Allegro

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Ford Allegro

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

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

The Austin Allegro

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Leyland's other misadventure in 1973: The P76     

The antipodean Edsel: 1973 Leyland P76 Super V8.

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

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

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

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

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

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

1974 Leyland Force 7V.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Paula Yates.

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

Helena Christensen.

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

The Alfa Romeo Alfasud

The fate of many Alfasuds.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bob

Bob (pronounced bobb)

(1) A short, jerky motion.

(2) Quickly to move up and down.

(3) In Sterling and related currencies, a slang term for one shilling (10c); survived decimalisation in phrases like "two bob watch", still used by older generations).

(4) A type of short to medium length hairstyle.

(5) A docked horse’s tail.

(6) A dangling or terminal object, as the weight on a pendulum or a plumb line.

(7) A short, simple line in a verse or song, especially a short refrain or coda.

(8) In angling, a float for a fishing line.

(9) Slang term for a bobsled.

(10) A bunch, or wad, especially a small bouquet of flowers (Scottish).

(11) A polishing wheel of leather, felt, or the like.

(12) An affectionate diminutive of the name Robert.

(13) To curtsy.

(14) Any of various hesperiid butterflies.

(15) In computer graphics (using "Bob" as a contraction of Blitter object), a graphical element (GEL) used by the Amiga computer (the first consumer-level computer which handled multi-tasking convincingly).  Technically, Bobs were hardware-generated objects which could be moved on the screen by the blitter coprocessor.  Bobs were an object of some veneration among the demosceners (the computer art subculture that produces and watches demos (audio-visual computer programs)), Bobs rated according to their the volume and dynamics of movement.

(16) In Scotland, a bunch, cluster, or wad, especially a small bouquet of flowers.

(17) A walking beam (obsolete).

1350–1400: From the Middle English bobben (to strike in cruel jest, beat; fool, make a fool of, cheat, deceive), the meaning "move up and down with a short, jerking motion," perhaps imitative of the sound, the sense of mocking or deceiving perhaps connected to the Old French bober (mock, deride), which, again, may have an echoic origin. The sense "snatch with the mouth something hanging or floating," as in bobbing for apples (or cherries), is recorded by 1799 and the phrase “bob and weave” in boxing commentary is attested from 1928.  Bob seems first to have been used to describe the short hair-style in the 1680s, a borrowing probably of the use since the 1570s to refer to "a horse's tail cut short", that derived from the earlier bobbe (cluster (as of leaves)) dating from the mid fourteenth century and perhaps of Celtic origin and perhaps connected in some way with the baban (tassel, cluster) and the Gaelic babag.  Bob endures still in Scots English as a dialectical term for a small bunch of flowers.  Bob is a noun & verb, bobber & boggy are nouns, bobbing is a noun & verb, bobbed is a verb & adjective, bobbish is an adjective and bobbingly & bobbishly are adverbs; the noun plural is bobs.  When used as a proper noun, there's an initial capital.

Australian politician Bob Katter (b 1945) with cane toad.

An introduced pest (ie the cane toad), Mr Katter's idea is children should be given guns (air rifles) to hunt them, each carcass attracting a bounty of 40 cents ("four bob" in the old slang).  This photograph is thus potentially "a five bob".  Affectionately, Mr Katter is known as “his Bobness” and, depending on who is asked, is either (1) an intellectual or (2) barking mad.  Between 1974-1992, Mr Katter served in the Queensland state parliament but since 1993 has been the member for Kennedy (at 567,377 km² (219,066 sq miles) about the size of metropolitan France) in the Commonwealth House of Representatives.  Until 2001 he was a member of the National Party (the old Country Party), after which he sat as an independent.  The suggestion which circulated implying he was asked by the Nationals to vacate his seat after an IQ test revealed he was "too intelligent for the National Party" was fake news and wholly malicious.   

Two two bob coins: Obverse (heads, left) and reverse (tails, right) of two 1945 Australian florins, minted in the same year as Mr Katter.

