this did was slightly delay any flow separation, reducing “draw” and providing a better flow over the wing’s critical root area.  The differences were slight and subtle but again, in combat happening at altitude, at hundred of mph, inches and seconds matter so it could be the difference between life and death.

Guillotine

Guillotine (pronounced gil-uh-teen)

(1) An apparatus designed efficiently to carry out executions by decapitation.

(2) In medicine, an instrument used surgically to remove the tonsils.

(3) Any of various machines in which a vertical blade between two parallel uprights descends to cut or trim metal, stacks of paper etc.

(4) To truncate or cut.

(5) A technical procedure permitted in some parliaments which provides for an early termination of the time usually allocated to debate a bill, forcing an immediate vote.

(6) In philosophy, as “Hume's guillotine”, a synonym of “Hume's law”, the idea that what ought to be the case cannot be deduced from what is already the case; named after the Scottish philosopher and historian David Hume (1711–1776).

(7) In law, as “guillotine clause”, a contractual stipulation that the adoption of the overall contractual package requires adoption of all of the individual treaties or contracts within it; the clause often appears in international treaties or agreements between sub-national entities.

(8) In historic French slang, as “dry guillotine”, the deportation to a penal colony.

Circa 1791: The guillotine was named after Joseph Guillotin (1738-1814), the French physician who advocated its adoption.  The surname Guillotin was of French origin and was from the Old French personal name Guillot, a diminutive of "Guillaume" (the French form of William, meaning “will” or “desire” + “helmet” or “protection” which, macabrely, is amusing given the later association with the guillotine). The “-in” suffix is a common diminutive in French surnames, meaning “little” (in the sense of “younger”) or “son of”.  Still today, the surname Guillotin is found primarily in western France, particularly in regions like Brittany (Bretagne), Normandy, and the Loire Valley and probably began as a patronymic, identifying the bearer as “the son of Guillot”.  Guillotine & guillotining are nouns & verbs and guillotined is a verb; the noun plural is guillotines.  Although use of the verb is attested only from 1794, etymologists seem to agree it would have come into oral use simultaneously with the noun.

The classic guillotine consists of a tall, upright frame in which a weighted and angled blade is raised to the top and suspended.  The condemned person is secured with stocks at the bottom of the frame, positioning the neck directly below the blade. The blade is then released, swiftly to fall, forcefully decapitating the victim in a single pass, the head falling into a basket below.  In 1789, having witnessed the sometimes prolonged suffering caused by other methods of execution, Dr Joseph Guillotin (1738-1814), then a deputy in the National Assembly, had commended the guillotine to the authorities, his notes at the time indicating he was concerned with (1) efficiency of process, (2) a humanitarian concern for the victim and (3), the effect less expeditious methods had on executioners (and of the three, it was only the first and third which would later induce the Nazis to abandon mass-shootings of the Jews and instead create an industrialized process).  The French administration agreed and several guillotines were built in 1791, the first execution the following year.  Approvingly reporting the efficiency of the machine, the Universal Magazine of Knowledge and Pleasure in January 1793 noted "The name of the machine in which the axe descends in grooves from a considerable height so that the stroke is certain and the head instantly severed from the body."  The device also affected Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) who, in his seminal French Revolution (1837), was moved to observe "This is the product of Guillotin's endeavors, ... which product popular gratitude or levity christens by a feminine derivative name, as if it were his daughter: La Guillotine! ... Unfortunate Doctor! For two-and-twenty years he, unguillotined, shall hear nothing but guillotine, see nothing but guillotine; then dying, shall through long centuries wander, as it were, a disconsolate ghost, on the wrong side of Styx and Lethe; his name like to outlive Cæsar's."  For better or worse, historians no longer write like that.

Sterling silver cigar cutter (1994) by Theo Fennell (b 1951).

A finely crafted piece, the upright frame contained a sprung, angled blade with retaining chain, the cigar tip tumbling into a gilded silver basket after the blade descends to the stocks.  The base was of honed, black slate with a sterling silver cartouche ready for engraving, the unit supplied in a bespoke, two-door presentation case.  At auction, it sold for Stg£2,000 (cigar not included).

