Psychache

Psychache (pronounced sahyk-eyk)

Psychological pain, especially when it becomes unbearable, producing suicidal thoughts.

1993: The construct was psyche- + ache.  Psychache was coined by US clinical psychologist Dr Edwin Shneidman (1918-2009) and first appeared in his book Suicide as Psychache: A Clinical Approach to Self-Destructive Behavior (1993).  The prefix psych- was an alternative form of psycho-.  Psycho was from the Ancient Greek ψῡχο- (psūkho-), a combining form of ψυχή (psukhḗ) (soul).  Wit was used with words relating to the soul, the mind, or to psychology.  Ache was from the Middle English verb aken & noun ache (noun), from the Old English verb acan (from the Proto-West Germanic akan, from the Proto-Germanic akaną (to ache)) and the noun æċe (from the Proto-West Germanic aki, from the Proto-Germanic akiz), both from the primitive Indo-European heg- (sin, crime).  It was cognate with the Saterland Frisian eeke & ääke (to ache, fester), the Low German aken, achen & äken (to hurt, ache), the German Low German Eek (inflammation), the North Frisian akelig & æklig (terrible, miserable, sharp, intense), the West Frisian aaklik (nasty, horrible, dismal, dreary) and the Dutch akelig (nasty, horrible).  Historically the verb was spelled ake, and the noun ache but the spellings became aligned after Dr Johnson (Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)) published A Dictionary of the English Language (1755), the lexicographer mistakenly assuming it was from the Ancient Greek ἄχος (ákhos) (pain) due to the similarity in form and meaning of the two words.  As a noun, ache meant “a continuous, dull pain (as opposed to a sharp, sudden, or episodic pain) while the verb was used to mean (1) to have or suffer a continuous, dull pain, (2) to feel great sympathy or pity and (3) to yearn or long for someone or something.  Pyscheache is a noun

Psychache is a theoretical construct used by clinical suicidologists and differs from psychomachia (conflict of the soul).  Psychomachia was from the Late Latin psӯchomachia, the title of a poem of a thousand-odd lines (circa 400) by Roman Christian poet Prudentius (Aurelius Prudentius Clemens; 348-circa 412), the construct being the Ancient Greek Greek psukhē (spirit) + makhē (battle).  The fifth century poem Psychomachia (translated usually as “Battle of Spirits” or “Soul War”) explored a theme familiar in Christianity: the eternal battle between virtue & vice (onto which can be mapped “right & wrong”, “good & evil” etc) and culminated in the forces of Christendom vanquishing pagan idolatry to the cheers of a thousand Christian martyrs.  An elegant telling of an allegory familiar in early Christian literature and art, Prudentius made clear the battle was one which happened in the soul of all people and thus one which all needed to wage, the outcome determined by whether the good or evil in them proved stronger.  The poem’s characters include Faith, Hope, Industry, Sobriety, Chastity, Humility & Patience among the good and Pride, Wrath, Paganism, Avarice, Discord, Lust & Indulgence in the ranks of the evil but scholars of literature caution that although the personifications all are women, in Latin, words for abstract concepts use the feminine grammatical gender and there’s nothing to suggest the poet intended us to read this as a tale of bolshie women slugging it out.  Of interest too is the appearance of the number seven, so familiar in the literature and art of Antiquity and the Medieval period as well as the Biblical texts but although Prudentius has seven virtues defeat seven vices, the characters don’t exactly align with either the canonical seven deadly sins, nor the three theological and four cardinal virtues.  In modern use, the linguistic similarity between psychache and psychomachia has made the latter attractive to those seduced by the (not always Germanic) tradition of the “romance of suicide”.

A pioneer in the field of suicidology, Dr Shneidman’s publication record was indicative of his specialization.

Dr Edwin Shneidman (1918-2009) was a clinical psychologist who practiced as a thanatologist (a practitioner in the field of thanatology (the scientific study of death and the practices associated with it, including the study of the needs of the terminally ill and their families); the construct of thanatology being thanato- (from the Ancient Greek θάνατος (thánatos) (death)) +‎ -logy.  The suffix -ology was formed from -o- (as an interconsonantal vowel) +‎ -logy.  The origin in English of the -logy suffix lies with loanwords from the Ancient Greek, usually via Latin and French, where the suffix (-λογία) is an integral part of the word loaned (eg astrology from astrologia) since the sixteenth century.  French picked up -logie from the Latin -logia, from the Ancient Greek -λογία (-logía).  Within Greek, the suffix is an -ία (-ía) abstract from λόγος (lógos) (account, explanation, narrative), and that a verbal noun from λέγω (légō) (I say, speak, converse, tell a story).  In English the suffix became extraordinarily productive, used notably to form names of sciences or disciplines of study, analogous to the names traditionally borrowed from the Latin (eg astrology from astrologia; geology from geologia) and by the late eighteenth century, the practice (despite the disapproval of the pedants) extended to terms with no connection to Greek or Latin such as those building on French or German bases (eg insectology (1766) after the French insectologie; terminology (1801) after the German Terminologie).  Within a few decades of the intrusion of modern languages, combinations emerged using English terms (eg undergroundology (1820); hatology (1837)).  In this evolution, the development may be though similar to the latter-day proliferation of “-isms” (fascism; feminism etc).

Death and the College Student: A Collection of Brief Essays on Death and Suicide by Harvard Youth (1973) by Dr Edwin Shneidman.  Dr Shneidman wrote many papers about the prevalence of suicide among college-age males, a cross-cultural phenomenon.

Dr Shneidman was one of the seminal figures in the discipline of suicidology, in 1968 founding the AAS (American Association of Suicidology) and the principal US journal for suicide studies: Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior.  The abbreviation AAS is in this context used mostly within the discipline because (1) it is a specialized field and (2) there are literally dozens of uses of “AAS”.  In Suicide as Psychache: A Clinical Approach to Self-Destructive Behavior (1993) he defined psychache as “intense psychological pain—encompassing hurt, anguish, and mental torment”, identifying it as the primary motivation behind suicide, his theory being that when psychological pain becomes unbearable, individuals may perceive suicide as their only escape from torment.

Although since Suicide as Psychache: A Clinical Approach to Self-Destructive Behavior appeared in 1993 there have been four editions of American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), “psychache” has never appeared in the DSM.  That may seem an anomaly given much in the DSM revolves around psychological disturbances but the reason is technical.  What the DSM does is list and codify diagnosable mental disorders (depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder etc), classifying symptoms and behaviors into standardized categories for diagnosis and treatment planning.  By contrast, psychache is not a clinical diagnosis; it is a theoretical construct in suicidology which is used to explain the subjective experience of psychological pain that can lead to patients taking their own lives.  It thus describes an emotional state rather than a psychiatric disorder.

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

Despite that, mental health clinicians do actively use the principles of psychache, notably in suicide risk assessment and prevention and models have been developed including a number of “psychache scales”, self-reporting tools used to generate a metric measuring the intensity of psychological pain (categorized with headings such as shame, guilt, despair et al).  The approaches do in detail differ but most follow Dr Shneidman’s terminology in that the critical threshold is the point at which the patient’s pain becomes unbearable or inescapable and the objective is either to increase tolerance for distress or reframe troublesome thoughts.  Ultimately, the purpose of tools is to improve suicide risk assessments and reduce suicide rates.

DSM-5 (2013).

Interestingly, Suicidal Behavior Disorder (SBD) was introduced in Section III of the DSM-5 (2013) under “Conditions for Further Study”.  Then, SBD chiefly was characterized by a self-initiated sequence of behaviors believed at the time of initiation to cause one’s own death and occurring in the last 24 months.  That of course sounds exact but the diagnostic criteria in the DSM are written like that and the purpose of inclusion in the fifth edition was to create a framework so systematically, empirical studies related to SBD could be reviewed so primary research themes and promising directions for future research could be identified.  Duly, over the following decade that framework was explored but the conclusion was reached there seemed to be little utility in the clinical utility of SBD as a device for predicting future suicide and that more research was needed to understand measurement of the diagnosis and its distinctiveness from related disorders and other self-harming behaviors.  The phase “more research is required” must be one of the most frequently heard among researchers.

