Doily

Doily (pronounced doi-lee)

(1) A small ornamental mat, historically in embroidery or of lace (the style later emulated in plastic or paper), placed under plates, vases etc.  In addition to any decorative value, their function is to protect surfaces (such as timber) from spills and scratches.

(2) A small napkin, intended to be used for the dessert course (archaic).

(3) A visually similar circular piece of lace, worn as a head-covering by some Jewish & Christian women.

(4) A wool fabric (obsolete).

Circa 1714:  The small, decorative mats were named after the linen drapery on London’s Strand, run by the Doily family in the late seventeenth century.  They were doubtless one of many products offered in the shop (and probably a minor line) but for whatever reason they were the one which picked up the name and remain admired by some while dismissed by others as kitsch.  Doily is a noun (and historically an adjective); the noun plural is doilies.

Traditionally, most doilies were circular in shape and white or beige but many which were bleached white became beige or grey after repeated launderings.  Hotels and cafés often use the paper versions atop plates on which sandwiches, slices of cake and such are served,  This isn't always ideal because paper chaff (from stamping the holes) sometimes remains partially attached (al la the "hanging chads" made infamous in the Florida vote-count during the 2000 US presidential election), only to become detached and end up in the food.      

The alternative spellings were (and in some cases still are) doiley, doilie, doyly, or doyley, sometimes used deliberately as trade-names.  Various sources claim the family name of those running the eponymous London linen drapery was Doily or Doyly but there’s evidence to suggest it really was Doily, one example from Eustace Budgell (1686–1737), an English politician & writer who was a cousin of Joseph Addison (1672–1719), poet, playwright, essayist and fellow parliamentarian, remembered as the co-founder of The Spectator (1711-1712) magazine.  Budgell wrote dozens of pieces for the magazine (unrelated to the current The Spectator published since 1828 which borrowed the name) and in 1712 one (capitalized as originally printed) recorded:

“The famous Doily is still in everyone’s Memory, who raised a Fortune by finding out Materials for such Stuffs as might at once be cheap and genteel”.

That was a reference to the summer-weight woolen clothing which was much favored at the time because it was comfortable, inexpensive and stylish, a combination of virtues which sometimes still eludes manufacturers of many products.  Doily was attached as an adjective to the distinctive garments in the 1780s as “doily suit” & “doily stuffs” and it was only in 1711 the term was picked-up for the small ornamental napkins used at formal dinners when dessert was served.  The “doily-napkins” were literally sold as such (there were many others but the term became generic) and were available in a variety of forms, some quite elaborate and because these resembled the small mats the shop also sold, they came to lend their name to the style, regardless of whether or not purchased from Mr Doily’s shop.  The doilies in their familiar modern form seem first to have been so described in 1714 although it may be they’d been on sale for many years. 

Doilyed-up: Lindsay Lohan in doily-themed top over pink bikini, Mykonos, Greece, August 2014.

Addison is remembered for many reasons, one of which was his once widely performed play Cato (1712) which, based on the final days of Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis (known variously in history as “Cato the Younger” & “Cato of Utica”), a conservative Roman senator in the late Republic who died by his own hand, explored issues such as the conflict between individual liberty and the powers of the state.  The work suited the zeitgeist of pre-revolution America and many of its lines became phrases the revolutionaries would make famous in the War of Independence (1775-1783).  Cato enjoyed a macabre coda when Budgell, beset with problems, took his own life by throwing himself into the Thames, his suicide note reading: “What Cato did, and Addison approved, cannot be wrong.”

Because plates come in different shapes, so do doilies and there’s no inherent limitation in design although at some point, a construction ceases to be a doily and becomes a tablecloth.

Visually, doilies are strikingly similar to the head-coverings used in a number of Jewish traditions which some Christian women wear in accordance with scriptural dictate:

1 Corinthians 11:1-13: King James Version (KJV 1611)

1 Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.

2 Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances, as I delivered them to you.

3 But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.

4 Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head.

