Stiletto

Stiletto (pronounced sti-let-oh)

(1) A small, slender knife or dagger-like weapon intended for stabbing; usually thick in proportion to its width.

(2) An archaic name for the rapier.

(3) A pointed instrument for making eyelet holes in needlework; a sharply pointed tool used to make holes in leather; also called an awl.

(4) A very high heel on a woman's shoe, tapering to a very narrow tip, also called the spike heel or stiletto heel.

(5) A beard trimmed to a pointed form.

(6) A style used in the fashioning of decorative fingernails.

1605–1615: From the Italian stiletto, a doublet of stylet, the construct being stil(o) (dagger or needle (from the Latin stilus (stake, pens))) + -etto (-ette) and from the Latin stilus came also stelo, an inherited doublet.  The etto- suffix was used to forms nouns from nouns, denoting a diminutive.  It was from the Late Latin -ittum, accusative singular of –ittus, and was the alterative suffix used to form melioratives, diminutives, and hypocoristics and existed variously in English & French as -et, in Italian as Italian -etto and in Portuguese & Spanish as -ito.  With an animate noun, -etto references as male, the coordinate female suffix being -etta, which is also used with inanimate nouns ending in -a.  It should not be confused with the homophonous suffix -eto.  Stilus was from the primitive Indo-European (s)teyg- (related to instīgō & instigare) and was cognate with the Ancient Greek στίζω (stízō) (to mark with a pointed instrument) and the Proto-Germanic stikaną (to stick, to stab).  Despite the similarity, there’s no relationship with the Ancient Greek στῦλος (stûlos) (a pillar).

Lindsay Lohan in Christian Louboutin Madame Butterfly black bow platform booties with six-inch (150 mm) stiletto heel.

A quasi-technical adoption in law-enforcement and judicial reports were the verb-forms stilettoed & stilettoing, referring to a stabbing or killing with a stiletto-like blade.  It was a popular description used by police when documenting the stabbing by wives of husbands or boyfriends with scissors or kitchen knives; use faded in the mid-twentieth century.  The idea of a long, slender beard trimmed into a pointed form being "a stiletto" popular in the sixteenth & seventeenth centuries but all such forms seem now to be referred to either as "a goatee" or "a Van Dyke".  The adjectival use can also sometimes need to be understood in the context of the phrase or sentence: "a stilettoed foot" can be either "the foot of someone wearing a shoe with a stiletto heel" or "a foot which has been stabbed with a long, thin blade.  Stiletto & stilettoing are nouns & verbs, stilettoed is a verb & adjective and stilettolike (also stiletto-like) is an adjective; the noun plural is either stilettos or stilettoes.

Of blades and heels

The stiletto design for small bladed weapons pre-dates not only modern metallurgy but antiquity itself.  The essence, a short, relatively thick blade, was technologically deterministic rather than aesthetic, most metals of the time not being as sturdy as those which came later.  Daggers were for millennia an essential weapon for personal protection but, particularly after developments in ballistics; they tended to evolve more for formal or ceremonial purposes.

The Schutzstaffel (SS) dagger model M1933 (often abbreviated to M33).

The M1933 was the standard issue to all SS members, the hilt either silver or nickel-plate while the grip was black wood.  Produced in large numbers, collectors are most attracted to the low-volume variations such as those without the manufacturer’s trade-mark or RZM control markings.  Most prized are the rare handful with a complete "Ernst Röhm inscription" which read In herzlicher freundschaft, Ernst Röhm (In heartfelt friendship, Ernst Röhm).  Given his his habits, enjoying Röhm's "friendship" would for a few have proved a double-edged sword.   Some 136,000 of the engraved SA daggers were produced, a further 9900-odd distributed to the SS.  After Röhm (1887–1934; chief of the Nazi Sturmabteilung (the stormtroopers (the SA)) was executed during the Nacht der langen Messer (Night of the Long Knives), also called Unternehmen Kolbri (Operation Hummingbird) in 1934, all holders of the Röhm Honour Dagger were ordered to have the inscription removed and most complied, the unmodified survivors thus highly collectable although in some countries, the very idea of trading Nazi memorabilia is becoming controversial.  As ceremonial devices, bladed weapons were a feature of the uniforms worn during the Third Reich (1933-1945) and they were issued to all branches of the Wehrmacht (the German armed forces) the police, the various paramilitaries, the diplomatic service as well as organizations as diverse as the railways, the fire services, the forestry service and the postal office.  In this they were continuing a long German tradition but the Nazis vision of a homogenous, obedient population included the notion that uniforms should be worn wherever possible and there is something in the cliché that (at least at the time), no German was ever as happy as when they were in uniform.