In the usually manner in which the APA allowed the DSM to evolve, what the DSM-5s tentative inclusion of SBD did was attempt to capture suicidality as a diagnosis rather than a clinical feature requiring attention.  SBD was characterized by a suicide attempt within the last 24 months (Criterion A) and that was defined as “a self-initiated sequence of behaviors by an individual who, at the time of initiation, expected that the set of actions would lead to his or her own death”.  That sounds uncontroversial but what was significant was the act could meet the criteria for non-suicidal self-injury (ie self-injury with the intention to relieve negative feelings or cognitive state in order to achieve a positive mood state (Criterion B) and cannot be applied to suicidal ideation or preparatory acts (Criterion C).  Were the attempt to have occurred during a state of delirium or confusion or solely for political or religious objectives, then SBD is ruled out (Criteria D & E).  SBD (current) is given when the suicide attempt occurred within the last 12 months, and SBD (in early remission), when it has been 12-24 months since the last attempt.  It must be remembered that while a patient’s behavior(s) may overlap across a number of the DSM’s diagnosises, the AMA’s committees have, for didactic purposes, always preferred to “silo” the categories.

DSM-5-TR (2022).

When in 2022 the “text revision” of the DSM-5 (DSM-5-TR) was released, SBD was removed as a condition for further study in Section III and moved to “Other Conditions That May Be a Focus of Clinical Attention” in Section II. The conditions listed in this section are intended to draw to attention of clinicians to the presence and breadth of additional issues routinely encountered in clinical practice and provide a procedure for their systematic documentation.  According to the APA’s editorial committee, the rationale for the exclusion of SBD from the DSM-5-TR was based on concerns the proposed disorder did not meet the criteria for a mental disorder but instead constituted a behavior with diverse causes and while that distinction may escape most of us, within the internal logic of the history of the DSM, that’s wholly consistent.  At this time, despite many lobbying for the adoption of a diagnostic entity for suicidal behavior, the APA’s committees seem still more inclined to conceptualize suicidality as a symptom rather than a disorder and despite discussion in the field of suicidology about whether suicide and related concepts like psychache should be treated as stand-alone mental health issues, that’s a leap which will have to wait, at least until a DSM-6 is published.

How to and how not to: Informatie over Zorgvuldige Levensbeëindiging (Information about the Careful Ending of Life, 2008) by Stichting Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek naar Zorgvuldige Zelfdoding (The Foundation for Scientific Research into Careful Suicide) (left) and How Not to Kill Yourself: A Phenomenology of Suicide (2023) by Clancy Martin (right).

Informatie over Zorgvuldige Levensbeëindiging (Information about the Careful Ending of Life, 2008) was published by a group of Dutch physicians & and researchers; it contained detailed advice on methods of suicide available to the general public, the Foundation for Scientific Research into Careful Suicide arging “a requirement exists within society for responsible information about an independent and dignified ending of life.”  It could be ordered only from the foundation’s website and had the advantage that whatever might be one’s opinion on the matter, it was at least written by physicians and scientists and thus more reliable than some of the “suicide guides” which are sometimes found on-line.  At the time research by the foundation had found that despite legislation in the Netherlands which permit doctors (acting within specific legal limits) to assist patient commit suicide, there were apparently several thousand cases each year of what it termed “autoeuthanasia” in which no medical staff directly were involved.  Most of these cases involved elderly or chronically ill patients who refused food and fluids and it was estimated these deaths happened at about twice the rate of those carried out under the euthanasia laws.  Since then the Dutch laws have been extended to included those who have no serious physical disease or are suffering great pain; there are people who simply no longer wish to live, something like the tragic figure in Blue Öyster Cult’s (Don't Fear) The Reaper (1976) © Donald Roeser (b 1947):

Came the last night of sadness
And it was clear she couldn't go on
Then the door was open and the wind appeared
The candles blew then disappeared
The curtains flew then he appeared
Saying don't be afraid

There is a diverse literature on various aspects of suicide (tips and techniques, theological & philosophical interpretations, cross-cultural attitudes, history of its treatment in church & secular law etc) and some are quite personal, written variously by those who later would kill themselves or those who contemplated or attempted to take their own lives.  In How Not to Kill Yourself: A Phenomenology of Suicide (2023) by Canadian philosopher Clancy Martin (b 1967), it was revealed the most recent of his ten suicide attempts was “…in his basement with a dog leash, the consequences of which he concealed from his wife, family, co-workers, and students, slipping back into his daily life with a hoarse voice, a raw neck and series of vague explanations.”

BKA (the Bundeskriminalamt, the Federal Criminal Police Office of the FRG (Federal Republic of Germany (the old West Germany)) mug shots of the Red Army Faction's Ulrike Meinhof (left) and Gudrun Ensslin (right).

The song (Don't Fear) The Reaper also made mention of William Shakespeare's (1564–1616) Romeo and Juliet (1597) and in taking her own life (using her dead lover’s dagger) because she doesn’t want to go on living without him, Juliette joined the pantheon of figures who have made the tragedy of suicide seem, to some, romantic.  Politically too, suicide can grant the sort of status dying of old age doesn’t confer, the deaths of left-wing terrorists Ulrike Meinhof (1934–1976) and Gudrun Ensslin (1940–1977) of the West German Red Army Faction (the RAF and better known as the “Baader-Meinhof gang”) both recorded as “suicide in custody” although the circumstances were murky.  In an indication of the way moral relativities aligned during the high Cold War, the French intellectuals Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) and Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) compared their deaths to the worst crimes of the Nazis but sympathy for violence committed for an “approved” cause was not the exclusive preserve of the left.  In July, 1964, in his speech accepting the Republican nomination for that year’s US presidential election, proto-MAGA Barry Goldwater (1909–1998) concluded by saying: “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice!  And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!”  The audience response to that was rapturous although a few months later the country mostly didn’t share the enthusiasm, Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; US president 1963-1969) winning the presidency in one of the greatest landslides in US electoral history.  Given the choice between crooked old Lyndon and crazy old Barry, Americans preferred the crook.

Nor was it just politicians and intellectuals who could resist the appeal of politics being taken to its logical “other means” conclusion, the Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen (1934-2016) during the last years of the Cold War writing First We Take Manhattan (1986), the lyrics of which were open to interpretation but clarified in 1988 by the author who explained: “I think it means exactly what it says.  It is a terrorist song.  I think it's a response to terrorism.  There's something about terrorism that I've always admired.  The fact that there are no alibis or no compromises.  That position is always very attractive.”   Even in 1988 it was a controversial comment because by then not many outside of undergraduate anarchist societies were still romanticizing terrorists but in fairness to the singer the coda isn’t as often published: “I don't like it when it's manifested on the physical plane – I don't really enjoy the terrorist activities – but Psychic Terrorism.”

First We Take Manhattan (1986) by Leonard Cohen

They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom

For tryin' to change the system from within

I'm coming now, I'm coming to reward them

First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

 

I'm guided by a signal in the heavens

I'm guided by this birthmark on my skin

I'm guided by the beauty of our weapons

First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

 

I'd really like to live beside you, baby

I love your body and your spirit and your clothes

But you see that line there moving through the station?

I told you, I told you, told you, I was one of those

 

Ah you loved me as a loser, but now you're worried that I just might win

You know the way to stop me, but you don't have the discipline

How many nights I prayed for this, to let my work begin

First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

 

I don't like your fashion business, mister

And I don't like these drugs that keep you thin

I don't like what happened to my sister

First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

 

I'd really like to live beside you, baby

I love your body and your spirit and your clothes

But you see that line there moving through the station?

I told you, I told you, told you, I was one of those

First We Take Manhattan performed by Jennifer Warnes (b 1947), from the Album Famous Blue Raincoat (1986). 

Whatever they achieved in life, it was their suicides which lent a lingering allure to German-American ecofeminist activist Petra Kelly (1947–1992) & the doomed poet American poet Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) and the lure goes back for millennia, the Roman Poet Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso; 43 BC–17 AD) in his Metamorphoses telling an ancient Babylonian tale in which Pyramus, in dark despair, killed herself after finding her young love lifeless.  Over the centuries it’s been a recurrent trope but the most novel take was the symbolic, mystical death in Richard Wagner's (1813–1883) Tristan und Isolde (1865).  Mortally wounded in a duel before the final act, Tristan longs to see Isolde one last time but just as she arrives at his side, he dies in her arms.  Overwhelmed by love and grief, Isolde sings the famous Liebestod (Love-Death) and dies, the transcendent aria interpreted as the swansong which carries her to join Tristan in mystical union in the afterlife.  This, lawyers would call a “constructive suicide”.

Austrian soprano Helga Dernesch (b 1939) in 1972 performing the Liebestod aria from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde with the Berlin Philharmonic under Herbert von Karajan (1908–1989).