Born in Saintes, Dr Guillotin emerged as a prominent member of the Constituent Assembly in Paris and although philosophically opposed to capital punishment, he was a realist and wished executions done in a more humane manner and, very much in the spirit of the times, for the one method to be used for all social classes.  He recommended a machine known at the time as the “Louison” or “Louisette”, the nickname derived from the French surgeon and physiologist Dr Antoine Louis (1723-1792) who designed the prototype although it was built by German engineer and harpsichord maker Tobias Schmidt, the process typical of the division of labor in Europe at the time.  It was Herr Schmidt who suggested using a diagonal blade rather than the round shape borrowed from the executioner’s axe and, with his knowledge of anatomy, Dr Louis calculated what came to be known as the “angle of Louis”, an alternative term for the "sternal angle" (the point of junction between the manubrium and the body of the sternum).  The advocacy of Dr Guillotin however received more publicity and, much to his regret, “Guillotine” captured the public imagination, his family so embarrassed by the connection they later changed the family name.  A confessed Freemason, Dr Guillotin died of natural causes in his Paris home, aged 75 and was buried in the city’s Père-Lachaise Cemetery.

One of the kitten-heel shoes worn by Marie Antoinette (1755–1793; Queen Consort of France 1774-1792) on the day of her execution, 16 October 1793.  

While ascending the stairs to the guillotine, she tripped, stepped on the executioner's foot and lost her shoe, something of a harbinger to what she’d lose a few moments later.  The shoe was later recovered and is now on display at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen.

Although Dr Guillotin regretted his name being associated with the contraption, the true origin wasn't even French.  While the date such a thing was first used is unknown it seems almost certainly a medieval creation, an early English record indicating a mechanical beheading device was in use in Halifax in West Yorkshire; then called the Halifax Gibbet, the decapitation of an unfortunate Mr John Dalton recorded in 1286.  A sixteenth century engraving named The Execution of Murcod Ballagh Near to Merton in Ireland 1307 shows a similar machine suggesting use also in medieval Ireland and Scotland, from the mid-sixteenth century until the abolition of use circa 1710; it was called the Maiden which seems to have been functionally identical to the Halifax Gibbet.  In Italy, most un-euphemistically, it was called the Mannaia (cleaver).  Over the years, it attracted many nicknames, some sardonically deployed as the equivalent of gallows humour including La Monte-à-regret (The Regretful Climb), Le Rasoir National (The National Razor), La Veuve (The Widow), Le Moulin à Silence (The Silence Mill), La Bécane (The Machine), Le Massicot (The Cutter), La Cravate à Capet (Capet's Necktie (Capet being Louis XVI (1754–1793; King of France 1774-1792)) & La Raccourcisseuse Patriotique (The Patriotic Shortener).

Marie Antoinette's execution on October 16, 1793 (Unknown artist).

The carts famously used to take victims to the guillotine during the Reign of Terror (the period in the mid-1790s after the declaration of the First Republic, marked by massacres, public executions, anti-clericalism and internecine political struggle) were called tumbrels although many illustrations depict the use of four-wheeled carts rather than tumbrels.  Presumably both types were used but historians generally believe it was usually the tumbrel because the revolutionaries preferred the symbolism of something used usually for moving dung or rubbish and suggest artists preferred the four-wheelers simply for compositional reasons.  The noun tumbrel (two-wheeled cart for hauling dung, stones etc) was from mid-fifteenth century French, a name, curiously perhaps, used in the early thirteenth century to describe what some eighteenth century dictionaries described as a mysterious “instrument of punishment of uncertain type” but which turned out to be (1) a name for the cucking stool used, inter alia, to conduct the dunking in water of women suspected of this and that and (2) was a type of medieval balancing scale used to weigh coins.  It was from the Old French tomberel (dump cart) (which exists in Modern French as tombereau), from tomber ((let) fall or tumble), possibly from a Germanic source, perhaps the Old Norse tumba (to tumble), the Old High German tumon (to turn, reel).

