Embezzle

Embezzle (pronounced em-bez-uhl)

In law, fraudulently to appropriate or convert (money or property entrusted to one's care) for one's own use (applied especially to fraud committed by an employee).

1375–1425: From the late Middle English embesilen, from the fourteenth century Anglo-French embesiler, embesillier & embeseillier (to destroy, make away with; to steal, cause to disappear), the construct being em- + beseiller, from the Old French beseiller (to torment, destroy, gouge) of uncertain origin.  The sense of “dispose of fraudulently to one's own use” dates from the 1580s.  The earliest known use of the noun embezzler (one who embezzles) was in the 1660s but it may pre-date that because the noun embezzlement was known in the 1540s while the noun embezzling dates from the early fifteenth century.  The em- prefix (used before certain consonants, most often the labials b and p) was a variant of the Middle English en-.  It was originally from the Old French en- (and an-), from the Latin in- (in, into) but was also from an alteration of in-, from the Middle English in-, from the Old English in- (in, into), from the Proto-Germanic in (in).  Both the Latin and Germanic forms were from the primitive Indo-European en (in, into).  The intensive use of the Old French en- & an- is due to confluence with the Frankish an- (the intensive prefix), related to Old English intensive prefix on-.  It was used to impart the sense of (1) in, into, (2) on, onto, (3) covered, (4) caused or (5) as an intensifier.  Embezzle, embezzles, embezzled & embezzling are verbs and embezzlement & embezzler are nouns; the most common noun plural is embezzler. 

In English law, embezzle was a special class of theft or fraud which was distinguished by two characteristics: (1) the act was committed by a person employed by the owner of the misappropriated property and (2) the property misappropriated was in the (legal) possession of the employee.  The fine distinctions arose early in the development of common law because of the practical difficulties caused by the long-established legal doctrine that to constitute a larceny, the property must be removed from the possession of the owner.  Servants and others were thus able to steal with impunity goods entrusted to them by their masters and a stature of 1529 was enacted, providing that it would be a felony were employees to convert to their own use jewels, money, goods or chattels delivered to them by their employers (masters in the terminology of the time).  It's an illustration of the difference between "in legal possession of" and "lawfully possessing".   

On the way out: Bernard Madoff leaving Manhattan Federal Court, Tuesday, 10 March 2009.

Confessed embezzler Bernie Madoff (1938-2021) embezzled almost US$20 billion using as a platform history's largest (known) Ponzi scheme.  After being arrested, the DoJ (Department of Justice) and the SEC (Securities & Exchange Commission) stated referring to him as “Bernard Madoff”, the media and most politicians following their lead; it was felt an affectionate diminutive like “Bernie” was no longer appropriate.  Between 1990-1993, during his respectable period, Mr Madoff served three one-year terms as chairman of the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (the Nasdaq (one of those initialisms which became an acronym)); the New York-based stock exchange described usually as "tech heavy").  Even today, Mr Madoff's scheme is sometimes described as "a US65 billion scam" but the actual embezzlement was around US$20 billion, the additional funds all in his imagination.  Predictably, those who did best were the lawyers involved in the case who charged a reputed US$800 million.  

The idea that “theft as a servant” was an offense which deserved a greater punishment that theft by a stranger remains a doctrine in common law jurisdictions, the rationale being that such crime is also a violation of trust.  In Australia, the concept has attracted interest of late because of the increasing frequency of “wage-theft” cases in which employers have been found to have been engaged in deliberately under-paying their staff, sometimes in a manner which is so carefully constructed as to have been held to have been systemic.  In most jurisdictions, the penalties available remain civil but two states have recently passed laws permitting criminal prosecutions of both corporations and individuals.  Legal commentators have generally welcomed the development, noting the frequently cited defense that organizations lacked the resources to deal with the complexity of the award wage system didn’t appear to constrain them when engaging in the tax minimization exercises made possible by the intricacies of tax law.  The law reform does nothing to alter the notion of “theft as a servant” being higher order of offending that done by a stranger but it does slightly redress the injustice of embezzlement by employees being by definition a criminal act yet embezzlement by employers was only ever a matter redressed by civil action and, in a practical sense, usually claimed to be “an error” rather than a “deliberate act”, a defense rarely tolerated if raised by an employee (an in this judges were doubtlessly usually correct).  The first case under a criminal code is now before the Victorian courts.

In idiomatic use, someone with their “fingers in the till” is committing embezzlement.  Synonyms exist but because of precise definitions in law, not all are interchangeable in a legal context.  In general use they include filch, loot, misappropriate, misuse, pilfer, purloin, skim, abstract, defalcate, forge, misapply, peculate, thieve, defalcate, flog, pinch and peculate.  Most tempting because of the rarity is probably the verb peculate (embezzle, pilfer, appropriate to one's own use public money or goods entrusted to one's care) from 1749, from the Latin peculatus, past participle of peculari (to embezzle), from peculum (private property (and originally "cattle"), the related forms being peculated, peculating & peculator.

The Great Crash 1929

The Great Crash 1929 (1955) by JK Galbraith.