Although the term is used widely, in the narrow technical sense, not all slim, high heels are stilettos.  The classic stilettos were the extremely slender Italian originals produced between the 1930s and 1960s, the heels of which were no more than 5 mm (0.2 inch) in diameter for much of their length, flaring at the top only to the extent structurally required successfully to attach to the sole; the construction of solid steel or an alloy.  Many modern, mass-produced shoes sold as "stilettos" are made with a heel cast in a rigid plastic with an internal metal tube for reinforcement, a design not having the structural integrity to sustain the true stiletto shape.  However, English is democratic and in the context of footwear, "stiletto" now describes the visual style, regardless of the materials.

The lines of the classic black stiletto (top left) were long ago made perfect and can't be improved upon; such is the allure that many women are prepared to endure inconvenience, instability, discomfort and actual pain just to wear them.  They appeal too to designers and the style, the quintessential feminine footwear, has been mashed-up with sneakers, Crocs, work-boots, sandals and even a scuba-diver's flippers (though their natural environment was the catwalk).  Military camouflage is often seen, designers attracted by the ultimate juxtaposition of fashion and function.  The Giuseppe Zanotti Harmony Sandals (bottom row, second from right) were worn by Lindsay Lohan on The Masked Singer (2019).    

In the world of fingernail fashioning, there are stilettos and stilettos square.  A statement shape, something of a triumph of style over functionally, the stiletto gains its dramatic effect from long and slender lines and can be shaped with either fully-tapered or partially square sides.  They’re vulnerable to damage, breaking when subjected to even slight impacts and almost never possible with natural growth and realistically, pointed nails, certainly in their more extreme iterations (the stilettos, lipstick, mountain peaks, edges, arrow-heads, claws or talons), are more for short-term effect than anything permanent.  Best used with acrylics, the knife-like style can be a danger to the nail itself and any nearby skin or stockings.  Those contemplating intimacy with a women packing these should first ponder the implications (although the "Edge" looks more lethal).  True obsessives insist the stiletto styles should be worn only with matching heels and then only if the colors exactly match.

1964 Hillman Imp.

The Hillman Imp was a small economy car introduced in 1964.  It was the product of the Rootes Group which needed an entry in a market segment which had been re-defined by the British Motor Corporation’s (BMC) Mini (1959-2000) and although similar in size, the engineering was radically different: rather than the Mini's front-engine / front wheel drive (FWD) arrangement which became (and to this day remains) the template for the industry, the Imp was configured with a rear-engine and rear wheel drive (RWD), something which had for years been a feature of small Europeans cars but was in the throes of being abandoned.  It never achieved the commercial success of the BMC product although it continued in production after 1967 when the Rootes group was absorbed by Chrysler and, perhaps remarkably, it remained on the books until 1976.  In that time, it sold in not even 10% of the volume achieved by the Mini.

What “Sports Racing Closed” was and what “Sports Sedans” became.  Peter Brock (1945-2006), Austin A30-Holden, Hume Weir, 1968 (left) and Frank Gardner (1931-2009), Chevrolet Corvair, Oran Park, 1976 (right).  The A30 ran a six cylinder Holden engine and sat on a frame built from a Triumph Herald chassis, all these elements bought from wrecking yards.  With a Chevrolet V8, the Corvair was converted to a mid-engined configuration and underneath was essentially a Lola T332 Formula 5000 race car.  Almost unbeatable on the track (except in the wet), the Corvair was legislated out of the sport, the rule changes preventing such a machine for being fielded again.

In Australia, what became the “sports sedans” began in the mid-1960s as a distinctly amateur form of racing called “Sports Racing Closed” which was closer to Formula Libre than any of the rule-bound categories in the mainstream.  What rules there were initially demanded little more than the use of some sort of saloon car (loosely interpreted) with certain safety fittings such as a roll-cage but beyond that builders were limited only by their budget and imagination.  As a non-professional, semi-official category, budgets tended to be tight but deeply imaginations (along with wrecking yards) were mined to compensate, resulting in some occasionally bizarre but often intriguing machines.  A predictably popular theory was to find the smallest and lightest car and install the biggest, most powerful engine one could afford.  The “hot-rod” formula attracted many competitors and a dedicated following but the racing establishment looked (down) upon the Sports Racing Closed category disapprovingly and would liked it to have gone away but, fast and loud, the crowds loved it so race organizers were anxious to invite the little hot rods to compete, knowing they’d draw a large (paying) audience.  By 1969, things had developed to the point where rather than just stage stand-alone races, what was planned was the “Australian Sports Sedan Championship” but CAMS (the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport, then the sport’s national regulatory body) refused to grant these upstarts the dignity of a “championship” and would concede only that they may contest a “trophy”.  The dam had however been breached and from that beginning, the sports sedans entered the mainstream, becoming one of the most popular categories of the 1970s.