Public guillotining of Eugen Weidmann, Versailles, 1939.

The records from the early days of the revolution are understandably sketchy but the first guillotine was likely that crafted by German harpsichord maker Tobias Schmidt which first was used on 25 April 1792, the term “guillotine” appearing first in print in a report by the journalist Louis René Quentin de Richebourg de Champcenetz (1759-1794) who, in another journalistic scoop, was later guillotined.  Although synonymous with the French Revolution, during which some seventeen thousand were beheaded, the guillotine remained the nation's official method of capital punishment until the death penalty was abolished in 1981.  The highwayman Nicolas Jacques Pelletier (circa 1756–1792) was the first victim while the last public guillotining was of Eugen Weidmann (1908-1939) who, convicted of six murders, was beheaded in Versailles on 17 June 1939.  The final drop of the blade came when murderer Hamida Djandoubi’s (1949-1977) sentence was carried out in Marseille on 10 September 1977.

Boucles d'oreilles pendantes guillotine en laiton (guillotine drop earrings in brass), cut and engraved, Paris, circa 1880.

In France, until the onset of modernity with the coming of the twentieth century, artistic and decorative representations of the guillotine proliferated because the bloody events of the 1790s had made the instrument a symbol of republican patriotism.  Methods of execution now appear less as fashion items although there was a revival associated when the punk movement went mainstream in the mid-1970s (anarchists, revolutionaries and such less inclined to trivialize what they intended soon to be a serious business). In recent years, models in nooses have however strutted the catwalks generating outrage which, measured in column inches, photographs and clicks, was of course the point of them donning the macabre accessory.  For those nostalgic for the days of la révolution, made with a variety of materials, guillotine drop earrings are available on-line.

Paper trimming guillotine.

The device was used in many European countries until well after the Second World War but, perhaps predictability, none were as enthusiastic as the Nazis.  Having been used in various German states since the seventeenth century and being the preferred method of execution in Napoleonic times (circa 1799-1815), guillotine and firing squad were the legal methods of execution during both the Second Reich (1871–1918) and the Weimar Republic (1919–1933).  For the Nazis however, it was just another way to industrialize mass-murder and under the Third Reich (1933-1945), 16,500 were guillotined including 10,000 in 1944–1945 alone although, after the attempt on his life in July 1944, Hitler wasn’t at all attracted to an efficient or humanitarian dispatch of the surviving plotters and for them specified a more gruesome method.  The guillotine was used for the last time in the FRG (Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany; the old West Germany) 1949-1990) in 1949 though use in the GDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik (German Democratic Republic; the old East Germany) 1949-1990) persisted until 1966, mostly by the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (Ministry for State Security, better known as the Stasi) for secret executions.

Brandenburg prison fallbeil now on display at the Deutsche Historisches Museum.  Unlike most of the Tegel machines, it's un-painted and not fitted with a blade shield although the rather crude construction (using unfinished wood planks and four hefty, unadorned wooden legs) is characteristic of the Tegel design.  Some other Tegel fallbeils have had some of the timber members replaced with square metal tubing.

The German for guillotine is fallbeil (literally "axe-method" which is pleasingly informative).  The Nazis increased the number of capital offences in the criminal code and consequently, there was a drastic increase in the number of executions in the Reich.  To meet the demand, many prisons were designated as execution sites, sixteen gazetted by 1942, all equipped with metal (Mannhardt) fallbeils, the standardized procedure for execution as typically exact and bureaucratic as anything in the German civil service.  The first fallbeils were made from wood and built by the inmates of the Tegel prison in Berlin (hence the name) while the later Mannhardt design (fabricated from steel) was more sophisticated, including an external pulley frame and, thoughtfully, a hinged sheet-metal cover to protect the executioner from "blood spray".

The help admiring a SWB 600.