Bezzle was a back-formation from embezzle, coined by the economist JK (Ken) Galbraith (1908-2006) in his 1955 book The Great Crash, 1929.  In the technical language of economics, bezzle is the temporary gap between the perceived value of a portfolio of assets and its long-term economic value.  The actions and forces which operate in economies over time create bezzle which unleash consequences understood usually only in retrospect.  The significance of the derivation from embezzlement was that Galbraith called it “the most interesting of crimes”, noting: Alone among the various forms of larceny [embezzlement] has a time parameter. Weeks, months or years may elapse between the commission of the crime and its discovery. (This is a period, incidentally, when the embezzler has his gain and the man who has been embezzled, oddly enough, feels no loss. There is a net increase in psychic wealth.) At any given time there exists an inventory of undiscovered embezzlement in—or more precisely not in—the country’s business and banks.

The conditions which exist at certain times Galbraith observed, are especially conducive to the creation of bezzle, and “…at particular times this inflated sense of value is more likely to be unleashed, giving it a systematic quality”.  Those times tend to be defined by the business cycle in that “…in good times, people are relaxed, trusting, and money is plentiful.  But even though money is plentiful, there are always many people who need more.  Under these circumstances, the rate of embezzlement grows, the rate of discovery falls off, and the bezzle increases rapidly. In depression, all this is reversed.  Money is watched with a narrow, suspicious eye. The man who handles it is assumed to be dishonest until he proves himself otherwise. Audits are penetrating and meticulous.  Commercial morality is enormously improved and the bezzle shrinks."

The Great Crash 2005

Crashed and towed, Los Angeles, 2005.

In October 2005, Lindsay Lohan went for a drive in her Mercedes-Benz SL 65 AMG roadster.  It didn’t end well.  Based on the R230 (2001-2011) platform, the SL 65 AMG was produced between 2004-2012, all versions rated in excess of 600 horsepower, something perhaps not a wise choice for someone with no background handling such machinery though it could have been worse, the factory building 400 (175 for the US market, 225 for the RoW (rest of the world)) of the even more powerful SL 65 Black Series, the third occasion an SL was offered without a soft-top and the second time one had been configured with a permanent fixed-roof.  A production number of 350 is sometimes quoted but those maintaining registers insist it was 400.

Fixed and simonized, Texas, 2007.

By 2007, the car (still with California registration plates (5LZF057) attached) had been repaired, detailed & simonized and was being offered for sale in Texas, the odometer said to read 6207 miles (9989 km).  Bidding was said to be “healthy” so it was thought all's well that ends well but once the vehicle's provenance was brought to the attention of the repair shop, it was realized the celebrity connection might increase its value so it was advertised on eBay with more detail, including the inevitable click-bait of LiLo photographs.  However, either eBay doesn't approve of commerce profiting from the vicissitudes suffered by Hollywood starlets or they'd received a C&D (cease & desist) letter from someone's lawyers and the auction ended prematurely.  It proved a brief respite, the SL 65 soon back on eBay Motors but with the offending part of the blurb limited to "previously owned by high profile celebrity", leaving it to prospective buyers to join the dots.  According to Business Insider, the car sold for US$111,000 which was much higher than would be expected for one which had been repaired after an accident, albeit it a low-speed impact.  The R230s anyway had a complex construction and the AMG versions added even more intricacy so although it is possible to restore a damaged AMG to the state in which it left the factory, it does require both expertise and some often expensive parts.  Because of that, repaired Mercedes-Benz AMG cars trade usually at a significant discount so the amount realized was indicative of the perceived value of a celebrity association.

Jacqueline Kennedy (1929-1994; US First Lady 1961-1963) with the elongated Ken Galbraith who at the time was serving as US ambassador to India.  Galbraith later recalled how difficult it was to get John Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; US president 1961-1963) interested in subjects like agriculture, a matter then (as now) of great matter in the Indian economy.

In other words, there can exist a temporary (and not necessarily short) difference between the actual economic value of a portfolio of assets and its reported market value, especially during periods of irrational exuberance.  At these times, there is “…a net increase in psychic wealth” because (1) the embezzler both feels and is richer while the original owners of the portfolio do not realize that they are poorer.  The classic case studies of the phenomenon are those duped in Ponzi schemes, a mechanism of deception in that two people simultaneously can enjoy the same wealth but the effect is similar when accounting fraud is involved, companies like Enron and WorldCom booking overvalued assets and excessively high stock valuations.   Until accounting frauds are uncovered, there is a collective increase in psychic wealth as the value of the bezzle rises.  Bezzle is of course temporary and when the truth emerges perceived wealth decreases until it once again approximates real wealth but this is not an abstract measure of value, the perceptions greatly influencing patterns of consumption with obvious effects upon the real economy.  Many recessions have followed the unwinding of a bezzle and of course, Galbraith’s 1955 book was about the worst of them, the Great Depression of 1929.