Harry Lefoe in Hillman Imp-Ford.  Still with small square flares, trying to find traction, Oran Park 1970 (left), be-winged in an attempt to stay on the track, Hume Weir, 1971 (centre) and in final (flared) form, Hume Weir 1974 (right).

That drew in television coverage, sponsorship and the involvement of factories, a new professionalism which doomed the era of hybrid machines built with parts salvaged from wrecking yards.  In the last days of amateurism however there were still a few old-school machines fielded and was wilder most.  The Hillman Imp did enjoy some success in competition, winning three successive British Saloon Car Championships between 1970-1972 (competing in Class A (under 1000 cm3)) but before that, the light weight and diminutive dimensions held great appeal for Australian earth-moving contractor Harry Lefoe (1936-2000) who had a spare 302 cubic inch (4.9 litre) Ford (Windsor) V8 sitting in his workshop.  By 1969 the Imp was a Chrysler product and the recently formed Australian Sports Sedan Association (ASSA) had published guidelines which included restricting engines to those from cars built by the manufacturer of the body-shell but because the Windsor V8 had earlier been used in the Sunbeam (a corporate companion to Hillman) Tiger (1964-1967) the mix qualified.  So the big lump of an iron V8 replaced the Imp's 875 cm³ (53 cubic inch) aluminium four and such was the difference in size that Lefoe insisted his Imp had become “mid-engined” although it seems not to have imparted the handling characteristics associated with the configuration, the stubby hybrid infamous for its tendency to travel sideways.  It was never especially successful but even more than most at the time it was loud, fast, spectacular and always a crowd favourite.  The prodigious power and short wheelbase made the thing “twitchy” and in an attempt to improve traction and keep the rear wheels in contact with the road Lefoe fitted an elevated wing in the style which had been briefly popular in Formula One and the Can Am until being banned following a number of accidents caused by component failure.  In Australia a similar ban was soon imposed so Lefoe’s only obvious path to grip was to fit wider tyres which necessitated the fashioning of enveloping flares.  The approach brought some success but it was the end of an era as the fields increasingly were filled by highly developed (and expensive) machines, created often with factory support and the use of chassis not far removed from open-wheel racing cars.  Lefoe’s Imp was most influential because the car which in the mid 1970s was the dominant sports sedan was a (much modified) Chevrolet Corvair, another rear-engine machine transformed into something mid-engined.  So dominant was it the rules were changed limiting how far an engine could be moved from the original location.

1970 Sunbeam Stiletto Sport.

Introduced in 1967, the Sunbeam Stiletto was a “badge-engineered” variant of the Imp (there were also Singers), the name an allusion to the larger Sunbeam Rapier (a stiletto a short blade, a rapier longer).  Badge engineering (a speciality of the British industry during the post-war years) was attractive for corporations because while it might increase unit production costs by 5-10%, the retail price could be up to 40% higher.  Very much a “parts-bin special” (although there was the odd unique touch such as the quad-headlamps and the much-admired dashboard), mostly it was a mash-up, the fastback bodywork already seen on the Imp Californian and some interior fittings and the more powerful twin carburettor engine shared with the Singer Chamois.  Curiously, some sites report the fastback lines proved less aerodynamically efficient than the Imp’s more upright original, the opposite of what was found by Ford in the US when the “formal roof” Galaxies proved too slow on the NASCAR ovals, a “semi-fastback” at essentially the same angle as the Stiletto proving the solution; the physics of aerodynamics can be counter-intuitive.  Stiletto production ceased in 1972 with the Sunbeam brand-name retired in 1976 although Chrysler used it as a model name until 1981.

Pit

Pit (pronounced pit)

(1) A naturally formed or excavated hole or cavity in the ground.

(2) A covered or concealed excavation in the ground, serving as a trap for animals.

(3) In extractive mining, an excavation made in exploring for or removing a mineral deposit (also known (at scale) as “open-cut” as opposed to “underground” (although in casual use sometime used also of the mineshafts used in underground operations.  It can in mining slang also refer to an entire mine site, regardless of the mode of extraction.

(4) The stone of a fruit (cherry, peach, plum etc) and technically, the hard, inner layer (the endocarp) of certain drupes.

(5) The abode of evil spirits and lost souls; hell; the depths of Hades.

(6) In slang (as “the pits”) an extremely unpleasant, boring, or depressing place, condition, person, etc; the absolute worst (used also as a clipping of armpits).

(7) A hollow or indentation in a surface (in substances like glass or when referring to surfaces (paint, varnish etc), treated usually as an imperfection).