It’s at least arguable the Mercedes-Benz 600 (M100, 1963-1981) was the last car which, upon its introduction, could be called “the best car in the world”.  Some publications used exactly that phrase when their road-test reports appeared and about all the review in US magazine Road & Track found to complain about was (1) the choice of where to place the driver’s ashtray was obviously the decision of a non-smoker and (2) the air-conditioning (AC) was primitive compare with what was installed in Cadillacs, Lincolns and Imperials (or for that matter, Chevrolets, Fords and Plymouths).  The factory did improve ashtray placement (before social change drove them extinct) but it took decades for it to produce AC systems as good as those from Detroit although, impressionistically, probably nothing has ever matched the icy blasts possible in 1960s Cadillacs and such.

A 600 Pullman on location, 2011.

Lindsay Lohan (b 1986) & Grant Bowler (b 1968) during the filming of Liz & Dick (2012), a “biopic” of the famously tempestuous relationship between the actors Elizabeth Taylor (1932–2011) & Richard Burton (1925–1984).  The car is a Mercedes-Benz 600  four-door Pullman with the vis-a-vis seating.  The flagstaffs (installed in this instance above the front wheel arches) were usually fitted to cars used by governments or the corps diplomatique.

An extraordinary technical achievement, despite its run of 18-odd years, the 600 was a commercial failure with only 2677 built, the 408 (345 sedans & 63 Pullmans) which left the line in the first year of full production (1965) an encouraging start but that proved the high point, the decline precipitous after 1972 when the 600 was withdrawn from the US market, the costs of complying with the new regulations (as well as uncertainty about what was to come) just too onerous to be justified for such a low-volume model.  Although there were examples of special coachwork (armour plating, higher roof versions and even a couple of coupés)  the 600 appeared in three basic forms, the SWB ("short" wheelbase) four-door sedan, the LWB (long wheelbase) Pullmans (in four & six door form) and the Pullman Landaulets (with two lengths of retractable roof); the breakdown was 2,190 sedans, 428 Pullmans and 59 Landaulets.

The car of kings, dictators and real estate developers.

The 1970 Pullman Landaulet (one of twelve known informally as the "presidential" because the folding portion of the roof extended to the driver's compartment, the other 58 Landaulets having a convertible top only over the rear seat) was purchased by the Romanian government and used by comrade president Nicolae Ceaușescu (1918–1989; general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party 1965-1989) until he and his wife were executed (by Kalashnikov assault rifle) after a “people's tribunal” held a brief trial, the swiftness of which was aided by the court-appointed defense counsel who declared them both guilty of the genocide of which, among other crimes, they were charged.  Considering the fate of other fallen dictators, their end was less gruesome than might have been expected.  Comrade Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980; prime-minister or president of Yugoslavia 1944-1980) had a similar car (among other 600s) but he died undisturbed in his bed.  The blue SWB (short wheelbase) car to the rear is one of the few SWB models fitted with a divider between the front & rear compartments including hand-crafted timber writing tables and a refrigerated bar in the centre console.  It was delivered in 1977 to the Iranian diplomatic service and maintained for the Shah’s use.  The 1969 sedan to the right (identified as a US market car by the disfiguring headlight treatment) had a less eventful past, purchased by a California real estate developer, who took advantage of the Mercedes-Benz European Delivery Program (discontinued in 2020 after some sixty years), collecting the 600 from the Stuttgart factory.

KCNA (Korean Central News Agency) footage of the DPRK Youth Parade, Pyongyang, DPRK, 2012.  The KCNA (its headquarters at 1 Potonggang-dong in Pyongyang's Potonggang District) may be the world's most productive state news agency and is the best source for new Kim Jong-Un content. 

At the 2012 Youth Parade, all in the full stadium were happy and enthusiastic, delighted no doubt to be the only audience on the planet able to see two long-roof Mercedes-Benz 600 Landaulets together.  The DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) should not be confused with the "puppet state" RoK (Republic of Korea (South Korea)).  Kim Il-Sung (Kim I, 1912–1994; Great Leader of DPRK 1948-1994) purchased a brace of presidential Landaulets which he passed down the line (along with the rest of North Korea) to his descendants Kim Jong-Il (Kim II, 1941-2011; Dear Leader of DPRK1994-2011) & Kim Jong-Un (Kim III, b 1982; Supreme Leader of DPRK since 2011).    Evil dictators and real estate developers are one thing but the television personality Jeremy Clarkson (b 1960) also owned a (SWB) 600 and from that the car's reputation may never have recovered.  