The coin at the top is one which spent some time in circulation while the more lustrous example below is a UNC (uncirculated coin) which would likely have spent its entire existence in collections.  Numismatists (coin collectors) will pay a premium for a UNC, a 1945 UNC Australian florin typically trading at four times the price of a circulated coin in good condition.  Now nominally equivalent to 20 cents (although a florin’s purchasing power was greater), it was worth two shillings (thus “two bob” in slang).  The group of "bob words" in English is beyond obscure and mostly mysterious.  Most are surely colloquial in origin and probably at least vaguely imitative, but have long become entangled and merged in form and sense (bobby pin, bobby sox, bobsled, bobcat etc).  As a noun, it has been used over the centuries in various senses connected by the notion of "round, hanging mass" and of weights at the end of a fishing line (1610s), pendulum (1752) or plumb-line (1832).  As a description of the hair style, although dating from the 1680s, it entered popular use only in the 1920s when use spiked.  As a slang word for “shilling” (the modern 10c coin), it’s recorded from 1789 but no connection has ever been found and the origin of this is unknown.  In certain countries, among older generations, the term in this sense endures in phrases like “two bob watch” to suggest something of low quality and dubious reliability.

UK Prime Minister Lord Salisbury (Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 1830–1903; UK Prime Minister for thirteen years variously 1885-1902.

The third marquess was, in the words of of Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955): "prime-minister since God knows when" and the affectionate diminutive of his grandson (Robert Arthur James Gascoyne-Cecil 1893-1972; Fifth Marquess of Salisbury 1947-1972) was "Bobbety".  The phrase "Bob's your uncle" is said often to have its origin in the nepotism allegedly extended by Lord Salisbury to his favorite nephew Arthur Balfour (1848–1930; UK Prime Minister 1902-1905), unexpectedly promoted to a number of big jobs during the 1880s.  The story has never convinced etymologists but it certainly impressed the Greeks who made up a big part of Australia's post-war immigration programme, "Spiro is your uncle" in those years often heard in Sydney and Melbourne to denote nepotism among their communities there.

The other potential source is the Scottish music hall, the first known instance in in a Dundee newspaper in 1924 reviewing a musical revue called Bob's Your Uncle.  The phrase however wasn't noted as part of the vernacular until 1937, six years after the release of the song written by JP Long, "Follow your uncle Bob" which alluded to the nepotistic in the lyrics:

Bob's your uncle
Follow your Uncle Bob
He knows what to do
He'll look after you

Partridge's Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (1937) notes the phrase but dates it to the 1890s though without attribution and it attained no currency in print until the post-war years.  Although it's impossible to be definitive, the musical connection does seem more convincing, the connection with Lord Salisbury probably retrospective.  It could however have even earlier origins, an old use noted in the Canting Dictionary (1725) in an entry reporting "Bob ... signifies Safety, ... as, It's all Bob, ie All is safe, the Bet is secured."

Of hair

A bob cut or bob is a short to shoulder-length haircut for women.  Historically, in the west, it’s regarded as a twentieth-century style although evidence of it exists in the art of antiquity and even some prehistoric cave-paintings hint it may go way back, hardly surprising given the functionality.  In 1922, The Times (of London), never much in favor of anything new, ran a piece by its fashion editor predicting the demise of the fad, suggesting it was already passé (fashion editors adore the word passé) although the photographic record for the rest of the decade does suggest it took the bright young things of the age a while to take the paper's hint.  Certainly, bobs were less popular by the difficult 1930s but in the 1960s, a variety of social and economic forces saw a resurgence which has never faded and the twenty-first century association with the Karen hasn't lessened demand (although the A-line variant, now known in the industry as the "speak to the manager" seems now avoided by all except those for whom there are few viable alternatives).  The connection with the Karen is the second time the bob has assumed some socio-political meaning; when flaunted by the proto-feminists of the 1920s, it was regarded as a sign of radicalism.  The popularity in the 1920s affected the millinery trades too as it was the small cloche which fitted tightly on the bobbed head which became the hat of choice.  Manufacturer of milliner's materials, hair-nets and hair-pins all suffered depressed demand, the fate too of the corset makers, victims of an earlier social change, a phenomenon which would in the post-war years devastate the industries supporting the production of hats for men.  In the 1970s, some optimists (some of whom may have been men), noting one well-publicized (though not widely practiced) aspect of second-wave feminism, predicted the demise of the bra but that garment endured and flourishes to this day.

Actor Lily Collins (b 1989) in a semi-sheer white Calvin Klein ensemble, the cropped spaghetti-strap top and knee-length pencil skirt both embellished with scale sequins, New York Fashion Week,  New York City, September 2025.  Note the pleasing definition of the sinews (arrowed, centre).  The hair-style is a chin-length bob.