5 But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven.

6 For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered.

7 For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man.

8 For the man is not of the woman: but the woman of the man.

9 Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.

10 For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels.

11 Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord.

12 For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman; but all things of God.

13 Judge in yourselves: is it comely that a woman pray unto God uncovered?

It’s not one of biblical passages much approved by feminists and nor do they like 1 Corinthians 14:34–35: As in all the churches of the saints, women should be silent in the churches.  For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law also says.  If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home.  For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.

Designer colors are also available and because doilies are a popular thing with hobbyists, the available spectrum is close to limitless and some are variegated.

The origin of the surname Doily was Anglo-Norman, from d'Œuilly (Ouilly), the name of several places in Calvados in the Normandy region, from Old French oeil (eye) and Doiley, Doilie, Doyly & Doyley were all Englishized forms of d'Ouilly and its French variants.  In England, apart from the noted draper, the best known was Richard D'Oyly Carte (1844–1901), the theatrical impresario who for years produced the collaborative works of WS Gilbert (1836-1911) & composer Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900) which came to be known as “Savoy operas”, the name derived from Carte’s Savoy Theatre in which many were first performed.  The D’Oyly part of his name was a forename (he was christened Richard D’Oyly Carte) which he used because his father, Richard Carte (1808-1891), was already well-known in the theatrical business and “Dick Carte” presumably wasn’t thought appropriate but “D’Oyly Carte” anyway became cockney rhyming slang for “fart” and in informal use it was later joined by “doily dyke” a synonym of “lipstick lesbian”, the alliterative terms used to contrast a feminine lesbian with those not (described variously as "bull dykes", "butch lesbians", "heavy-duty lesbians" etc).  Except within certain sub-sets of the LGBTQQIAAOP community, both are now proscribed as microaggressions.  The rhyming slang may still be used.

"Japanese car doilies" (more correctly antimacassars & side-curtains) in Toyota Century V12s.

Apparently as culturally obligatory in Tokyo taxis as white gloves used to be for the drivers (though many still follow the tradition), the inevitably white partial seat covers are often referred to as “Japanese seat doilies” but technically, when used to protect the surfaces of chairs, they are antimacassars, the construct being anti- (from the Ancient Greek ἀντι- (anti-) (against, hostile to, contrasting with the norm, opposite of, reverse (also "like, reminiscent of")) +‎ macassar (an oil from the ylang ylang tree and once used to style the hair, the original sources of which were the jungles of the Dutch East Indies (modern-day Indonesia), the product shipped from the port of Macassar.

Fifty years of “continuity with change”: 1967 Toyota Century V8 (left) and 2017 Toyota Century V12 (right).

Produced over three generations (1967-1996; 1997-2017 & since 2018), the Toyota Century is the company’s flagship in the Japanese domestic market (JDM).  Although the Lexus marque was invented to rectify the perception of a “prestige deficit” in the RoW (rest of the world), models from the range were introduced in the home market only in 2005 and the Century has maintained its position at the top of the Toyota tree.  The first generation used a number of Toyota V8 engines which grew in capacity to reach an untypically large (for the JDM) 4.0 litres (245 cubic inch) but the most admired were the 1997-2017 cars (a few hundred of 9500-odd built exported) which used a 5.0 litre (305 cubic inch) V12 unique to the Century.  For political reasons, the factory under-rated the power output of the V12 but it was anyway designed and tuned for smoothness and silence, achieving both to an extent few have matched.  Like the memorable “suicide door” Lincolns of the 1960s, the Century’s external appearance changed little and although there were updates, it needed a trained eye to tell one from another and the 2023 cars still maintain a distinct resemblance to the 1967 original although for various reasons, since 2018 there’s been a reversion to eight-cylinder engines, a 5.0 litre version of the Lexus V8 fitted, augmented with electric motors.  Offered with a choice of leather or cloth interior trim, “Japanese seat doilies” are regularly seen in the Century.