While she didn’t possess the sheer power of the greatest of the Scandinavian sopranos who in the mid-twentieth century defined the role, Dernesch brought passion and intensity to her roles and while, on that night in 1972, the lushness of what Karajan summoned from the strings was perhaps a little much, her Liebestod was spine-tingling and by then, Karajan had been forgiven for everything.  Intriguingly, although Tristan und Isolde is regarded as one of the great monuments to love, in 1854 Wagner had written to the Hungarian composer Franz Liszt (1811–1886) telling him:

“As I have never in life felt the real bliss of love, I must erect a monument to the most beautiful of all my dreams, in which, from beginning to end, that love shall be thoroughly satiated.  I have in my head ‘Tristan and Isolde’, the simplest but most full-blooded musical concepion; with the ‘black flag’ which floats at the end of it I shall cover myself to die.”

It’s not known whether Listz reflected on this apparent compositional self-medication for psychache after in 1870 learning from his morning newspaper his daughter Cosima (1837-1930) was to be married to Wagner (then 24 years her senior) but because she’d been for some seven years conducting an adulterous affair with the German the news may not have been unexpected.  He was aware Cosmia’s daughter (Isolde Beidler (1865–1919)) had been fathered not by her then husband (the German conductor Hans von Bülow (1830–1894)) but by Wagner and her second marriage proved happier than the first so there was that.

Accidie

Accidie (pronounced ak-si-dee)

Sloth; apathy, in the sense of both (1) a general listlessness and apathy and (2) spiritual torpor.

1200–1250: From the Middle English accidie, from the Anglo-Norman accidie, from the Old French accide & accidie, from the Medieval Latin accidia (an alteration of Late Latin acedia (sloth, torpor), from the Ancient Greek ἀκήδεια (akḗdeia) (indifference), the construct being ἀ- (a-) (in the sense of “not”) +‎ κῆδος (kêdos).  It was a doublet of acedia, still cited as an alternative form and replaced the Middle English accide.  The word was in active use between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries and was revived in the nineteenth as a literary adornment.  Accidie and acediast are nouns and acedious is an adjective; the noun plural is acediasts.

The alternative literary words include (1) ennui (a gripping listlessness or melancholia caused by boredom; depression), an unadapted borrowing from the French ennui, from the Old French enui (annoyance), from enuier (which in Modern French persists as ennuyer), from the Late Latin inodiō, from the Latin in odiō (hated) and a doublet of annoy, (2) weltschmerz, used as an alternative letter-case form of the German Weltschmerz (an apathetic or pessimistic view of life; depression concerning or discomfort with the human condition or state of the world; world-weariness), the construct being Welt (world) + Schmerz (physical ache, pain; emotional pain, heartache, sorrow) and coined by German Romantic writer Jean Paul (1763–1825) for his novel Selina (published posthumously in 1827) and (3) mal du siècle (apathy and world-weariness, involving pessimism towards the current state of the world, often along with nostalgia for the past (originally in the context of French Romanticism) (literally “disease of the century”) and coined by the French writer Alfred de Musset in his autobiographical novel La Confession d'un enfant du siècle (The Confession of a Child of the Century (1936)).

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

In Antiquity, the Greeks seemed to have refined accidie (which translated literally as being in “a state so inert as the be devoid of pain or care”) to be used of those who has become listless and no longer cared for their own lives or their society, thus distinguishing it from other conditions of melancholy which tended to be individually focused although in surviving medical texts, what’s being diagnosed was something like what might now be called “depression”.  Predictably, when adopted by moral theologians in Christian writing, it was depicted as a sin or at least a personal flaw.  Others wrote of it as a “demon” to be overcome and even a temptation placed by the Devil, one to which “young men who read poetry” seem to have been chronically prone.  It can be thought of as falling into the category of sloth, listed in the Medieval Latin tradition as of the seven deadly sins and appeared in Dante Alighieri’s (circa 1265–1321) Divina Commedia (Divine Comedy (circa 1310-1321)) not only as a sin worthy of damnation & eternal punishment but the very sin which led Dante to the edge of Hell.  In his unfinished Summa Theologiae (literally Summary of Theology), the Italian Dominican friar, philosopher & theologian Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) noted accidie was a spiritual sorrow, induced by man’s flight from the Divine good, “…on account of the flesh utterly prevailing over the spirit”, the kind of despair which can culminate in the even greater sin of suicide.

Google ngram: Accidie 1800-2020.

Google ngram: Because of the way Google harvests data for their ngrams, they’re not literally a tracking of the use of a word in society but can be usefully indicative of certain trends, (although one is never quite sure which trend(s)), especially over decades.  As a record of actual aggregate use, ngrams are not wholly reliable because: (1) the sub-set of texts Google uses is slanted towards the scientific & academic and (2) the technical limitations imposed by the use of OCR (optical character recognition) when handling older texts of sometime dubious legibility (a process AI should improve).  Where numbers bounce around, this may reflect either: (1) peaks and troughs in use for some reason or (2) some quirk in the data harvested.

Etymologists note that between the mid sixteenth and mid nineteenth centuries the word acedia was close to extinct and whether it was the revival of interest in the Romantic poets (often a glum lot) or the increasing number of women becoming novelists, there was in the late 1800s a revival with the term, once the preserve of theologians, re-purposed as a decorative literary word; in the “terrible twentieth century” there was much scope for use and it appears in the writings of Ian Fleming (1908–1964), Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) and Samuel Beckett (1906-1989).  Intriguingly, in The Decline and Fall of Nokia (2014), Finnish-based expatriate US writer David J Cord introduced the concept of corporate acedia, citing the phenomenon as one of the causes of the collapse of Nokia's once dominant mobile device unit.

Joan Didion (1934-2021) and cigarette with her Daytona Yellow (OEM code 984) 1969 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray (on the C2 Corvette (1963-1967) and in 1968 the spelling had been "Sting Ray”).  The monochrome image was from a photo-session commissioned in 1970 by Life magazine and shot by staff photographer Julian Wasser (1933-2023), outside the house she was renting on Franklin Avenue in the Hollywood Hills.  To great acclaim, her first work of non-fiction, Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968), had just been published.

Writing mostly, in one way or another, about “feelings”, Joan Didion’s work appealed mostly to a female readership but when photographs were published of her posing with her bright yellow Corvette, among men presumably she gained some “street cred” although that might have evaporated had they learned it was later traded for a Volvo; adding insult to injury, it was a Volvo station wagon with all that implies.  She was later interviewed about the apparent incongruity between owner and machine and acknowledged the strangeness, commenting: “I very definitely remember buying the Stingray because it was a crazy thing to do.  I bought it in Hollywood.”  Craziness and Hollywood were then of course synonymous and a C3 Corvette (1968-1982) really was the ideal symbol of the America about which Ms Didion wrote, being loud, flashy, rendered in plastic and flawed yet underpinned by a solid, well-engineered foundation; the notion of the former detracting from the latter was theme in in her essays on the American experience.

A 1969 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray in Daytona Yellow.

Disillusioned, melancholic and clinical, Ms Didion’s literary oeuvre suited the moment because while obviously political it was also spiritual, a critique of what she called the “accidie” of the late 1960s, the moral torpor of those disappointed by what had followed the hope and optimism captured by “Camelot”, the White House of John Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; US president 1961-1963).  In retrospect Camelot was illusory but that of course made real the disillusionment of Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; US president 1963-1969) leading the people not to a “great society” but deeper into Vietnam.  Her essays were in the style of the “new journalism” and sometimes compared with those of her contemporary Susan Sontag (1933-2004) but the two differed in method, tone, ideological orientation and, debatably, expectation if not purpose.

Susan Sontag (1962), monochrome image by Village Voice staff photographer Fred McDarrah (1926–2007).

Ms Didion’s used accidie to describe a society which the troubled 1960s seemed to have bludgeoned into a state not of acquiescence but indifference, a moral exhaustion.  Her writings were observational (and, as she admitted, sometimes “embellished” for didactic purposes), sceptical and cool, her conception of the failure of contemporary politics a matter of describing the disconnect between rhetoric and reality, understanding the language of theatre criticism was as appropriate as that of the lexicon of political science.  In a sense, 'twas ever thus but Ms Didion captured the imagination by illustrating just how far from the moorings of reality the political spectacle of myth-making had drifted.  Ms Sontag’s tone was declarative and distinctly authoritative (in the way of second-wave feminism), tending often to the polemic and the sense was she was writing in opposition to a collective immorality, not the kind of moral indifference Ms Didion detected.  Both were students of their nation’s cultural pathology but one seemed more a palliative care specialist tending a patient in their dying days while the other offered a diagnosis and suggested a cure which, while not something to enjoy: "would be good for them".  While Ms Didion distrusted ideological certainty, Ms Sontag engaged explicitly with “isms”, not in the sense of one writing of the history of ideas but as a protagonist, using language in an attempt to shape political consciousness, the former a kind of secular moral theologian mourning a loss of coherence in American life while the latter was passionate and wrote often with a strident urgency, never losing the sense that whatever her criticisms, things could be fixed and there was hope.  The irony of being an author to some degree afflicted by the very accide she described in others was not lost on Ms Didion.