Others have since refined the idea of bezzle, noted investor Charles Munger (b 1924) explaining the net effect of a bezzle doesn’t actually demand that there be some form of constructive embezzlement as described by Galbraith.  It needs only that when the reported market value of an asset or portfolio temporarily exceeds its real economic value (which he defined as the value of future returns on that asset), the economy goes through the same cycle of increase and decrease in psychic wealth.  Munger tracked the way rising asset prices, disconnected from their underlying long-term economic value, can contribute to what he called the febezzle.  The word didn’t linger in the language as bezzle has but his insight certainly has, his point being that rising stock or real estate prices can generate income and wealth effects whether or not these rising prices reflect real increases in the earning capacity of these assets.  When asset prices rise for reasons other an increases in actual productive capacity, the overall economy doesn’t benefit because there will be no corresponding increase in the productive capacity of that economy.  The owners of the over-valued assets so of course feel richer but only temporarily because prices eventually converge to a value that represents their real contribution to the production of goods and services, thus the concern some express during periods of irrational exuberance in markets such as fashionable equities, real estate, cryptocurrencies or tulip bulbs.

Interestingly, Munger was discussing things in the distant world of the 1990s when commentators were expressing concern about the economic pattern in Western economies simultaneously to drive up asset prices while restricting the money supply.  Some of the range of possible consequences of that had unfolded since the early 1980s but those events provided little guidance to what might happen were the same forces to be unleashed when the money supply was allowed rapidly to expand and sold at marginal cost.  In the twenty-first century, the successive reactions of central banks to (1) the “tech wreck” of 2000-2001, (2) the global financial crisis (2008-2011) and (3) the COVID-19 pandemic mean the implications can be explored.

The photograph used on the cover of some editions of Galbraith's book was one of two staged on 30 October 1929 (shortly after the "Wall Street crash") which purported to show investor Walter Clarence Thornton (1903–1990) offering to sell his 1928 Chrysler Imperial 75 Roadster for US$100, a new one at the time typically costing between US$1550-2000 depending on the configuration.  The Imperial name was used by Chrysler for its upper range models between 1926-1954 after which it was the corporation's stand-alone marque designed to compete with Cadillac, Lincoln and Packard, an approach abandoned in 1975 and few care to recall the abortive revival of 1990-1993.  At this time, Mr Thornton was working as a model and the "lost all on the stock market shoot" was just another gig.  He's remembered also for founding the Walter Thornton Modeling Agency which would be one of the most successful in the industry until the mid-1950s when he was the victim of a malicious prosecution.  All charges were dropped before going to court but so much was his reputation damaged by "trial-by-tabloid" he retired to Mexico.

Roadster

Roadster (pronounced rohd-ster)

(1) An early automobile having an open body, a single seat for two or three persons, and a large trunk or a rumble seat.

(2) A horse for riding or driving on the road (archaic).

(3) A two-seater, convertible sports car.

(4) A sea-going vessel riding at anchor in a road or bay.

(5) In coastal navigation, a clumsy vessel that works its way from one anchorage to another by means of the tides.

(6) A bicycle, or tricycle, adapted for common roads, rather than for the racing track, usually of classic style and steel-framed construction (archaic).

(7) Slang for one who drives much or one who lives along the road (UK (8) archaic).

(8) Slang for a hunter who keeps to the roads instead of following the hounds across country (archaic).

(9) The pre-modern class of racing car most associated with the classic era of the Indianapolis 500 (1952-1964).

1735–1745: A compound word, road + -ster.  Road was from the Middle English rode & rade (ride, journey) from the Old English rād (riding, hostile incursion) from the Proto-Germanic raidō (a ride), from the primitive Indo-European reydh (to ride). It was cognate with raid, a doublet acquired from the Scots, and the West Frisian reed (paved trail/road, driveway).  The –ster suffix is applied to someone (or something) associated with an act or characteristic, or does something specified.  It’s from the Middle English –ster & -estere from the Old English -estre (-ster, the feminine agent suffix), from the Proto-Germanic –istrijǭ &, -astrijǭ from the primitive Indo-European -is-ter- (suffix).  It was cognate with the Old High German -astria, the Middle Low German –ester and the Dutch -ster.  Roadster is a noun; the noun plural is roadsters.

Roadsters, gullwings and courtesans

1920 Stutz Bearcat (1912-1934 and in the first season spelled Bear Cat).  One of the fastest and most admired American cars of the early era, the Stutz Bearcat assumed such a place in popular culture, it was was claimed that should anyone die at the wheel of a Stutz Bearcat, they were granted an obituary in the New York Times (NYT).  Wholly apocryphal, the origin of the romantic myth is thought to be related to the Bearcat being a symbol of wealth, adventure, and daring, owned by the sort of chaps (such a lifestyle at the time was most associated with men although women adventurers were not unknown) who would likely anyway warrant an NYT obituary.

In the United States of the mid-nineteenth century, a roadster was a horse suitable for travelling and by the early 1900s, the definition had expanded to include bicycles and tricycles.  In 1916, the US Society of Automobile Engineers (SAE) defined a roadster as "an open car seating two or three”, a meaning which endures to this day.  Despite the origins, use was patchy in the US with the word applied to vehicles as diverse as the front-engined USAC (Indy) racing cars of the 1950s, a variety of 1930s convertibles and the custom post-war creations otherwise known as hot-rods.