2006 Toyota Century Royal (left) and the 2019 Toyota Century four-door cabriolet built for the Japanese Imperial Household (right).  

The Japanese Imperial Household in 2006 requested Toyota provide a fleet of cars for the royal family and four limousines and one hearse were constructed.  Based on the second generation Century (G50), the range was known as the Century Royal and received the special designation G51.  Following traditional English coach-building practice, the rear compartment was trimmed in a wool cloth while the front used leather and an unusual touch was the fitting of internal granite steps.  The factory released a number of details about the construction but were predictably vague about the “security measures” noting only they were an "integral" part of the design and it’s believed these included Kevlar & metal internal skins (as protection from gunfire or explosive devices) plus a multi-laminate, bullet-proof glass.  Another Century was added to the royal mews in 2019, this time a one-off four-door cabriolet parade car (both Toyota and the palace preferred "convertible").  Although of late heads of state have tended to avoid open-top motoring, while there’s a long Japanese tradition of assassinating politicians, during the last few hundred years emperors have been safe (the rumors about the death in 1912 dismissed by most historians) so the palace presumably thought this a calculated risk.  All the same, it’s doubtful a prime-minister will be invited to sit alongside while percolating through city streets, their faith in Japanese marksmanship unlikely to be as high as their belief His Majesty won't be the target.  It’s believed the ceremonial fleet of the royal mews is now made exclusively by Toyota, ending the use of foreign manufactured cars such as the Mercedes-Benz 770Ks (W07, 1930-1938) and a Rolls-Royce Corniche (1990), the latter the previous open-top parade vehicle.  When in use, the royal cars do not display number plates but are instead adorned with a gold-plated, stylized chrysanthemum, the symbol an allusion to the Chrysanthemum Throne (皇位, kōi (imperial seat)), the throne of the Emperor of Japan.  As far as is known, the cars in the royal mews are not fitted with “Japanese seat doilies”.

Deodand

Deodand (pronounced dee-uh-dand)

(1) In English law (prior to 1846), an animal or a personal chattel (the scope later extended) that, having been the immediate, accidental cause of the death of a human being, was forfeited to the Crown to be sold with the money gained applied originally to pious uses.

(2) In English law (prior to 1846), A fine paid to the Crown, equal to the value of a deodand, paid by the owner of the object and subsequently applied originally to pious uses.

1520–1530: From the late thirteenth century Anglo-French deodande, from the Medieval Latin deōdandum (a thing) to be given to God, the construct being the Classical Latin deō (to God (dative singular of deus (god)) + dand(um) to be given (neuter gerund of “dare to give”) from the primitive Indo-European root do- (to give).  Deus was from the primitive Indo-European root dyeu- (to shine and (in derivatives” “sky, heaven, god”).  Deodand is a noun; the noun plural is deodands.

That the doctrine of deodand was a medieval legal relic (the earliest recorded instances of use in England dating from the eleventh century) is not that remarkable because in that it was one of a number; what’s remarkable is it remained part of the common law until the mid-1800s.  The concept was first well documented in thirteenth century legal texts and historians have concluded this “semi-codification” reflected the earlier religious tradition which held an object which caused a death was “tainted” and should be removed from profane use.  In that, it inherited older notion from Roman civil law of noxae deditio (literally “surrender for the wrongdoing” and in English law written usually as “noxal surrender”), the construct being noxae (harm, injury, wrongdoing) + deditio (surrender, giving up).  Noxae deditio was a legal mechanism (in response to what would now be called a writ) with which the owner of an animal or slave (The Romans really did make a distinction) could avoid liability for delicts (wrongs) committed by them by surrendering the animal or slave to the injured party as an alternative to paying damages.  Intriguingly, at certain times, the doctrine was extended to sons (though apparently not daughters) in circumstances where an action was brought against a paterfamilias (the head of a household), on the basis he was held to be responsible for the son’s acts.  Literally, the son could be “handed over”, either until they attained statutory adulthood or for a specified period, depending on the damages assessed.  A similar idea was the Old English wergeld, from the Proto-West Germanic werageld, the construct being wer (man) +‎ ġield (payment).  It was a form of compensation paid by a transgressor to a victim, or (as “blood money) to the victim's family if the victim were dead (the quantum decided by social rank).  The concept is familiar in many societies and is sometimes formalized in Islamic systems using the Sharia Law where the victim’s family can be involved in determining not only how much blood money should be paid but also whether there should be a payment as an alternative to a death sentence.