Variations on a theme of bob, Marama Corlett (b 1984. left) and Lindsay Lohan (b 1986, right), Sick Note, June 2017.

Hairdressers have number of terms for the variations.  The motifs can in some cases be mixed and even within styles, lengths can vary, a classic short bob stopping somewhere between the tips of the ears and well above the shoulders, a long bob extending from there to just above the shoulders; although the term is often used, the concept of the medium bob really makes no sense and there are just fractional variations of short and long, everything happening at the margins.  So, a bob starts with the fringe and ends being cut in a straight line; length can vary but the industry considers shoulder-length a separate style and the point at which bobs stop and something else begins. Descriptions like curly and ringlet bobs refer more to the hair than the style but do hint at one caveat, not all styles suit all hair types, a caution which extends also to face shapes.

Greta Thunberg: BB (before-bob) and AB (after-bob).

The style received an unexpected imprimatur when Greta Thunberg (b 2003) opted for a bob (one straddling chin & shoulder-length).  Having gained fame as a weather forecaster, the switch to shorter hair appears to have coincided with her branching out from environmental activism to political direct action in the Middle East.  While there's no doubt she means well, it’s something that will end badly because while the matter of greenhouse gasses in the atmospheric can (over centuries) be fixed, some problems are insoluble and the road to the Middle East is paved six-feet deep with good intentions.  Ms Thunberg seems not to have discussed why she got a bob (and how she made her daily choice of "one braid or two" also remained mysterious) but her braids were very long and she may have thought them excessive and contributing to climate change.  While the effect individually would be slight, over the entire population there would be environmental benefits if all those with long hair got a bob because: (1) use of shampoo & conditioner would be lowered (reduced production of chemicals & plastics), (2) a reduction in water use (washing the hair and rinsing out all that product uses much), (3) reduced electricity use (hair dryers, styling wands & straighteners would be employed for a shorter duration) and (4) carbon emissions would drop because fewer containers of shampoo & conditioner would be shipped or otherwise transported.

Sydney Sweeney (b 1997) with new bob, Variety's Power of Women 2025 Event, Beverly Hills Hotel in Los Angeles, California, October 2025.

Actor Sydney Sweeney (b 1997) seemed not to have revealed whether it was Greta Thunberg who inspired her to get a bob but the symmetrical cut made quite a splash when she appeared on the red carpet at Variety's Power of Women 2025 Event.  The reaction universally was favourable but also noted by critics was her sparkling silver full-length gown from the spring 2026 collection of Christian Cowan (b 1995) & Elias Matso (b 2002); it’s fair to say dress overshadowed hair, fetching though the latter was.  The gown was called “Twisted Crystal Mesh Tee” and for deconstructionist fashionistas, the piece was a delight of detail in sheer fabric including bell sleeves, a scooped neckline, a form-fitting bodice with an intricately crafted twisted waist, lending a cinched effect which merged effortlessly to a lace-up fastener at the back, constructed with a corset-tie motif: coming or going, she looked good.  So lovely is Sydney Sweeney she would look good in just about anything but she certainly knows how to get the most from a garment, her underwear limited to “nude knickers” with diamond drop earrings and rings from EFFY.

Variety's clip of Sydney Sweeney (moving slightly) with new bob.

Her appearance in that dress of course provoked the digital traffic she would have expected and it’s hard to disagree with the feminist critics who suggested the juxtaposition of well-filled gown with the speech she delivered at the event was a device intended deliberately to illustrate the behavioral phenomenon she’d discussed in earlier interviews: That women can be defined as sexy or serious but not both simultaneously.  As evidence of that, the extent of the on-line coverage of how Ms Sweeney looked in the dress may be compared with the minimal attention afforded the speech she delivered from the podium, the former already joining the Alexandre Vauthier (b 1971) LRD (little red dress) worn by & Bella Hadid (b 1996) Cannes Film Festival in May 2016 as one of the dresses of the twenty-first century.  Of her words, most of the “cultural commentators” seemed intent on criticizing what they deemed the apparent discontinuity between her wishing to be taken seriously while looking so stunningly sexy, apparently missing the point that in bundling her body, the garment in which it was wrapped and the text she delivered as a single installation, she made her point well, dress and body just part of her text.

Sydney Sweeney with new bob.