Two of the 1963 Kurtis Kraft Roadsters which ran at the 1963 Indianapolis 500.  Car 56 (Jim Hurtubise (1932–1989)) qualified 3^rd (150.257 mph (241.815 km/h)) but retired on lap 102 after suffering an oil leak.  Car 75 (Art Malone (1936–2013)) qualified 25^th (148.343 (238.735 km/h)) but retired on lap 18 with clutch failure.

Both Kurtis Kraft Roadsters used the supercharged, double overhead camshaft (DOHC) Novi V8 (167–183 cubic inch (2.7–3.0 litres)) which appeared on the Indy 500 grid between 1941-1966.  The Novi was famous for the howl it produced at full cry but it never achieved its potential because chassis and tyre technology didn’t advance to the point its prodigious power could successfully be handled, the adoption of an all-wheel-drive (AWD) platform (then still referred to as four-wheel-drive (4WD) which now is usually reserved for vehicles which claim some off-road capability) coming too late.  The Novi V8 and is sometimes compared to the 1.5 litre (91 cubic inch) BRM V16, another charismatic, supercharged, small displacement engine with a narrow power band.  The unusual fin on car 75 was an attempt to improve straight-line stability, an approach often used in the era before the implications of down-force fully were understood.

The Indy folklore is the adoption of the term “roadster” to describe the final era of the front-engined cars was the result of an act of subterfuge.  What defined the “Indy Roadster” was the engine and drive shaft being offset from the center-line of the car, something which allowed the driver to sit lower in the chassis thereby optimizing the weight distribution for use on (anti-clockwise) oval tracks.  It was in 1952 quite an innovation and the legend is that whenever there were visitors in their workshop, the Kurtis team covered the chassis with a tarpaulin and if asked, casually dismissed what lay beneath as “just our roadster” (then a common term for a “hot rod”, a hobby which became popular in the post-war years).  The name stuck when the car appeared, the design for a decade the dominant configuration in open-wheel oval racing although the writing was on the wall in 1961 when Jack Brabham (1926–2014) appeared at the brickyard in an under-powered mid-engined Cooper Climax which, although out-paced by the roadsters on the straights, posted competitive times because of its superior speed in the curves.  After that, the end of the roadster era came quickly and by 1965 one could manage to finish only as high as fifth, the last appearance at Indianapolis coming in 1968 when Jim Hurtubise’s Mallard retired after nine laps with a dropped piston (something as serious as it sounds).

1954 Jaguar XK120s: Roadster (open two-seater (OTS) in the UK and certain export markets; left) and Drop Head Coupé (DHC; right).  The roadsters were lighter and intended as dual-purpose vehicles which could be road-registered, driven to circuits and with relatively few changes be immediately competitive in racing.  The DHCs were based on the heavier, more luxuriously trimmed Fixed Head Coupé (FHC) coachwork while the roadsters featured cutaway doors without external handles or side windows and a removable windscreen.  Variations on this pre-war pattern was common in the British and parts of the European industry; even the early Chevrolet Corvettes were true roadsters.  

In pre-war Europe (though less so in the UK where “sports-car” or “open two seater” tended to be preferred), roadsters were often those with most rakish or flamboyant bodies, offered either by the factory or outside coachbuilders.  After the war, the term came to be restricted to what were once known as sports cars, the smaller, lighter and most overtly sporty of the line.  British manufacturers also distinguished, within a line of convertible two-seaters between lightweight roadsters and the more lavishly equipped drop-head coupés (DHC) which had features such a full-doors and side windows, neither always fitted to roadsters.  Interestingly, the early Jaguar XK120s and 140s (1949-1957) were marketed as open two-seaters (OTS) in UK and roadsters in the US, the home market not adopting the export nomenclature until the XK150 in 1958.

300 SL gullwing (1954-1957)

Although the public found them glamorous, the engineers at Mercedes-Benz had never been enamored by the 300 SL’s gullwing doors, regarding them a necessary compromise imposed by the high side-structure of the spaceframe which supported the body.  Indeed, the doors had never been intended for use on road-cars, appearing first on the original (W194) 300SL, ten of which were built to contest sports-car racing in 1952.  The W194 had a good season, the most famous victory a 1-2 finish in the 24 Heures du Mans (24 Hours of Le Mans) and this success, along with the exotic lines, attracted the interest of the factory’s US importer who guaranteed the sale of a thousand coupés, essentially underwriting the profitability of full-scale road-car production.  The sales predictions proved accurate and between 1954-1957, 1400 (W198) 300 SL gullwings were built, some eighty percent of which were delivered to North American buyers.  Curiously, at the time, Mercedes-Benz never publicly disclosed what the abbreviation "SL" stood for.  The assumption had long been it meant Sport Light (Sport Leicht), based presumably on the SSKL of 1929-1931 (Super Sport Kurz (short) Leicht) but the factory documentation for decades used both Sport Leicht and Super Leicht.  It was only in 2017 it published a 1952 paper discovered in the corporate archive confirming the correct name is Super Leicht.