(8) In physiology, natural hollow or depression in the body, organ, structure or part; fossa (used most often of the small of the back).

(9) In medicine, a small, indented scar, as one of at the site of a former pustule after smallpox, chicken pox or similar diseases; a pockmark.

(10) In music, a section of the marching band containing mallet percussion instruments and other large percussion instruments too large to march, such as the tam tam; the area on the side-lines where these instruments are placed.

(11) In botany, any of various small areas in a plant cell wall that remain un-thickened when the rest of the cell becomes lignified (used especially of the vascular tissue).

(12) In archaeology, a hole or trench in the ground, excavated according to grid coordinates, so that the provenance of any feature observed and any specimen or artefact revealed may be established by precise measurement.

(13) An enclosure, usually below the level of the spectators, as for staging fights between dogs, cocks, or, formerly, bears (as cockpit later extended to aircraft, cars, boats etc).

(14) In physical markets (such as a commodity exchange), a part of the floor of the exchange where trading is conducted (known in some places as “as open outcry pits” because transactions were done by traders shouting offers & acceptances at each other).

(15) In architecture, all that part of the main floor of a theatre behind the musicians (in UK use also the main floor of a theatre behind the stalls); sometimes used as “orchestra pit” (the area that is occupied by the orchestra in a theatre, located in front of the stage)

(16) In a hoist-way, a space below the level of the lowest floor served.

(17) In motorsport, an area at the side of a track, for servicing and refueling the cars (the use later adopted by cycle racing).

(18) In ten-pin bowling, the sunken area of a bowling alley behind the pins, for the placement or recovery of pins that have been knocked down.

(19) In track athletics,  the area forward of the take-off point in a jumping event, as the broad jump or pole vault, that is filled with sawdust or soft earth to lessen the force of the jumper's landing.

(20) In casinos, the area or room containing gambling tables.

(21) In aviation, the part of the aircraft (usually the bottom of the fuselage) given over to freight; a luggage hold.

(22) In American football, the centre of the line.

(23) In hospital slang, the emergency department.

(24) Literally, the bottom part (lowest point) of something; figuratively an undesirable location (especially if dirty, dangerous etc).

(25) In military slang, a bed (some evidence also of civilian (presumably ex-military) use).

(26) In nuclear physics, the core of an implosion nuclear weapon, consisting of the fissile material and any neutron reflector or tamper bonded to it.

(27) To mark or indent with pits or depressions.

(28) In medicine, to scar with pockmarks.

(29) In physiology (of body tissue) temporarily to retain a mark of pressure, as by a finger, instrument, etc.

(30) To place or bury something in a pit, as for storage.

(31) To set in opposition or combat, as one against another (usually in the forms “pit against” or “pitted against”).

(32) In motorsport, to exit from the track, entering the pits, to permit the pit-crew to effect a pit-stop.

(33) To remove the stone of a fruit (cherry, peach, or plum), sometimes with the use of a pitter (if something done vocationally, by a pitter, usually with the use of a pitter).

Pre 900: From the Middle English noun pit, pittle, pite, pute, put & putte, from the Old English pytt (natural or man-made depression in the ground, water hole, well; grave (the Kentish variation was “pet”), from the Proto-West Germanic puti, from the Proto-Germanic putt- (pool, puddle) which was the source also of the Old Frisian pet, the Old Saxon putti, the Old Norse pyttr, the Middle Dutch putte, the Dutch put, the Old High German pfuzza and the German Pfütze (pool, puddle), an early borrowing from Latin puteus (pit, trench, shaft) (etymologists noting the phonetic difficulties which exist also in the speculated relationship between puteus and the primitive Indo-European root pau- (to cut, strike, stamp).  Because the short u makes it unlikely puteus was from paviō (to strike), it might instead be linked to putāre (to prune) but the distance between the meanings makes etymologists just as sceptical and some suggest puteus may be a loanword though the spelling might be mysterious.  The use in the context of stone fruit was an Americanism dating from 1841, from the Dutch pet (kernel, seed, marrow), from the Middle Dutch pitte & pit (kernel, core (and cognate with pith)), from the Proto-Germanic pittan (the dialectal German Pfitze (pimple) was an oblique of the Proto-Germanic piþō), from the Proto-Germanic pithan- (source of pith).  Like the use in other contexts, each instance of the verb was derivative of the noun.  Pit is a noun & verb, pitter is a noun and pitted & pitting are verbs; the noun plural is pits.

Ford GT40 pit-stop, Sebring 12 Hours, International Championship for Makes, Sebring, March 1966.