Ever since the Canadian theorist Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) explained the concept in Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964), it’s been understood “the medium is the message”, his theory being it is the channel or technology through which information is transmitted which matters more than the content in the shaping human experience and society.  While that obviously wasn’t an absolute rule, the notion was helpful, decades before TikTok, in providing a model of the way a structure can have social effects independent of its content.  To define “medium”, McLuhan cast a wide net, including not only the then familiar (and dominant) television & print, but any channel through which information passes, including speech, gesture and appearance.  The person delivering a message is thus a medium and the reaction of an audience to the words of a glamorous, attractive woman can be very different to that extended to someone plain, even if both recite the same text with the same tonal technique.

Sydney Sweeney with new bob.

So, Ms Sweeney’s dress wasn’t just packaging, it was part of the meaning and that was not what she implied but what the audience inferred; what “the medium is the message” meant was the form of delivery and the embodied qualities of the communicator are inseparable from the content’s impact.  This was heady stuff in 1964 and, thirty-odd years on, the internet would gain critical mass and, at scale, prove his principle but his idea wasn’t new, the line of thought running through Western philosophy from Aristotle (384-322 BC) who called it “ethos” to Leo Strauss (1899–1973) who wrote of a kind of “authenticity”.  Unfortunately, Strauss was disturbed by way the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) were so accessible they were there for Nazis and others to make of them something else so his meaning(s) existed in a kind of elaborated code it took some time to learn but definitely he was in the Aristotelian tradition McLuhan would have understood.  It’s a long way from Nietzsche to Sweeney but from her back to McLuhan, it’s not that far.

Bob identification: By their bob they shall be known

Asymmetrical Bob: Another general term which describes a bob cut with different lengths left and right; they can look good but should not be applied to all styles.  The effect is often most dramatic when combined with some variant of the Shaggy (JBF).

A-line bob: A classic bob which uses slightly longer strands in front, framing the face and, usually, curling under the chin; stylists caution this doesn’t suit all face shapes.

Buzz-cut bob: Known also as the undercut (pixie) bob, and often seen as an asymmetric, this is kind of an extreme inverted mullet; the the usual length(s) in the front and close-cropped at the back.  It can be a dramatic look but really doesn’t suit those above a certain BMI or age (although the former seem often unable to resist the look).

Chin-length bob: Cut straight to the chin, with or without bangs but, if the latter is chosen, it’s higher maintenance, needing more frequent trims to retain the sharpness on which it depends.  Depending on the face shape, it works best with or without fringe.

Inverted bob: A variation on the A-line which uses graduated layers at the back, the perimeter curved rather than cut straight. Known also as the graduated bob, to look best, the number of layers chosen should be dictated by the thickness of growth.

Shaggy bob: A deliberately messy bob of any style, neatness depreciated with strategic cutting either with scissors or razor, a styling trick best done by experts otherwise it can look merely un-kept.  The un-kept thing can be a thing if that’s what one wants but, like dying with gray or silver, it's really suitable only for the very young.  Some call this the choppy and it’s known in the vernacular of hairdressing as the JBF (just been fucked).

Spiky bob: This differs from a JBF in that it’s more obviously stylised.  It can differ in extent but with some types of hair is very high maintenance, demanding daily application of product to retain the directions in which the strands have to travel.  Not all hair is suited to the look and while product can compensate for much, beyond a certain point, there is a law of diminishing returns. 

Shingle bob: A cut tapered very short in the back, exposing the hairline at the neck with the sides shaped into a single curl, the tip of which sits at a chosen point on each cheek.  This needs to be perfectly symmetrical or it looks like a mistake.

Shoulder-length bob: A blunt bob that reaches the shoulders and has very few layers; with some hair it can even be done with all strands the same length.  Inherently, this is symmetrical and a remarkably different effect is created depending on whether it's done with or without a fringe although hairdressers caution this is not a style best suited to "round" faces and with those it can be necessary to experiment, a fringe sometimes improving things, sometimes not.

Speak to the manager bob: Not wishing to lose those customers actually named Karen, the industry shorthand for the edgy (and stereotypically in some strain of blonde) bob didn’t become “Karen”.  The classic SttM is an asymmetric blonde variation of the A-line with a long, side-swept fringe contrasted with a short, spiky cut at the back and emblematic of the style are the “tiger stripes”, created by the chunky unblended highlights.  It's now unfashionable though still seen because it remains the "go to cut" for women of a certain age who have been persuaded the style they've stuck to since they were 19 is no longer flattering.