300 SL Roadster (1957-1963)

 

That the sales reached the numbers hoped was good because the gullwing was expensive to produce and a certain volume was required to achieve profitability but by 1956, sales were falling.  At that time the US distributer was suggesting there was greater demand for a convertible so the decision was taken to replace the gullwing with a roadster, production of which began in 1957, lasting until 1963 by which time 1858 had been built.  Now with conventional front-hinged doors made possible by a re-design of the tubular frame, the opportunity was taken also to include some improvements, most notably a more powerful engine and the incorporation of low-pivot swing axles in the rear suspension.  The rear axle changes, lowering the pivot-point to 87mm (3.4 inches) below the differential centre-line did reduce the camber changes which could be extreme if cornering was undertaken in an inexpert manner but the tendency was never entirely overcome.  The swing axles, much criticized in later years, need to be understood in the context of their times, the tyres of the 1950s offering nothing like the grip of more modern rubber although it is remains regrettable the factory didn't, for its high-performance road cars, adopt the de Dion rear suspension it used on both road and competition cars during the 1930s.  Although manageable in expert hands, as the Mercedes-Benz Formula One drivers in 1954-1955 proved, the more predictable de Dion would likely have been better suited to most drivers on the roads.  In fairness, the gullwing’s rear suspension did behave better than many of the more primitive swing-axle systems used by other manufacturers but it needed to given that in any given situation, the Mercedes would likely be travelling a deal faster.  Remarkably, the Mercedes-Benz swing-axle arrangement lasted well into the age of the radial-ply tyre, in volume production until 1972 and used until 1981 on the handful of 600 Grossers built every year.

300 SLS (1957)

Less costly to build than the gullwing, a few hundred 300 SL roadsters were sold annually, the price tag reaching even higher in the stratospheric realm.  Unlike the lighter gullwing, the emphasis shifted from a dual-purpose vehicle suited to both road and track to one that was more of a grand-tourer.  The factory however managed to give the car one last fling at competition.  The SCCA (Sports Car Club of America), tired of the gullwing’s domination in the production sports car category, changed the rules to render it uncompetitive and, as the new roadster hadn’t yet achieved the volume needed to qualify for homologation, Mercedes-Benz built a new model: called the 300 SLS (Super Light Sport), two built to contest the SCCA’s modified production class.  Much lighter, slightly more powerful and with a few aerodynamic tweaks, the SLS won the trophy.

As a footnote (one to be noted only by the subset of word nerds who delight in the details of nomenclature), for decades, it was said by many, even normally reliable sources, that SL stood for sports Sports Leicht (sports light) and the history of the Mercedes-Benz alphabet soup was such that it could have gone either way (the SSKL (1929) was the Super Sports Kurz (short) Leicht (light) and from the 1950s on, for the SL, even the factory variously used Sports Leicht and Super Leicht.  It was only in 2017 it published a 1952 paper (unearthed from the corporate archive) confirming the correct abbreviation is Super Leicht.  Sports Leicht Rennsport (Sport Light Racing) seems to be used for the the SLRs because they were built as pure race cars, the W198 and later SLs being road cars but there are references also to Super Leicht Rennsport.  By implication, that would suggest the original 300SL (the 1951 W194) should have been a Sport Leicht because it was built only for competition but given the relevant document dates from 1952, it must have been a reference to the W194 which is thus also a Sport Leicht.  Further to muddy the waters, in 1957 the two lightweight cars based on the new 300 SL Roadster (1957-1963) for use in US road racing were (at the time) designated 300 SLS (Sports Leicht Sport), the occasional reference (in translation) as "Sports Light Special" not supported by any evidence.  The best quirk of the SLS tale however is the machine which inspired the model was a one-off race-car built by Californian coachbuilder ("body-man" in the vernacular of the West Coast hot rod community) Chuck Porter (1915-1982).  Porter's SLS was built on the space-fame of a wrecked 300 SL gullwing (purchased for a reputed US$500) and followed the lines of the 300 SLR roadsters as closely as the W198 frame (taller than that of the W196S) allowed.  Although it was never an "official" designation, Porter referred to his creation as SL-S, the appended "S" standing for "scrap". 

Job done, the factory withdrew from circuit racing although private teams would continue to campaign 300 SLs into the 1970s.  The road-going version continued with little visual change until 1963 although the engineering refinements continued as running changes, disk brakes adopted in 1961, the last few dozen built with a lighter aluminum engine block replacing the cast-iron casting.  When retired, it wasn’t replaced, the W113 (pagoda) and their successors (R107) roadsters a different interpretation of the genre.  It would be decades before Mercedes-Benz would again offer anything like the 300 SL.

190 SL (1955-1963)

The reception afforded the 300 SL prompted the US distributor to suggest a lower cost sports car would also be well-received.  The economics of that dictated the exotic features of the gullwing (dry-sump lubrication, the doors, fuel-injection) couldn’t be used so the factory instead grafted attractive roadster coachwork atop a shortened saloon car platform, the pedestrian four-cylinder engine barely more powerful than when found in its prosaic donor.  Still, the 190 SL (W121) looked the part and could be sold for well under half the price of a gullwing though even then it was hardly cheap, costing a third more than a Chevrolet Corvette and by then the Corvette had been transformed into a most estimable roadster with the addition of the new Chevrolet 265 cubic inch (4.3 litre) small-block V8.  Pleasingly profitable, nearly twenty-six thousand 190 SLs were built over an eight-year run beginning in 1955 and there were even plans for a 220 SL, using the 2.2 litre (134 cubic inch) straight-six from the “pontoon” saloon range (W120-121-105-128-180; 1953-1963) which had provided the roadster's platform.  Prototypes were built and testing confirmed they were production-ready but the continuing success of the 190 SL and capacity constraints first postponed and finally doomed the project.  After production ceased in 1962 (none were built in 1963 but the factory listed the final 104 cars as 1963 models), it wouldn’t be until the 1990s that the concept of a smaller roadster (the R170 SLK) to run alongside the (R129) SL was revived although, since the early 1970s, the SL (R107) had simultaneously been available with engines of different sizes and accordingly placed price-points.