Susan Sontag, circa 1971, photographed by Jim Cartier.  The pop-art portrait of comrade Chairman Mao Zedong (1893–1976; chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) 1949-1976) was a print of Roy Lichtenstein's (1923–1997) Mao (1971) which had been used as the cover for US author Frederic Tuten's (b 1936) novel The Adventures of Mao on the Long March (1971).  Ms Sontag had written a most favourable review of the book and the framed print was reputedly a gift.

Joan Didion with Corvette, another image from Julian Wasser’s 1970 photo-shoot.  The staging in this one is for feminists to ponder.

While a stretch to say that in trading-in the Corvette for a Volvo station wagon, Ms Didion was tracking the nation which had moved from Kennedy to Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974), it’s too tempting not to make.  Of the Corvette, she used the phrase: “I gave up on it”, later recounting: “the dealer was baffled” but denied the change was related to moving after eight years from Malibu to leafy, up-market suburban Brentwood.  While she “…needed a new car because with the Corvette something was always wrong…” she “…didn’t need a Volvo station wagon” although did concede: “Maybe it was the idea of moving into Brentwood.”  She should have persevered because as many an owner of a C3 Corvette understands, the faults and flaws are just part of the brutish charm.  Whether the car still exists isn't known; while Corvette's have a higher than average survival rate, their use on drag strips & race tracks as well as their attractiveness to males aged 17-25 has meant not a few suffered misadventure.

Joan Didion with Corvette, rendered as oil on canvas with yellow filter.

The configuration of her car seems not anywhere documented but a reasonable guess is it likely was ordered with the (base) 300 horsepower (hp) version (ZQ3) of the 350 cubic inch (5.7 litre) small-block V8, coupled with the Turbo-Hydramatic 400 (TH400) (M40) three-speed automatic transmission (the lighter TH350 wouldn't be used until 1976 by which time power outputs had fallen so much the robustness of the TH400 was no longer required).  When scanning the option list, although things like the side-mounted exhaust system (N14) or the 430 hp versions (the iron-block L88 & all aluminium ZL1, the power ratings of what were barely-disguised race car engines deliberately understated, the true output between 540-560 hp) of the 427 cubic inch (7.0 litre) big-block V8 would not have tempted Ms Didion, she may have ticked the box for the leather trim (available in six colors and the photos do suggest black (402 (but if vinyl the code was ZQ4)), air conditioning (C60), power steering (N40), power brakes (J50), power windows (A31) or an AM-FM radio (U69 and available also (at extra cost) with stereo (U79)).  Given she later traded-in the Corvette on a Volvo station wagon, presumably the speed warning indicator (U15) would have been thought superfluous but, living in Malibu, the alarm system (UA6) might have caught her eye.

An emo with 1977 Volvo 245 station wagon; if she had a Corvette to pose with she’d be smiling because Corvettes can make even emos happy.  This is Emma Myers (b 2002) as Pippa "Pip" Fitz-Amobi in A Good Girl's Guide to Murder (Netflix, 2024).

Quintessential symbols of France, Bridget Bardot (b 1934), Citroën La Déesse and a lit Gitanes.

The combination of a car, a woman with JBF and a cigarette continued to draw photographers even after smoking ceased to be glamorous and became a social crime.  First sold in 1910, Gitanes production in France survived two world wars, the Great Depression, Nazi occupation but the regime of Jacques Chirac (1932–2019; President of France 1995-2007) proved too much and, following the assault on tobacco by Brussels and Paris, in 2005 the factory in Lille was shuttered.  Although Gitanes (and the sister cigarette Gauloise) remain available in France, they are now shipped from Spain and while in most of the Western world fewer now smoke, Gitanes Blondes retain a cult following.

Emily Labowe with Mercedes-Benz 300 TD (S123), photographed by Kristin Gallegos.

An image like this illustrates why, even if no longer thought glamourous, smoking can still look sexy.  The 300 TD is finished in Manila Beige and for the W123 range Mercedes-Benz also offered the subdued Maple Yellow and the exuberant Sun Yellow which was as vivid as the Corvette's Daytona Yellow. 

No images seem to exist of Ms Didion with her Volvo station wagon but Laurel Canyon's Kristin Gallegos (b 1984) later followed Julian Wasser’s staging by photographing artist Emily Labowe (b 1993) with a Mercedes-Benz 300 TD station wagon and that once essential accessory: a cigarette.  One of the last of the “chrome Mercedes”, the W123 range was in production between 1975-1986 and the station wagon appeared in 1977 with the internal code S123 (only nerds use that and to the rest of the world they’re “W123 wagons”).  The designation was “T” (the very Germanic Tourismus und Transport (Touring and Transport)) or TD for the diesel-powered cars and the S123 was the company’s first station wagon to enter series production, previous such “long roof” models coming from coach-builders including many hearses & ambulances as well as station wagons.  The English still call station wagons "estates" (a clipping of "estate car") although a publication like Country Life probably still hankers after "shooting brake" and the most Prussian of the German style guides list the compound noun Kombinationskraftwagen which for decades has usually been clipped to the semi-formal Kombiwagen, (plural Kombiwagen or Kombiwägen) or, in general use: Kombi.

1978 Mercedes Benz 280 TE (S123).

That Mercedes-Benz in the mid-1970s decided their first station wagon in regular production should be a “T” (and understood as a Tourenwagen (touring car) rather than a “K” (ie Kombiwagen, the designation used by other manufacturers) reflected the prevailing German view of such cars.  Unlike the US where station wagons had long been emblematic of middle-class respectability (often as a family’s second car for the wife & mother) or England where the style enjoyed an association with the upper class HFS (huntin’, fishin’ & shootin’) set, to Germans the utilitarian long-roofs had a down-market image, bought only by those unable to afford separate vehicles for business & pleasure.  Coach-builders had of course used Mercedes-Benz saloons as the basis for station wagons, ambulances and hearses but these were always expensive and thus not tainted by association with thriftiness by necessity.  In their alphanumeric soup of model designations, Mercedes-Benz had previously used “K” to mean either Kompressor (supercharged) (eg 770 K) or Kurz  (short) (eg SSK) and other letters had also done double-duty, “L” standing for either Lang (long) (eg 500 SEL) or Licht (light) (eg SSKL) and “S” could mean both Super (300 SL) or Sports (300 SLR) so for the S123 “K” wasn’t avoided because of fears of confusing folk; it was just an image thing: "Don't mention the kombi".  That all changed in the 1980s when the Germans decided wagons were sexy after all, the high performance arms of Audi, BMW & Mercedes-Benz all producing some remarkably fast ones.   

Mercedes-Benz G4s: Gepäckwagen (baggage car, top left) & Funkauto (radio car, top right) and 300 Messwagen (bottom left) at speed on the test track, tethered to a W111 sedan (1959-1968, bottom right).

The factory did though over the decades build a handful including a brace of the three-axle G4s (W31, 1934-1939), one configured as a Gepäckwagen (baggage car), the other a Funkauto (radio car).  In 1960 there was also the Messwagen (measuring car), a kind of “rolling laboratory” from the era before technology allowed most testing to be emulated in software.  The capacious Messwagen was based on the W189 300 “Adenauer” (W186 & W189 1951-1962) and was then state of the art but by the 2020s, the capabilities of all the bulky equipment which filled the rear compartment could have been included in a single phone app.  Students of design will admire the mid-century modernism in the curve of the rear-side windows but might be surprised to learn the muscle car-like scoop on the roof is not an air-intake but an aperture housing ports for connecting the Messwagen’s electronic gear with the vehicle being monitored, the two closely driven in unison (often at high speed) on the test track while being linked with a few metres of cabling and although we now live in a wireless age, real nerds know often a cable is preferable, the old ways sometimes best.  The Messwagen remained in service until 1972 and is now on display at the factory’s museum in Stuttgart.   