The meaning “abode of evil spirits, hell” dates from the late twelfth century, one of the many means in the medieval world of referring to hell.  The meaning “very small depression or dent in the surface of an object” was in use by the early 1400s, the anatomical sense of “natural depression or hollow in some part of the body” from more than a century earlier.  The “pit of the stomach” was in the literature by the 1650s and it was so-called from the slight depression there between the ribs; the earlier terms used by doctors were the late fourteenth century breast-pit and heart-pit from circa 1300.  The meaning “part of a theatre on the floor of the house, lower than the stage” was known by the 1640s while in market trading, the sense of “that part of the floor of an exchange where business is carried on” was first documented in 1903 as a coining in US English.

One of the high-water marks of the analog era: cockpit of the Anglo-French Concorde.

The phrase money-pit in the sense of “an edifice or project requiring constant outlay of cash with little to show for it” is quite modern, dating only from 1986 and assumed derived from the popular movie of the same name of the same name released that year (though it’s not impossible it had earlier been in regional use).  The prior use had been in the 1930s when it was used of the shaft on Oak Island, Nova Scotia which legend suggested would lead one to treasure buried by Captain Kidd or some other pirate.  Popular Mechanics magazine in September noted wryly the term might better refer to the millions spent trying to get the treasure out than the hoard of gold itself and in 2022, entrepreneurial engineer Elon Musk (b 1971) produced a variation, describing the factories in Europe building the electric Tesla cars as “money furnaces”.  The ash-pit (repository for ashes, especially the lower part of a furnace) dates from 1797 and it replaced the earlier (1640s) ash-hole, reflecting the implications of industrialization as forges and furnaces grew larger.  The venomous snake the pit-viper was so-named in 1872 because of the characteristic depression between the eyes and nose.  In commercial forestry, the pit-saw was first described in the 1670s, referring to a large saw operated by two men, one (the pit-sawyer) standing in the pit below the log being sawed, the other (the top-sawyer) standing atop.  Pitman was one of a wealth of vocationally-derived surnames which began to appear late in the twelfth century and it referred to one who dwelled literally “in or by a pit or hollow”, the use to describe someone who “works in a pit or mine” not documented until 1761.  Pitman shorthand, a popular form of hand-written transcription of spoken-word text which could later be read by a typist (often the “shorthand-taker) came into use in the 1860s, having been devised by English teacher & publisher (and devoted vegetarian) Sir Isaac Pitman (1813-1897) in 1837.  The phrase “flea-pit” dates from the 1920s and was used of cinemas, an allusion to the seats being infested with fleas or other bugs.

A Lindsay Lohan pit-stop from the blooper tape, Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005).

The noun armpit was a mid-fourteenth century description of the “hollow place under the shoulder” and it ran in parallel with the earlier arm-hole although the latter use faded as it came to be used of clothing and as an anatomical descriptor it was obsolete by the mid seventeenth century.  There was also the early fifteenth century asselle, from the Old French asselle, from the Latin axilla but armpit prevailed.  The colloquial phrase “armpit of the nation” was used as a term of derision for any place thought ugly and disgusting and it’s not clear when it emerged but it was well-documented from the early 1960s.  The general term “the pits” was a variation and from late in the twentieth century applied to anything or anyone thought the worse possible of their type (ie based on something hairy, smelly and ugly).  Infamously, it was used by the US tennis player John McEnroe (b 1959) who at Wimbledon in 1981 called an umpire “the pits of the world” during one of their discussions.  The noun pitter (curved instrument for removing stones from cherries and other fruit” appeared in 1868 when pitters were made available as a commercial product (doubtlessly they had for centuries been improvised or adapted from other utensils) and where they were used vocationally, the user was also called a pitter, the same linguistic process which produced the dual use of shucker in the oyster business (the termed adopted also by others).  Pit-a-pat & pitter-pat, being imitative, are wholly unrelated and date from the 1520s, the noun emerging in 1580.

Boeing 787 Dreamliner cockpit.