190 SL Rennsport, Macau Grand Prix, 1957.

Though never designed with competition in mind, the factory did construct half a dozen higher-performance Rennsport (motor-racing) packages (referred to internally as the 190 SLR), the most important aspect of which was diet, the weight-reduction achieved with aluminium doors, a smaller Perspex windscreen and the deletion of non-essential items such as the soft top, sound insulation, the heater (they're surprisingly weighty devices) and bumpers.  Although never part of a major racing campaign, it did enjoy success including a class win in a sports car event at Morocco and victory in the 1957 Macau Grand Prix.

Last of the Adenauers: 300d (W189, 1957-1962) Cabriolet D (upper) & the "standard" 300d saloon (four-door hardtop).

Although some of its customers during the mid-twentieth-century (notably between 1933-1945) are understandably neglected in their otherwise comprehensive attention to history, Mercedes-Benz has always acknowledged and publicized the drivers and clients of the 1950s.  Their Formula One drivers (especially Juan Manuel Fangio (1911–1995) & Stirling Moss (1929–2020) were honored for decades after their retirements and Konrad Adenauer, the first chancellor of the Federal Republic, was even afforded the unique distinction of being the nickname for the 300 (W186 & W189, 1951-1962), the big limousine of the era which used a substantially similar engine to the 300 SL's unit.  Note that although the top image is of a convertible, it's a "cabriolet" and not a roadster.  According to Mercedes-Benz, a roadster is a two door, two seater convertible although, since the 1960s, the factory has sometimes offered the option of single (transverse) or conventional rear seat for occasional (and sometimes uncomfortable) use.  Small, these seats were really suitable only for very young children and no pretence was made that they make a roadster into a true four-seater, 2+2 the usual (generous) description.  Being Germans, during the 1930s, Daimler-Benz decided there were sufficient detail differences between the coachwork and hood (in the sense of folding roof) assemblies offered and formalized definitions of five distinct flavors of Mercedes-Benz cabriolets.

Fraulein Rosemarie Nitribitt with 190 SL and Joe der Hund.

However, in a fate shared with some of the most valued clients of the three-pointed star between 1933-1945, nor does the factory’s historic literature dwell on someone perhaps the 190SL’s best known owners, Rosemarie Nitribitt (1933-1957).  Fraulein Nitribitt was, by 1957, Frankfurt’s most illustrious (and reputedly most expensive) prostitute, a profession to which she seems to have been drawn by necessity but at which she proved more than proficient and, as the reports of the time attest, there was nothing furtive in the way she practiced her trade.  Something of a celebrity in Frankfurt, the republic’s financial centre, her black roadster became so associated with her business model that the 190SL was at the time often referred to as the “Nitribitt-Mercedes”, her car seen frequently, if briefly, parked in the forecourts of the city’s better hotels.  Unlike the contemporary connection with Herr Adenauer, the factory never acknowledged this nickname.

190 SL sales breakdown

The lives of prostitutes, even the more highly priced, can descend to their conclusion along a Hobbesian path and in 1957, aged twenty-four, she was murdered in her smart apartment, strangled with a silk stocking, the body not found for several days.  Given Fraulein Nitribitt operated at the upper end of the market, her clients tended variously to be rich, famous & powerful and that attracted the raft of inevitable conspiracy theories there had been a cover-up to protect their interests, a rather botched police investigation encouraging such rumors.  The murder remains unsolved.  It has been suggested sales of the 190 SL suffered because of the connection, the little roadster briefly attracting the moniker “whore’s taxi” and indeed, there was a decline in the period.  However, 1956 was the first year of full-production and a second-year drop-off in sales is not unknown, gullwing production for example dropped to 308 in 1956, quite a fall from the 855 achieved the previous year and while, at least in Germany, the association with the dead courtesan may have been off-putting for the bourgeoise, without qualitative data, one really can’t say.  There was a precipitous decline in 1958 but that was the year of the worst US recession of the post-war boom and it was in the US most of the drop was booked; sales anyway quickly recovered on both sides of the Atlantic.

Frankfurt police officers examining Helga Matura's 220 SE cabriolet (Hōchkühler).  Note the jackboots.