1956 Mercedes-Benz 300c (W186 "Adenauer") Estate Car by Binz.

The factory's Messwagen wasn't the first use of the big W186/W189 for long-roof variants, hearses and ambulances having appeared in several European countries and there was at least one station wagon, proving consumption can be conspicuous yet still subtle, achieved usually if a bespoke creation is both expensive and functional.  The 300 saloons and four-door cabriolets were large, stately and beautifully built, the 1956 example pictured was delivered to a customer in the US who for whatever reason prized exclusivity over capacity or speed, all the major US manufacturers at the time offering station wagons able to accommodate more people and more more luggage while going much faster.  The 300 certainly would have delivered better fuel economy but that wouldn't have crossed the mind of the purchaser who would have been deterred from something like a Chrysler New Yorker or Ford Country Squire because they were, by comparison with her one-off, cheap and common whereas a custom built 300 “dripped money”; even to the uninformed they would obviously have been expensive and it was thus a classic "Veblen good" a quirk in the supply & demand curve of orthodox economics in that for a certain (ie the "1%") demographic demand for an item can increase as its price rises.  The car still exists, traded between collectors to be exhibited at concours d'elegance.

1957 Mercury Turnpike Cruiser (left), details of the apparatuses above the windscreen (centre) and the Breezeaway rear window lowered (right)

The 1957 Mercury Turnpike Cruiser was notable for (1) the truly memorable model name, (2) the “Breezeway" rear window which could be lowered and (3) having a truly bizarre assembly  of “features” above the windscreen.  There’s no suggestion that when fashioning the 300 Messwagen the engineers in Stuttgart were aware of the Turnpike Cruiser but had they looked, it could have provided an inspiration for the way access to ports in the roof could have been handled.  Unfortunately, the pair of “radio aerials” protruding from the pods at the top of the Mercury’s A-pillars were a mere affectation, a “jet-age” motif embellishing what were actually air-intakes.  They were though a harbinger of the way in which future “measuring vehicles” would be configured when various forms of wireless communication had advanced to the point at which a cable connection was no longer required.  

Lettrism

Lettrism (pronounced let-riz-uhm)

A French avant-garde art and literary movement established in 1946 and inspired, inter alia, by Dada and surrealism.  The coordinate term is situationism.

1946: From French lettrisme, a variant of lettre (letter).  Letter dates from the late twelfth century and was from the From Middle English letter & lettre, from the Old French letre, from the Latin littera (letter of the alphabet (in plural); epistle; literary work), from the Etruscan, from the Ancient Greek διφθέρᾱ (diphthérā) (tablet) (and related to diphtheria).  The form displaced the Old English bōcstæf (literally “book staff” in the sense of “the alphabet’s symbols) and ǣrendġewrit (literally “message writing” in the sense of “a written communication longer than a “note” (ie, something like the modern understanding of “a letter”)).  The –ism suffix was from the Ancient Greek ισμός (ismós) & -isma noun suffixes, often directly, sometimes through the Latin –ismus & isma (from where English picked up ize) and sometimes through the French –isme or the German –ismus, all ultimately from the Ancient Greek (where it tended more specifically to express a finished act or thing done).  It appeared in loanwords from Greek, where it was used to form abstract nouns of action, state, condition or doctrine from verbs and on this model, was used as a productive suffix in the formation of nouns denoting action or practice, state or condition, principles, doctrines, a usage or characteristic, devotion or adherence (criticism; barbarism; Darwinism; despotism; plagiarism; realism; witticism etc).  Letterism is listed by some sources as an alternative spelling but in literary theory it used in a different sense.  Lettrism and lettrist are nouns; the noun plural is letterists.

Letter from letterist Lindsay Lohan (2003).

A Lettrist was (1) one who practiced Lettrism or (2) a supporter or advocate of Lettrism.  Confusingly, in the English-speaking world, the spelling Letterist has been used in this context, presumably because it’s a homophone (if pronounced in the “correct (U)” way) and the word is “available” because although one who keeps as diary is a “diarist”, even the most prolific of inveterate letter writers are not called “letterists”.  The preferred term for a letter-writer is correspondent, especially for those who writes letters regularly or in an official capacity.  The Letterist International (LI) was a Paris-based collective of radical artists and cultural theorists which existed 1952-1957 before forming the Situationist International (SI), a trans-European, unstructured collective of artists and political thinkers which eventually became more a concept than a movement.  Influenced by the criticism that philosophy had tended increasingly to fail at the moment of its actualization, the SI, although it assumed the inevitability of social revolution, always maintained many (cross-cutting) strands of expectations of the form(s) this might take.  Indeed, just as a world-revolution did not follow the Russian revolutions of 1917, the events of May, 1968 failed to realize the predicted implications; the SI can be said then to have died.  The SI’s discursive output between 1968 and 1972 may be treated either as a lifeless aftermath to an anti-climax or a bunch of bitter intellectuals serving as mourners at their own protracted funeral.  In literary theory, while “Lettrism” has a defined historical meaning, the use of “letterism” is vague and not a recognized term although it has informally been used (often with some degree of irony) of practices emphasizing the use of letters or alphabetic symbols in art or literature and given the prevalence of text of a symbolic analogue in art since the early twentieth century, it seem surprising “letterism” isn’t more used in criticism.  That is of course an Anglo-centric view of things because the French Lettrists themselves are said to prefer the spelling “Letterism”.

Jacques Derrida deconstructing some tobacco.

The French literary movement Lettrism was founded in Paris in 1946 and the two most influential figures in the early years were the Romanian-born French poet, film maker and political theorist Isidore Isou (1925–2007) and his long-term henchman, the French poet, & writer Maurice Lemaître (1926-2018).  Western Europe was awash with avant-garde movements in the early post-war years but what distinguished Lettrism was its focus on breaking down (deconstruction was not yet a term used in this sense) traditional language and meaning by emphasizing the materiality of letters and sounds rather than conventionally-assembled words.  Scholars of linguistics and the typographic community had of course long made a study of letters, their form, variation and origin, but in Lettrism it was less about the letters as objects than the act of dismantling the structures of language letters created, the goal being the identification (debatably the creation) of new forms of meaning through pure sound, visual abstraction and the aesthetic form of letters.  Although influenced most by Dada and surrealism, the effect the techniques of political propaganda used during the 1930s & 1940s was noted by the Lettrists and their core tenent was an understanding of the letter itself as the fundamental building block of art and literature.  Often they would break down language into letters or phonetic sounds, assessing and deploying them for their aesthetic or auditory qualities rather than their conventional meaning(s).  In that sense the Lettrists can be seen as something as precursor of post-modernism’s later “everything is text” orthodoxy although that too has an interesting origin.  The French philosopher Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) made famous the phrase “Il n'y a pas de hors-texte” which often is translated as something like “there is no meaning beyond the text” but “hors-texte” (outside the text) was printers’ jargon for those parts of a book without regular page numbers (blank pages, copyright page, table of contents etc) and Derrida’s point actually was the hors-texte must be regardes as a part of the text.  There was much intellectual opportunism in post modernism and for their own purposes it suited may to assert what Derrida said was “There is nothing outside the text” and what he meant was “everything is part of a (fictional) text and nothing is real” whereas his point was it’s not possible to create a rule rigidly which delineates what is “the text” and what is “an appendage to the text”.  Troublingly for some post modernists, Derrida did proceed on a case-by-case basis although he seems not to have explained how the meaning of the text in an edition of a book with an appended "This page is intentionally left blank" page might differ from one with no such page although it may be some earnest student of post-modernism has written an essay convincingly exactly that.

The Lettrism project was very much a rejection of traditional language structures and the meanings they denoted; it was a didactic endeavor, the Lettrists claiming not only had they transcended conventional grammar & syntax but they could obviate even a need for meaning in words, their work a deliberate challenge to their audiences to rethink how language functions.  As might be imagined, their output was “experimental” and in addition to some takes on the ancient form of “pattern poetry” included what they styled “concrete poetry” & “phonetic poetry”, visual art and performance pieces which relied on abstraction, the most enduring of which was the “hypergraphic”, an object sometimes describe as “picture writing” which combined letters, symbols, and images, blending visual and textual elements into a single art form, often as collages or as graphic-like presentations on canvas or paper.  This wasn’t a wholly new concept but the lettrists vested it with new layers of meaning which, at least briefly, intrigued many although it was dismissed also as “visual gimmickry” or that worst of insults in the avant-garde: “derivative”.  Despite being one of the many footnotes in the history of modern art, Lettrism never went away and in a range of artistic fields, even today there are those who style themselves “lettrists” and the visual clues of the movement’s influence are all around us.