The original cockpits were first described in the 1580s and were a “pit or enclosed space for fighting cocks”, the use soon extended to any space in which animals were set to fight to the death, the audience betting on the outcome.  From this came the verb use “to pit against” which meant “to put or set in or into a pit” and this soon extended to boxing; by the eighteenth century in figurative use it was used on any conflict, argument or rivalry.  The general verb use (make pits in; form a small pit or hollow) had been in used (as pit, pitted & pitting) by the late fifteenth century.  The dog breed pit-bull dates from 1922 and was short for pit-bull terrier (first registered in 1912), a type noted for its aggression a fighting abilities.  Cockpit was used of ships early in the eighteenth century of midshipmen's compartment below decks and in some cases was later applied also to the enclosed cabins located towards the centre of the deck began to replace the steerage systems at the stern (later universally known as the “bridge”).  It was picked up for the pilot’s compartment in aircraft in 1914 and (by extension) was used in racing cars in the 1930s.  The word cesspit was created in the 1860s because advances in plumbing meant something was needed to distinguish more modern systems handling sewerage from the earlier cesspool, in use since the 1670s.  The mid fourteenth century pitfall (concealed hole into which a person or animal may fall unawares) was a description of a physical danger which came into figurative in the early 1600s to refer to “any hidden danger or concealed source of disaster.  In mining, a pitfall could also be literally a collapse of the internal structure of a mineshaft, sometime because of the catastrophic failure of pit-props (the timbers which provided the structural integrity of a shaft).  Sometimes a mile or more deep, pitfalls frequently were fatal and the death-toll among miners was high, the phrase “pit-hell” often heard.

The original pits at the Indianapolis Speedway, 1913. 

It was difficult and expensive (and often impossible) to lift heavy machinery to allow mechanics to work on engines or other components so, where possible, it was better to construct a pit underneath from which people could work.  The concept was well documented in workshops by 1839 and the term was by 1912 picked up in motorsport to describe the “area at the side of a track where cars are serviced and repaired” and the early pits were often holes in the ground with waist-high surrounds in which the crew could stand.  They were used also to store spare tyres, parts lubricants etc.  As the sport boomed, the pits quickly became fully enclosed service areas and even garages, built along pit-lane.  When a driver brought his car into the pits (located on the stretch of track called pit-straight), they were said to be pitting to be worked on by the pit crew who might during the pit-stop make repairs, re-fuel or change tyres, either in front of or behind the pit-wall.  Pit crew became a popular term beyond the tracks, used of airline baggage handlers, sea-port staff etc.

The pit-babes from the era of (obvious) sponsorship by tobacco companies: Coming or going, they always looked good.

In motorsport, a pit-babe is an attractive young lady who is in the pits for some reason, not necessarily directly related to the competition.  The companion term was Grid-Girl, equally attractive specimens with the role of (1) looking good and (2) appearing on the grid while the cars were assembled prior to the start, shielding the driver from the elements with a large umbrella, festooned with corporate logos.  It was nice work if you could get it but the Grid Girls are now rarely seen in Formula 1.  In 2017, Liberty Media (owners of Formula 1) announced that with the coming of the 2018 season, the Grid Girls would be replaced by “Grid Kids” (boys and girls competing in junior and “entry level” categories such as karting, the explanation being the practice of using Grid Girls was “not aligned with modern societal norms and F1's brand values.”  F1’s “brand values” are however underpinned by “dollar values” and in the years since Grid Girls (officially promotional personnel) have sometimes been allowed to adorn the grid.

Comrade Grid Girls, Hungarian Grand Prix, 1986.  

Dr Henry Kissinger (1923-2023; US national security advisor 1969-1975 & secretary of state 1973-1977) once recalled his most pervasive memory of life behind the iron curtain being one of “dull grayness and the smell of boiled cabbage”.  Clearly, old Henry didn’t get a pit pass to the 1986 Hungarian Grand Prix where things were bright and colourful.  The 1986 Hungarian Grand Prix was notable because it was the first such event in the country for half a century and the first as a top-flight race, the 1936 Grand Prix not being part of the European championship and run under Formula Libre rules (there should be more Formula Libre events).  Not in Hungry or anywhere else in 1936 were there pit babes or grid girls but on that sunny June day, a woman had been entered for the event, England’s Eileen Ellison (1910–1967) listed for the grid driving a 3.0 litre, straight-8 Maserati 8CM.  Unfortunately, there were what would now be called “supply chain interruption” and her Maserati was DNA (Did not Appear) so Ms Ellison appears in the race record as a DNS (Did not Start).

End of an era: Grid Girls in Marlboro livery at the Hungarian Grand Prix, 2005.