In a coincidence of circumstances, a decade later, Fraulein Helga Sofie Matura (1933-1966) was another high-end prostitute murdered in Frankfurt, the weapon this time a stiletto (the stylish shoe rather than the slender blade).  Never subject to the same rumors the Nitribtt case attracted, it too remains unsolved.  In another coincidence, Fraulein Matura’s car was a convertible Mercedes, a white (W111) 220 SE Cabriolet.  Despite the connection, the W111 never picked up any prurient nicknames and nor did its reputation suffer, the most valuable of the W111 cabriolets now attracting prices in excess of US$400,000 for original or fully-restored examples while German turning houses which update the drive-trains to modern standards list them at twice that.

Helga Matura (1966) by Gerhard Richter

Gerhard Richter (b 1932) is a German visual artist whose work encompasses glass as well as aspects of both photography and painting.  Although most noted for working in illusionistic space, some of his output has belonged to various schools of realism and he seems to place himself in many of the traditions of modernism, acknowledging surrealism, the primacy of the object and the purpose of art.  Of particular interest was his 1988 series of fifteen photo-paintings (18 October 1977) depicting four members of the Red Army Faction (RAF) (better, if a little misleadingly, known in the English-speaking world as the Baader-Meinhof Gang).  Created using monochrome photographs taken mostly before their deaths, the work was an interesting exploration of time, meaning and form.

His portrait of the late Helga Matura is representative of his technique in photo-paintings, applying the practices of the Fluxus movement to material not originally created as art.  Blurred and variously in and out of focus, it takes the entirely representational image of a photograph which is then disrupted; disruptions may be for the purposes of the artist, the subject or the viewer and indeed time, the nature of the work changing whether viewed with or without knowledge of her life and death.

Roadster off the road, California, 2005.

In October 2005, Lindsay Lohan went for a drive in her Mercedes-Benz SL 65 AMG roadster.  It didn’t end well.  Based on the R230 (2001-2011) platform, the SL 65 AMG was produced between 2004-2012, all versions rated in excess of 600 horsepower, something perhaps not a wise choice for someone with no background handling such machinery though it could have been worse, the factory building 400 (175 for the US market, 225 for the RoW (rest of the world)) of the even more powerful SL 65 Black Series, the third occasion an SL was offered without a soft-top and the second time one had been configured with a permanent fixed-roof.  A production number of 350 is sometimes quoted but those maintaining registers insist it was 400.

Roadster back on the road, Texas, 2007.

By 2007, the car (still with California registration plates (5LZF057) attached) had been repaired, detailed & simonized and was being offered for sale in Texas, the odometer said to read 6207 miles (9989 km).  Bidding was said to be “healthy” so it was thought all's well that ends well but once the vehicle's provenance was brought to the attention of the repair shop, it was realized the celebrity connection might increase its value so it was advertised on eBay with more detail, including the inevitable click-bait of LiLo photographs.  However, either eBay doesn't approve of commerce profiting from the vicissitudes suffered by Hollywood starlets or they'd received a C&D (cease & desist) letter from someone's lawyers and the auction ended prematurely.  It proved a brief respite, the SL 65 soon back on eBay Motors but with the offending part of the blurb limited to "previously owned by high profile celebrity", leaving it to prospective buyers to join the dots.  According to Business Insider, the car sold for US$111,000 which was much higher than would be expected for one which had been repaired after an accident, albeit it a low-speed impact.  The R230s anyway had a complex construction and the AMG versions added even more intricacy so although it is possible to restore a damaged AMG to the state in which it left the factory, it does require both expertise and some often expensive parts.  Because of that, repaired Mercedes-Benz AMG cars trade usually at a significant discount so the amount realized was indicative of the perceived value of a celebrity association.

Simonize

Simonize (pronounced sahy-muh-nahyz)

(1) To polish the exposed surfaces of an automobile (specifically using Simoniz brand products; later used generically).

(2) To shine or polish something to a high sheen, especially with wax.

Circa 1921: A creation of US English meaning "polish by the application of Simoniz wax”, from Simoniz, the registered trademark for a brand of car polish invented by George Simons who, in association with Elmer Rich of the Great Northern Railway, in 1910 formed the Simons Manufacturing Company (Chicago) to produce and sell the products.  The construct was Simoniz + “e”, the addition an emulation of the –ize prefix  Said to have been in oral use since circa 1921, lexicographers began to add simonize (as a verb with the noted meaning) to dictionaries in 1935.   In the English-speaking world, the word often appeared (outside North America) as simonise.  Simonize, simonized & simonizing are verbs.

The –ize suffix was from the Middle English -isen, from the Middle French -iser, from the Medieval Latin -izō, from the Ancient Greek -ίζω (-ízō), from the primitive Indo-European verbal suffix -idyé-.  It was cognate with other verbal suffixes including the Gothic -itjan, the Old High German –izzen and the Old English -ettan (verbal suffix).  It was used to form verbs from nouns or adjectives which (1) make what is denoted by the noun or adjective & (2) do what is denoted by the noun or adjective.  The alternative form is –ise.  Historically, the –ize suffix was used on words originating from Greek while –ise was preferred (most prevalently as -vise, -tise, -cise and –prise) on words derived from various roots, many of which entered English via French.  In the nineteenth century, under the influence of French literature, in the UK and other parts of the British Empire, -ise often replaced –ize even when there was a long tradition of the latter’s use.  The authoritative Oxford English Dictionary (OED) never changed its spellings which meant that throughout the Empire (and later the Commonwealth), both forms appeared and before the advent of spell-checkers (which ensured that at least within a given document there was consistency) use was mixed although, under the Raj and beyond, India tended to stick to –ise.  The –ize has always been the preferred form in North America.