Chrysler’s letterism: The Chrysler 300 “letter series” 1955-1965.

The “letter series” Chrysler 300s were produced in limited numbers in the US between 1955-1965; technically, they were the high-performance version of the luxury Chrysler New Yorker and the first in 1955 was labeled C-300, an allusion to the 300 horsepower (HP) (220 kW) 331 cubic inch (5.4 litre) Hemi V8, then the most powerful engine offered in a production car.  The C-300 was well received and when an updated version was released in 1956, it was dubbed 300B, the annual releases appending the next letter in the alphabet as a suffix although in 1963 “I” was skipped when the 300H was replaced by the 300J, the rationale being it might be confused with a “1” (ie the numeral “one”), the same reasoning explaining why there are so few “I cup” bras, some manufacturers filling the gap in the market between “H cup” & “J cup” with a “HH cup” but there’s no evidence the corporation’s concerns ever prompted them to ponder a “300HH”.  Retrospectively thus, the 1955 C-300 is often described as the 300A although this was never an official factory designation.  While in the narrow technical sense not a part of the “muscle car” lineage (defined by the notion of putting a “big” car’s “big” engine into a smaller, lighter model), the letter series cars were an important part of the “power race” of the 1950s and an evolutionary step in what would emerge in 1964 as the muscle car branch and the most plausible LCA (last common ancestor) of both was the Buick Century (1936-1942).  The letter series was retired after 1965 because the market preference for high-performance car had shifted to the smaller, lighter, pony cars & intermediates (neither of which existed in the early years of the 300) though the “non letter series” 300s (introduced in 1962) continued until 1971 with a toned-down emphasis on speed and a shift to style.

1955 Chrysler C-300 (300A).

The 1955 C-300 typified Detroit’s “mix & match” approach to the parts bin in that it conjured something “new” at relatively low cost, combining the corporation’s most powerful Hemi V8 with the New Yorker Series (C-68) platform, the visual differentiation achieved by using the front bodywork (the “front clip” in industry jargon) from the top-of-the-range Imperial.  The justification for the existence of the thing was to fulfill the homologation requirements of NASCAR (National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing) that a certain number of various components be sold to the public before a car could be defined as a “production” car (ie a “stock” car, a term which shamelessly would be prostituted in the years to come) and used in sanctioned competition.  Accordingly, the C-300 was configured with the 331 cubic inch Hemi V8 fitted, with dual four barrel carburetors, solid valve lifters and a high-lift camshaft profiled for greater top-end power.  Better to handle the increased power, stiffer front and rear suspension was used and it was very much in the tradition of the big, powerful grand-touring cars of the 1930s such as the Duesenberg SJ, something that with little modification could be competitive on the track.  Very successful in NASCAR racing, the C-300 also set a number of speed records in timed trials but it was very much a niche product; despite the price not being excessive for what one got, only 1,725 were made but for an expensive car which even Chrysler's engineers admitted "had a ride like a truck" due to the stiff suspension, it was encouragement enough to schedule a 300B for the 1956 season.

1956 Chrysler 300B (left) and Highway Hi-Fi phonograph player (right).

The 300B used a updated version of the C-300s body so visually the two were similar although, ominously, the tailfins did reach a little higher.  The big news however lay under the hood (bonnet) with the Hemi V8 enlarged to 354 cubic inches (5.8 litres) and available either with 340 (HP) (254 kW) or in a high- compression version generating 355 (365), the first time a US-built automobile was advertised as producing greater than one HP per cubic inch of displacement.  It was a sign of the times; other manufacturers took note.  The added power meant a top speed of around 140 mph (225 km/h) could be attained, something now to ponder given the retardative qualities of the braking system but also of note was the season's much talked-about option: the "Highway Hi-Fi" phonograph player which allowed vinyl LP records to be played when the car was on the move; the sound quality was remarkably good but on less than smooth surfaces, experiences were mixed.  Success on the track continued, the 300B wining the Daytona Flying Mile with a new record of 139.373 MPH, and it again dominated NASCAR, repeating the C-300’s Grand National Championship.  Despite that illustrious record, only 1,102 were sold.

1955 Chrysler C-300 (top left), 1970 Mercedes-Benz 280 SE 3.5 Coupé (top right), Rover 3.5 Coupé (bottom left) and Rover 3.5 Saloon (bottom right).

On sale only in 1955-1956, the restrained lines of Chrysler’s elegant “Forward Look” range didn’t last long in the US as extravagance overtook Detroit but the influence endured longer in Europe, both the Mercedes-Benz W111 (1961-1971) & W112 Coupé (1962-1967) and the Rover P5 (1958-1967) & P5B (1967-1973) interpreting the shape.  The Rover was a tale of two rooflines: the “Establishment” Saloon and the rakish Coupé.

1957 Chrysler 300C.

The 1955-1956 Chryslers had a balance and elegance of line which could have remained a template for the industry but there were other possibilities and these Detroit choose to pursue, creating a memorable era of extravagance but one which proved a stylistic cul-de-sac.  The 1957 300C undeniably was dramatic and featured many of the motifs so associated with the US automobile of the late 1950s including the now (mostly) lawful quad-headlights, the panoramic “Vista-Dome” windshield, lashings of chrome and, of course, those tailfins.  The Hemi V8 was again enlarged, now in a “tall deck” version out to 392 cubic inches (6.4 litres) rated at 375 HP (280 kW) and for the first time a convertible version was available.  By now the power race was being run in earnest with General Motors (GM) offering fuel-injected engines and Mercury solving the problem in the traditional American (there’s no replacement for displacement) way by releasing a 430 cubic inch (7.0 litre) V8 although it was so big and heavy it made the bulky Hemi seem something of a lightweight; the 430 did however briefly find a niche in in power-boat racing.  For 300C owners who wanted more there was also a high-compression version with more radical valve timing rated at 390 HP (290 kW) and this was for the first time able to be ordered with a three-speed manual transmission.  Few apparently felt the need for more and of the 2,402 300Cs sold (1,918 coupes & 484 convertibles), only 18 were ordered in high-compression form.

1958 Chrysler 300D.

Again using the Hemi 392, now tuned for a standard 380 HP (280 kW), there was for the first time the novelty of the optional Bendix “Electrojector” fuel injection, which raised output to a nominal 390 HP (290 kW) although its real benefit was the consistency of fuel delivery, overcoming the starvation encountered sometimes under extreme lateral load.  Unfortunately, the analogue electronics of the era proved unequal to the task and the unreliability was both chronic and insoluble, thus almost all the 21 fuel-injected cars were retro-fitted with the stock dual-quad induction system and it’s believed only one 300D retains its original Bendix plumbing.  Also rare was the take-up rate for the manual transmission option and interestingly, both the two known 300Ds so equipped were ordered originally with carburetors rather than fuel injection.  The engineers also secured one victory over the stylists.  After testing on the proving grounds determined the distinctive, forward jutting “eyebrow” header atop the windscreen reduced top speed by 5 mph (8 km/h), they managed to convince management to authorize an expensive change to the tooling, standardizing the convertible’s compound-curved type “bubble windshield”, a then rare triumph of function over fashion.  Although the emphasis of the letter series cars was shifting from the track to the roads, the things genuinely still were fast and one (slightly modified) 300D was set a new class record of 156.387 mph (251.681 km/h) on the Bonneville Salt Flats.  Production declined to 810 units (619 coupes & 191 convertibles).

1959 Chrysler 300E.

With the coming of the 1959 range, the Hemi was retired and replaced by a new 413 cubic inch (6.8 litre) V8 with wedge-shaped combustion chambers.  Lighter by some 100 lb (45 kg) and cheaper to produce than the Hemi with its demanding machining requirements and intricate valve train, the additional displacement allowed power output to be maintained at 380 HP (280 kW) while torque (something more significant for what most drivers on the street do most of the time actually increased).  The manual transmission option was also deleted with no market resistance and despite the lower production costs, the price tag rose, something probably more of a factor in the declining sales than the loss of the much vaunted Hemi and, like the 300D (and most of the rest of the industry) the year before, the economy was suffering in the relatively brief but sharp recession and Chrysler probably did well to shift 390 units (550 coupes & 140 convertibles).