It turned out to be a bad day for the Mercedes-Benz team, the W25 which had in 1934 been revolutionary now outclassed and all three were DNFs (Did not Finish), the race won by the mercurial Italian Tazio Nuvolari (1892–1953) in a 3.8 litre straight-8 Alfa Romeo 8C 35, entered by Scuderia Ferrari.  Held in August as the eleventh race of the 1986 series, that year’s Hungarian Grand Prix was the first in the country since 1936 and was the first Formula 1 World Championship (contested since 1950) race to be held behind the Iron Curtain; it was attended by some 200,000 spectators (drawn substantially from around the Eastern Bloc), a number not seen since the inter-war years and a mark not exceeded until the 1995 Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide.  The race was won by Nelson Piquet in a Williams Honda.  The Hungarian Grand Prix returned to the record books in 2005 when the “XXI Marlboro Magyar Nagydij” became the last Grand Prix to be sponsored by a tobacco company, half the field running in the livery of the tobacco industry, West, Mild Seven, Lucky Strike, Malboro and Benson & Hedges all colourfully represented.  With the EU’s (European Union (1993)), the multi-national aggregation which evolved from the EEC (European Economic Community), the Zollverein formed in 1957) ban of tobacco advertising coming into force on 31 July, 2005 (race day!), there ended over four decades of cigarette sponsorship in Formula 1, most teams keeping the livery until the last possible moment, the stickers appearing during qualifying and peeled off only shortly before the machines were wheeled to the starting grid (although Ferrari, Renault and Jordan rebelled and kept the logos without consequences).  Of course, the EU’s law-change meant the pit babes and grid girls also got new outfits although cunningly, the designs often featured shapes and colors recalling the distinctive packaging used for cigarette cartons so the message got through, and ways were explored to find techniques so the cars could also continue as moving billboards.    

Ombre

Ombre (pronounced om-brey)

(1) A gradual blending of one color to another, often a blended shifting of tints and shades from light to dark within the range of one hue but it can also be applied when using contrasting colors.

(2) A card game of Spanish origin, dating from the late seventeenth century; played usually by three, it uses a deck of forty cards, the 8, 9 & 10 discarded and gained the name from the phrase “Soy el hombre” (I am the man), uttered at critical points during play.  As a fashionable game, it was superseded by quadrille.

(4) A large Mediterranean fish (Umbrina cirrosa), popular in cooking (archaic and better known as the shi drum, gurbell, sea crow, bearded umbrine or corb).

1840–1845: From the French ombré (shadowed, shaded), past participle of ombrer, from the Italian ombrare (to cover in shadow (in painting)), ultimately from the Latin umbra (shadow).  The name of the card game (as a reference to the player who attempts to win the pot) was from the French hombre, from the Spanish hombre (man), from the Latin homo, from the earlier hemō, from the Proto-Italic hemō, from the primitive Indo-European ǵm̥mṓ (earthling), from déǵōm (earth), from which Latin gained Latin humus (ground, floor, earth, soil).  It was cognate with the Old Lithuanian žmuõ (man), the Gothic guma and the Old English guma (man).  The link between the words for both earth and man wasn't unique to Latin and existed also in Semitic languages, illustrated by the Hebrew אָדָם‎ (adám) (man) & אֲדָמָה‎ (adamá) (soil).  Ombre is a noun & adjective (and conceivably a verb); the noun plural is ombres.

Ombre chiffon strapless bridesmaid dress from Dollygown (left) and Mansory’s Ferrari F8XX Spider Tempesta Turchese (right).  There seems no clear agreement about when a "bridesmaid dress" becomes a "bridesmaid gown" and most retailers avoid the latter term, presumably to avoid compressing relativities between "bridal gowns" and what the bridesmaids wear.

Mansory is a German operation based in Tirschenreuth, Bavaria, the core business of which is the modification of high-priced (mostly European) cars.  Their signature approach is the celebration of conspicuous consumption and they eschew subtlety in favor of an eye-catching appearance, a focus being “one-off” (the “one of one philosophy” as they describe it) creations where a particular combination of colors and modifications are not duplicated on another vehicle.  So, while not exactly bespoke (as the word traditionally was understood), their products are about the closest thing possible to actually displaying a price-tag somewhere on the bodywork;  high sales are said to have been achieved in Russia, China, the Middle East and India.  Mansory's work with specific components (notably carbon-fibre) is renowned in the industry as state-of-the-art and of the highest standard.  One recent one-off creation was the F8XX Spider Tempesta Turchese (Turquoise Storm), a variation of their modified Ferrari F8 Spider on which the ombre color scheme transitioned gradually from a specially blended white to a vivid turquoise, accented by Mansory’s traditional set of carbon-fibre pieces in black.  The company also modifies the 3.9 liter (238 cubic inch) twin-turbocharged V8, its output increased by some 22% to 868 bhp (648 kW) which propels the Tempesta Turchese to a top speed of 220 mph (355 km/h).

Lindsay Lohan in vintage Herve Leger bandage dress, Maxim Hot 100 Party, Gansevoort Hotel, New York City, May 2007 (left) and 1976 PDL Ford Mustang II, Baskerville Raceway, Tasmania, Australia, 1977 (right).