Staged publicity shot of 1966 Mercedes-Benz 600s.

A four-door Pullman (left) and SWB (right) parked outside the Hotel Vierjahreszeiten, Munich, Bavaria, FRG.  This shot illustrates the difference between the two platforms, the Pullman's additional length all in the wheelbase (the Pullman's was 3,900 mm (153½ inches) against the sedan's 3,200 mm (126 inch).  The factory initially called the sedans “limousines” because that was the traditional German term for a four door sedan (or saloon) but they’re commonly referred to also as the SWB (short wheelbase), the Pullmans very definitely a LWB (long wheelbase).

1966 Mercedes-Benz 600 SWB, Place de la Concorde, Paris, France.

The 600’s famously smooth ride and remarkably capable handling was achieved with a suspension system using air-bellows but more intricate still was the engine-drive hydraulic system with which could be controlled the raising and lowering of the windows and central divider (installed on all but one of the Pullmans and optional on the SWBs), the setting of the shock absorbers (dampers), the opening and closing of the sun-roofs (it was possible on Pullmans to order two!) and the positions of the seats.  Additionally, the closing of the trunk (boot) lid and doors were hydraulically controlled although the hood (bonnet) needed to be raised manually; the factory was clearly more concerned for the comfort of passengers than mechanics.  To achieve all this, the plumbing’s fittings included 30 hydraulic switches, 12 double-acting hydraulic cylinders, 10 single-acting cylinders, six self-resetting single-acting units, a pump, a reservoir, and an accumulator, all connected by 3.5 mm (⅛ inch) internal-diameter lines coursing with hydraulic oil at a pressure of 2,176 psi (150-bar).  As might be imagined, to even experienced automotive engineers & mechanics, the schematic appeared of Byzantine complexity but to those accustomed to the hydraulics of heavy machinery it seemed simple, the only novelty being components unusually small.  The pressure of the system was high enough (twice that of a typical fire hose), if ruptured, to pierce human flesh although, reassuringly, below what’s needed to cut through bone.  Just to prove safety warnings are not something recent, the high pressure warranted a passage in a notably thick publication: Workshop Manual, Type 600, The Grand Mercedes: “It cannot be too highly stressed that it is mortally dangerous to open the oil-pressure container!”  Although the silently operating hydraulic system did offer the advantage of eliminating the noise which would have been generated had electric motors been used, the real attraction was the elimination of an estimated 800 metres (2600 feet) of wiring and more than a dozen motors (and it would have been a challenge to fit them all in the existing structure).

The Guillotine.

A Mercedes-Benz 600 sedan in the now closed Kemp Auto Museum in Saint Louis, Missouri, is used to demonstrate why the hydraulically activated trunk (boot) lid was known to wary technicians as “the guillotine”.  This is the lid closing with the hydraulics on the most hungry setting.

1966 Mercedes-Benz 600 Pullman Landaulet with the shorter of the two folding roofs.

The trunk-lid’s single hydraulic cylinder can bring the steel panel down with alarming force so service personnel decided it deserved to be nicknamed “the guillotine”.  It was however adjustable to reduce the potential to damage fingers (at least there was an attempt to minimize risk; from certain manufacturers, some of the early electric windows didn’t include a clutching mechanism and were capable of crushing the match boxes often used to demonstrate the danger to dawdling digits).  The 600’s hydraulic system was well-built and used high quality components but the factory knew nothing is indestructible and every car included in the trunk a box containing (1) four wedges to force between the glass and the jambs to keep the windows up and (2) a set of pins which could be inserted to keep the squabs of the front seats upright.  Indeed, the door closing apparatus proved troublesome (tales of expensive dresses ruined by a squirt of hydraulic fluid part of the 600 legend) and wasn’t fitted after 1967 but the guillotine remained standard equipment until the end.