1960 Chrysler 300F (left) and 300F engine with Sonoramic intake in red (right).

Although the rococo styling cues remained, underneath now lay radical modernity, the corporation’s entire range (except for exclusive Imperial line) switching from ladder frame to unitary construction.  The stylists however indulged themselves with more external flourishes, allowing the tailfins an outward canter, culminating sharply in a point and housing boomerang-shaped taillights.  Even the critics of such things found it a pleasing look although they were less impressed by the faux spare tire cover (complete with an emulated wheel cover!) on the trunk (boot), dubbing it the “washing machine lid” or “toilet seat”.  The interior though was memorable with four individual bucket in leather with a center console between extending the cockpit’s entire length and there was also Chrysler’s intriguing electroluminescent instrument display which, rather than being lit with bulbs, exploited a phenomenon in which a material emits light in response to an electric field; the ethereal glow was much admired.  Buyers in 1959 may have felt regret in not seeing a Hemi in the engine bay, but after lifting the hood of a 300F they wouldn’t have been disappointed because, in designer colors (gold, silver, blue & red) sat the charismatic “Sonoramic” intake manifold, a “cross-ram” system which placed the carburetors at the sides of engine, connected by long tubular runners.  What the physics of this did was provide a short duration “supercharging” effect, tuned for the mid-range torque most used when overtaking at freeway speeds.  Also built were a handful of “short ram” Sonoramics which had the tubes (actually with the same length) re-tuned to deliver top-end power rather than mid-range torque.  Rated at a nominal 400 (300 kW) HP, these could be fitted also with the French-built Pont-a-Mousson 4-speed manual transmission used in the Chrysler V8-powered Facel Vega and existed only for the purpose of setting records, six 300Fs so equipped showing up at the 1960 Dayton Speed Week where they took the top six places in the event’s signature Flying Mile, crossing the traps at between 141.5-144.9 mph (227.7-233.3 km/h).  The market responded and sales rose to 1217 (969 & 248 convertibles) and the 300F (especially those with the “short ram” Sonoramics) is the most collectable of the letter series.

1961 Chrysler 300G.

The 300G gained canted headlights, another of those styling fads of the 1950s & 1960s which quickly became passé but now seem a charming period piece.  There was the usual myriad of detail changes the industry in those days dreamed up each season, usually for no better reason that to be “different” from last year’s model and thus be able to offer something “new”.  As well as the slanted headlights, the fins became sharper still and taillights were moved.  Mechanically, the specification substantially was unaltered, the Sonoramic plumbing carried over although the expensive, imported Pont-a-Mousson transmission was removed from the option list, replaced by Chrysler’s own heavy-duty 3-speed manual unit, the demand for which was predictably low.  The lack of a fourth cog didn’t impede the 300G’s performance in that year’s Daytona Flying Mile where one would again take the title with a mark of 143 mph (230.1 km/h) and to prove the point a stock standard model won the one mile acceleration title.  People must have liked the headlights because production reached 1617 units (1,280 coupes & 337 convertibles).

1962 Chrysler 300H.

Perhaps a season or two too late, Chrysler “de-finned” its whole range, prompting their designer (Virgil Exner (1909–1973)) to lament his creations now resembled “plucked chickens”.  For 1962 the 300 name also lost some of its exclusivity with the addition to the range of the 300 Sport series (offered also with four-door bodywork) and to muddy the waters further, much of what was fitted to the 300H could be ordered as an option on the basic 300 so externally, but for the distinctive badge, there was visually little to separate the two.  Mechanically, the “de-contenting” which the accountants had begun to impose as the industry chase higher profits (short-term strategies to increase “shareholder value” are nothing new) was felt as the Sonoramic induction system moved to the 300H’s option list with the inline dual 4-barrel carburetor setup last seen on the 300E now standard.  With the in-line carburetors, the 413 was rated at 380 HP; this rose to 405 when the Sonoramic option was chosen.  Because of weight savings gained by the adoption of a shorter wheelbase platform, the specific performance numbers of 300H actually slightly shaded its predecessor but the cannibalizing of the 300 name and the public perception the thing’s place in the hierarchy was no longer so exalted saw sales decline to 570 (435 coupes & 135 convertibles), the worst year to date.  The magic of the 300 name however seemed to work because Chrysler in the four available body styles (2 door convertible, 2 & 4 door hardtop & 4 door sedan) sold 25,578 of the 300 Sport series, exceeding expectations.  Since 1962, the verbal shorthand to distinguished between the ranges has been “letter series” and “non letter series” cars.

1963 Chrysler 300J.

Presumably in an attempt to atone for past sins, a spirit of rectilinearism washed through Chrysler’s design office while the 1963 range was being prepared and it would persist until the decade’s end when new sins would be committed.  Unrelated to that was the decision to skip a 300I because of concerns it might be read as the wholly numeric 3001.  The de-contenting (now an industry trend) continued with the swivel feature for the front bucket seats deleted while full-length centre console was truncated at the front compartment with the rear seat now a less eye-catching bench.  The 413 V8 was offered in a single configuration but the Sonoramics were again standard and the three-speed manual transmission remained optional, seven buyers actually ticking the box. The 300J was still a fast car, capable of a verified 142 mph (229 km/h) although the weight and gearing conspired against acceleration but a standing quarter mile (400 m) ET (elapsed time) of 15.8 was among the quickest of the cars in its class.  Still, it did seem the end of the series might be nigh with the convertible no longer offered and the sales performance reflected the feeling, only 400 coupes leaving the showrooms.

The BUFF: The new version of the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress (replacing the B-52H) will be the B-52J, not B-52I or B-52HH.   

Like Chrysler and most bra manufacturers, the US Air Force also opted to skip “I” when allocating a designation for the updated version of the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress (1952-1962 and still in service).  Between the first test flight of the B-52A in 1954 and the B-52H entering service in 1962, the designations B-52B, B-52C, B-52D, B-52E, B-52F & B-52G sequentially had been used but after flirting with whether to use B-52J as an interim designation (reflecting the installation of enhanced electronic warfare systems) before finalizing the series as the B-52K after new engines were fitted, in 2024 the USAF announced the new line would be the B-52J and only a temporary internal code would distinguish those not yet re-powered.  Again, the “I” was not used so nobody would think there was a B-521.  Although the avionics, digital displays and ability to carry Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM, a scramjet-powered weapon capable exceeding Mach 5) are the most significant changes for the B-52J, visually, it will be the replacement of the old Pratt & Whitney TF33 engines with new Rolls-Royce F130 units which will be most obvious, the F130 promising improvements in fuel efficiency of some 30% as well as reduction in noise and exhaust emissions.  Already in service for 70 years, apparently no retirement date for the B-52 has yet been pencilled-in.  In USAF (US Air Force) slang, the B-52 is the BUFF (the acronym for big ugly fat fellow or big ugly fat fucker depending on who is asking).  From BUFF was derived the companion acronym for the LTV A-7 Corsair II (1965-1984, the last in active service retired in 2014) which was SLUFF (Short Little Ugly Fat Fellow or Short Little Ugly Fat Fucker).

1964 Chrysler 300K.

Selling in 1963 only 400 examples of what was intended as one of the corporations “halo” cars triggered management to engage in what Americans had come to call an “agonizing reappraisal”.  The conclusion drawn was the easiest way to stimulate demand was to lower the basic entry price to ownership of the name and if buyers really wanted the fancy stuff once fitted as standard, they could order it from an option list; it was essentially the same approach as used for most of Chrysler’s other ranges.  That was made possible by the use of main-frame computers in a system which translated (1) the boxes (ticked in ink) on a dealer's order form, (2) via the fingers of a data-entry clerk (the trade an early victim of what would evolve into AI (artificial intelligence)) onto, (3) a punch card which would send, (4) the structured data to a dot-matrix printer which would generate, (5) a "build-sheet".  It was each car's build-sheet which listed all its options and from this it was configured as it moved along the production-line.  Accordingly, in this brave new world, leather trim and many power accessories joined air-conditioning in being consigned to the option list.  The system worked but that success ultimately was the cause of its demise.  As well as generating individual build sheets, once aggregated, all this information formed a big "data set" which meant there could be "data analysts" employed.  What these walking pocket calculators worked out was it was possible to predict much of what would be ticked on the dealers' order forms and it was thus more profitable to produce runs with certain "bundles" of options and sell it as a model line, the classic example of the 1970s & 1980s the many "executive" packages which included power-steering, automatic transmission and air-conditioning.    