Incorrectly, ombre sometimes is used to describe color arrays or schemes where a variety of distinct shades are applied with a clear line of division between each and this is wrong because the ombre effect is one in which there's a gradual blending of one hue into another.  Where the multi-color (which can be just two) layers are distinct and differentiated, designers use the generic term “color block” to refer to the use of solid blocks of contrasting or complementary shades.  A special case is the “rainbow stripe”, applied to an array which recalls the pattern (not necessarily the curved shape) of a rainbow but this need not follow the classic ROYGBIV (the sequence of the visible spectrum: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo & violet) model.  Indeed, an array of colors which in nature would never be seen in a rainbow can still be called “rainbow stripe”, based on the pattern. So, Ms Lohan's bandage dress is in rainbow stripe while the PDL Mustang II's is in a color block scheme.

Brochure for 1975 Ford Mustang II Ghia, the pitch summed up in the phrase “Economy is emphasized”; note the model's veavage dress.  Although the V8 had returned to the option list, the advertising continued to focus on “prestige” and “luxury” with the the new engine mentioned only in passing although Ford had good reason not to make too much of a fuss because to describe the much de-tuned V8 as “spirited” really was damning with faint praise in that it was justified only because the four and six-cylinder alternatives were more anaemic still.  For many reasons, it was a troubled decade which “started well, got worse and ended badly” and in the era, ombre color schemes could be a challenge because there were so many shades of brown. 

1974 Ford Mustang II.

Although of the seven generations it's the least fondly remembered, commercially, the Mustang II (1973-1978) was a great success.  Smaller and lighter than what its predecessor had evolved to become, serendipitously, it had been released just weeks before the first oil shock began on 17 October, 1973.  It's sometimes forgotten the shift in the US to also produce smaller cars pre-dated the oil crisis of the 1970s and was a reaction to changing public tastes and success of imported cars, most notably those from Japan.  Upon debut, the Mustang II surprised some (and appalled others) because a V8 engine wasn't even on the option list (and wouldn't re-appear until the 1975 season although what was offered was a far cry from the potent units which had been fitted not half-a-decade earlier) but it was the right car at the right time and a great success although it's the only Mustang not to have some sort of following in the collector market.  That said, the car's front sub-frame proved most attractive to builders wanting a quick way to splice in the combination of IFS (independent front suspension), disk brakes, a V8 engine and rack & pinion steering which meant at least part of the Mustang II didn't last long in wreckers yards.  Being cannibalized for a higher purpose isn't the most desirable fate but it was a contribution to the ecosystem the original incarnation never achieved.

1970 PDL Mustang.

“Electric Blue and 180 mph” (290 km/h) was a good hook for a company in the business of producing electrical components but the livery was adopted only in 1975, the car in the previous four seasons having been variously white, orange, green and a fetching fuchsia.  Although by 1975 New Zealand’s transition from imperial to metric measures was almost complete (phased in, 1969-1976), Electric Blue and 290 km/h wouldn’t have had the same cachet.

Since 2001 owned by Schneider Electric, Plastic & Die Casting Ltd was founded in 1937 in Christchurch, New Zealand and in 1957 was re-branded with the snappier name PDL Industries Ltd.  The core business was the company’s highly-regarded electric switches and fittings but beyond the industry what generated most “brand-awareness” were the two PDL Mustangs used in racing.  The first was a genuine 1970 Mustang Boss 429 (one of 499 built that year with the special 429 cubic inch (7.0 litre) V8) which had been stolen and recovered without its valuable engine and transmission.  Purchased for what was in retrospect the bargain price of US$500, it was a good basis for a circuit racer because Kar Kraft (the specialist operation to which Ford had out-sourced the Boss 429 installation programme (1969-1970) was compelled to widen the front track to accommodate the width (the “semi-hemi” cylinder heads with their huge intake ports (nicknamed “shotgun” because the sight of two of them recalled a side-by-side 12 gauge shotgun) were unusually bulky), something that, when fitted with an iron-block 351 cubic inch (5.8 litre) unit, greatly improved the handling.  Later, in the quest for more pace, it would be fitted with one of the rare, aluminum-block 351s.      

1976 PDL Mustang II.

The PDL Mustang II was a space-frame race car built in 1976 to conform with the commendably liberal rules which at the time applied in New Zealand, then something of a parallel universe which had continued to follow the path other regulatory bodies a decade earlier had abandoned because the machines were becoming to too removed from their origin.  So extensive were the modifications from the donor vehicle that any relationship with an actual Ford Mustang II wasn’t even skin deep and it used the all-aluminum (Cleveland; 335 series) 351 its predecessor had run the previous season.  Both cars enjoyed much success but so radical were the modifications to the Mustang II, eventually it was compelled to wander the planet to find events where the organizers were prepared to let it run.  When unleashed, it was fast, loud and spectacular and made a good case for there being more Formula Libre races.  That case can still be made.