Spa day service station, Connecticut Avenue. Washington DC, September 1940 (left) and Kimble Garage and Gas, Harrison Street, Fort Wayne, Indiana, circa 1937.

Although the verb simonize rapidly came to mean (in a generic sense) “to shine or polish something to a high sheen, especially with wax”, one of the early conditions imposed to permit the advertising of “Simonizing” as a service was the exclusive use of genuine Simoniz brand products.  So, the “Simonizing” bay was where one's car was taken to be simonized with Simoniz Wax (and other of the brands products) while if in the “Lubritory”, one's car would be lubricated which meant changing the oil as required (engine, gearbox, differential) and greasing the many lubrication points.  Although “one-shot lubrication” systems (a central reservoir of grease which, active by a lever or plunger, delivered a measured shot of grease to various chassis points) began to appear in some more expensive cars in the mid-1920s, it never became universal and by the late 1960s had been almost wholly replaced by the use of sealed, permanently lubricated components.

One reason companies registered trademarks used to be a wish to control the use of the name, businesses wishing to prevent their exclusive brand becoming so popular it came to be used to describe, and to some extent even define, all similar products.  The process was called genericide by the experts in business and marketing, the idea being that in becoming a generic term, some of the value invested in the product and its name was transferred to competitors.  The classic example was the vacuum cleaner made by Hoover, the word catching on to the extent that within years, just about all vacuuming came to be called “hoovering”, regardless of the manufacturer of the device doing the sucking.  The problem was that while trademark holders could restrict their use by corporations, what the public did was beyond their control and language just evolved by popular use.

The early Xerox photocopiers were always advertised as devices to be used by women.

The literature often cites Xerox as an example of the problem of the public perception of a corporation being defined in their imagination by its best known product.  The phrase “xerox it” had by the late 1960s become the default expression meaning “photocopy it” and was of concern to the corporation because they feared their differentiation in the market place would be lost.  Time however change and now, Microsoft would doubtless be delighted if “bing it” became as much a term of everyday speech as “google it”.  That is of course a little different because “Bing” is one of Microsoft’s many trademarks rather than the corporate name but the modern view now generally is that the public “verbing-up” a trademark is a very good thing and an easy way to extend the prized “brand awareness”.

The perfect secretary did much "xeroxing" but according to Xerox, would never say "xerox it".

Twitter’s case is a variation on the theme and a case study on how such matters must be managed.  The verb form “to tweet” became a verb through popular use which induced Twitter to trademark the term in 2009.  From there, the company announced they would not seek to restrict its use by third parties using “tweet” for Twitter-related services and apps but warned they would seek both injunctive relief and damages were there evidence of a “confusing or damaging project” to “to protect both our users our brand."  What Twitter wanted to do was ensure “tweet” was used in a way beneficial and not detrimental to them.

The Great Crash of 2005

Crashed and towed, Los Angeles, 2005.

In October 2005, Lindsay Lohan went for a drive in her Mercedes-Benz SL 65 AMG roadster.  It didn’t end well.  Based on the R230 (2001-2011) platform, the SL 65 AMG was produced between 2004-2012, all versions rated in excess of 600 horsepower, something perhaps not a wise choice for someone with no background handling such machinery though it could have been worse, the factory building 400 (175 for the US market, 225 for the RoW (rest of the world)) of the even more powerful SL 65 Black Series, the third occasion since 1954 a SL was offered without a soft-top and the second time one had been configured with a permanent fixed-roof.  A production number of 350 is sometimes quoted for the R230 Black Series but those maintaining registers insist it was 400.

Fixed and simonized, Texas, 2007.

By 2007, the car (still with California registration plates (5LZF057) attached) had been repaired, detailed & simonized and was being offered for sale in Texas, the odometer said to read 6207 miles (9989 km).  Bidding was said to be “healthy” so it was thought all's well that ends well but once the vehicle's provenance was brought to the attention of the repair shop, it was realized the celebrity connection might increase its value so it was advertised on eBay with more detail, including the inevitable click-bait of LiLo photographs.  However, either eBay doesn't approve of commerce profiting from the vicissitudes suffered by Hollywood starlets or they'd received a C&D (cease & desist) letter from someone's lawyers and the auction ended prematurely.  It proved a brief respite, the SL 65 soon back on eBay Motors but with the offending part of the blurb limited to "previously owned by high profile celebrity", leaving it to prospective buyers to join the dots.  According to Business Insider, the car sold for US$111,000 which was much higher than would be expected for one which had been repaired after an accident, albeit it a low-speed impact.  The R230s anyway had a complex construction and the AMG versions added even more intricacy so although it is possible to restore a damaged AMG to the state in which it left the factory, it does require both expertise and some often expensive parts.  Because of that, repaired Mercedes-Benz AMG cars trade usually at a significant discount so the amount realized was indicative of the perceived value of a celebrity association.