The 300K's base engine was now fitted with a single four barrel carburetor although for an additional US$375, the dual-quad Sonoramic could be ordered and combined with Chrysler’s new, robust four-speed manual transmission.  Surprising some observers, the convertible coachwork made a return to the catalogue.  All that meant the 300K could be advertised for US$1000 less than the 300J and the market responded in a text book example of price elasticity of demand, production spiking to 3647 (3,022 coupes & 625 convertibles), 84 of which were fitted with the four speed manual gearbox (50 hard tops & 34 convertibles, the latter number higher than many might have expected).  Although the basic engineering remained sound, stylistically, the whole range suffered because the lines lacked the flair of what GM was offering .  

1965 Chrysler 300L (four speed manual).

Despite the stellar sales of the 300K, even before the release of the 300L, the decision had been taken it would be the last of the letter series.  The tastes of those who wanted high performance had shifted to the smaller, lighter pony cars and intermediates, neither segment envisaged when the C-300 had made its debut a decade earlier.  Additionally, the letter series had outlived its usefulness as a corporate image-maker now they were no longer the fastest in the fleet and production-line rationalization meant it was easier and more profitable to maintain a single 300 line and allow buyers to choose their own mix of options; in other words, after 1965, it would still be possible to create a 300 in the spirit of the letter cars in most aspects except the badge and the now departed Sonoramics of fond memory.  When the last 300L was produced it was configured with a single four barrel carburetor and few would have noticed the differences between it and most other 300s.  The lower price though continued to attract buyers and in its final year 2845 were sold (2,405 coupes & 440 convertibles) and a perhaps surprising 96 (or possibly 98) buyers opted for the four-speed manual but on the full-sized lines the configuration approaching extinction after a brief life; the 1970 Ford XL would be the last of such machines listed with the option.

1970 Chrysler 300-H (300 Hurst).

There was an unexpected coda to the 300 letter series.  Although “surprise” is sometimes a tactic in marketing, what was strange about the release of the Chrysler 300-Hurst (introduced in February 1970 at the Chicago Auto Show) was it being a surprise to the dealers parking it in their showrooms.  Improbable as it sounds for a product released in the citadel of modern capitalism, the accepted orthodoxy is the management at Chrysler and Hurst both believed the other corporation would be handing the promotion so consequently, none was ever done.  Given the market dynamics of the time, it’s debatable whether advertising would much have stimulated demand for such a machine and as things worked out, only some 500 were built, the model never replaced.  In the era, there was little consistency in how the thing was discussed with publications variously using “300H”, “300 Hurst” and “Hurst 300” but the preferred use now seems to be “300-H” to distinguish it from the original 300H of 1962.  Based on the Chrysler 300 built on the corporate C-Body (with the so called “fuselage” coachwork introduced for the 1969 season) conceptually, the 300-H was very much in the letter-series tradition and featured the combination of a more powerful version of the 440 cubic inch (7.2 litre) V8 (rated at 375 (gross) HP in a dual-exhaust configuration), the TorqueFlite (727) automatic transmission and the opulent leather interior from the Imperial line.  Although often listed as a footnote, purists decline to include the 300-H in the letter-series lineage.

1970 Chrysler 300-H (300 Hurst).  The leather trim and power-adjustable seats came from the Imperial line.

All were finished in Spinnaker White with Satin Tan color accents & Medium Brown pin-striping, the H70–15 Goodyear Polyglas tyres mounted on 15 x 6-inch wheels in Saturn Iridescent paint.  Although the high (numerically low; the final-drive ratio a conservative 3.23) gearing was indicative of a machine was built for high-speed cruising on the freeways rather than ¼ mile runs along a drag-strip, there were a few visual clues borrowed from muscle car genre, each 300-H equipped with a fibreglass hood which included the then-fashionable “power bulge” in the centre and a rear-mounted fresh air intake although unlike the muscle cars, this fed cold air not to the engine but the passenger compartment.  The trunk lid (“rear-deck” in US terminology) was also a fibreglass piece which included an integrated spoiler (then referred to usually as an “airfoil”).  The fibreglass mouldings were fabricated by two different companies and although the hoods were well-engineered, the rear decks lacked the internal stiffening required by a panel of such size and over time proved prone to deformation, the warping most severe if sitting for any length of time in heat.

1970 Chrysler 300-H (300 Hurst).

By 1970, the 300-H must have seemed anachronistic because the market for high-performance variants of full-sized cars had evaporated as buyer preferences switched to the smaller intermediates and pony cars, by then available with the biggest, most powerful power-plants in Detroit’s inventory.  GM had withdrawn from the segment and although Ford listed the option of a four-speed manual gearbox for big XLs with 429 cubic inch (7.0 litre), none were ever built while the 1969 Mercury Marauder X-100 (essentially a cosmetic package) was automatic-only and lasted only a single season.  Chrysler’s Plymouth division still offered the triple-carburetor 440 (rated in 1970 at a healthy 390 HP) in the big Sport Fury but only with an automatic and sales were low.  It’s worth remembering the original Chrysler 300 “letter cars” of 1955-1956 were essentially the same size as the intermediates of the mid 1960s which became so popular and were the platform which defined the “muscle car” during its brief and crazy vogue; the size was “right” in a US context and what the full-sized lines had grown to was not.  As the fuselage Chryslers came to exemplify, the huge, full-sizers would prove ideal as “land yachts” a breed particular to the 1970s in which occupants, isolated from the outside as never before (and rarely since) “floated” down the freeways, consuming fossil fuels and expelling pollutants in volumes which now would astonish most and appall Greta Thunberg (b 2003).

Hurst built one 300-H convertible, used as a promotional vehicle for their famous shifters, often accompanied by Ms Linda Vaughn (b 1943) who stood on a platform mounted atop the rear desk, between giant models of shifters.  Ms Vaughn was for more than two decades a welcome adornment to drag-strips, noted usually for noise and brutishness.

In 1970, Chrysler 300s tagged for conversion to 300-H specification came down the assembly line in the Jefferson Avenue plant in Detroit before being freighted to Hurst’s facility in Warminster, Pennsylvania to undergo a process which differed from the original plan: instead of deeper oil pans, upgraded ignition systems and the Hurst shifters which had made the company’s name, the cars received mostly cosmetic enhancements although the suspension was stiffened.  About the only difference in configuration was some used a column-shift for the transmission and some a floor-shit with a console, the later combination used with bucket seats.  Despite the 7.2 litre V8, the gearing and bulk conspired against muscle-car like acceleration although the ET (elapsed time) of 15.5 seconds for the standing quarter mile (400 m) was impressive, all things considered.  However, with a MSRP (manufacturer's suggested retail price) of US$5,939 (without any options) it was the corporation’s most expensive offering (except for the Imperial line) and this, combined with the absence of promotion and the anyway declining interest in the segment meant there wasn’t a second batch beyond the original 500-odd (the total quoted variously between 485-501), many of which lingered on dealers’ lots.  According to internal documents, the initial projections had anticipated sales of 2000.

A Hurst Jaws of Life used between 1977-2012 by the fire department in Carlsbad, New Mexico, now on display at the National Museum of American History.

The 300-H was the biggest of a number of cars to bear the Hurst name although internationally George Hurst’s (1927-1986; founder of his eponymous company), greatest legacy to the world was the “Jaws of Life”, a hydraulic cutter he first developed in 1961 after being shocked at how long it sometimes took to extract the driver from the crumpled wreck of a race car.  The great advantage of the “Jaws of Life” was that it worked like a very powerful pair of scissors, avoiding the showers of sparks produced by mechanical saws, always a risk to use in areas where fuel is likely to have been spilled.  The basic design came to be used in hydraulic rescue devices worldwide and quite how many lives have been saved by virtue of it use isn’t known but it would be a big number.

Ms Linda Vaughn on the move.

It’s said one 300-H was dealer-fitted with the fabled 426 cubic inch (7.0) Street Hemi V8 but like many such tales from the era, the veracity of that is uncertain and most find the story improbable.  Chrysler certainly never considered using either the Hemi or the triple-carburetor (3 x 2 bbl) version of the 440 because, given the market segment at which the thing was aimed, air-conditioning (AC) was thought likely to be an often chosen option and the factory never offered the option with either the Hemi or the most powerful 440, the systems of the era not suited to the high-revving units.  It’s thus an orthodoxy in the collector that “no cars with the 426 Hemi or 440 6 bbl were fitted with AC by the factory” and while that’s true of Chrysler’s factories, it not the case for every factory because Jensen in the UK offered AC in their Interceptor SP (Six-Pack, 1971-1973) which used the six-barrel 440 and the boutique Swiss manufacturer Monteverdi did include AC in the single mid-engined Hai (1970) fitted with a Hemi.