What evolved in English common law was the rule under which, if a person was killed by an animal, vehicle, tool or other inanimate object, that object was declared a “deodand” to be forfeited to the Crown.  Reflecting the theological basis for this, notionally the surrender was “to God”, but quickly the standard practice became to appraise the value of the beast or object and levy a fine in that sum.  Although the documentary evidence is patchy, it appears originally the forfeited property (or cash from the fine) was devoted to pious uses such as alms (ie charity for the poor) or (as was the usual trend when a revenue stream was identified) ecclesiastical purposes such as building churches or stained glass windows.  Later (another trend being squabbles between church & state), deodans became a source of consolidated royal revenue.  The rationale was partly religious (atonement), partly superstitious (removing the dangerous object), and partly fiscal (Crown revenue).

The school bus scene: In Mean Girls (2004), had Regina George (Rachel McAdams (b 1978)) been killed by the school bus, the vehicle would have been declared a deodand and forfeited to the state although the usual practice was for its value to be assessed and an order for a payment in that sum to be served on the owner.

It was a simple concept but because there was much variation in the circumstances in which a deodand could be declared, the case law reveals inconsistencies in the verdicts.  Were someone to be killed by being run over by a horse-drawn cart, depending on this and that, the deodand might be found to be the cart and horse, the cart or horse alone or even just the particular wheel which crushed the unfortunate deceased.  One of the reasons for the variance is that in many instances the matter was determined not by a judge or magistrate working from precedent but (at coroners’ inquests) by juries which would both define the deodand and assess its value.  Given that, on what appear to be similar facts (a sailor who drowned after being struck by a mast), the deodand might be found to be the whole vessel or merely the mast.  In such cases, the issue was which object (or part of an object) should be held to be the “guilty instrument” and that was a process not simple to define, things made more difficult still by the opinions of jury members being so diverse and prone to be influenced by the identity of both the victim(s) and the owner of the object(s).

Aftermath of the explosion of a locomotive’s steam boiler.  If reduced to scrap by the event in which someone died, the jury could assess the value of the object in its "pre-event" condition.

By the eighteenth century, deodands had become largely devices of reference in that actual confiscation of objects was rare with an assessment of their monetary value to set the fine to be paid the standard practice.  Lawyers, politicians and (especially) those in commerce were critical of the system as irrational and even then there were traces of what would evolve as the modern notions of negligence and responsibility; critiques of deodand came both from what would now be described as “the right” and “the left”.  Those who owned the objects which became lethal instruments argued it was unfair they be punished so severely for what were, however tragic, “mere accidents”, pointing out the system discouraged industrial enterprise while those advocating for victims pointed out it was the state which gained the proceeds of the fines while victims’ families (many of which had lost their sole breadwinner) gained nothing.  What finally brought about the end of deodand was it being overtaken by the industrial age in which deaths came routinely to occur in clusters.  It was the multiple fatalities in marine and train accidents (infamously the Hull Tragedy (1838) and the Sonning Cutting Disaster (1840)) which attracted press coverage and public debate; in each case a “certificate of deodand” was attached to the machinery and, given the cavalier attitude of railway operators towards safety, it was hardly surprising coroners’ juries had little hesitation in declaring a locomotive and its rolling-stock a deodand.  That was obviously an expensive threat to capitalism and the lobbying by these vested interest resulted in parliament abolishing deodands by the Deodands Act 1846 (9 & 10 Vict. c.62).

Tallahassee Democrat, 13 October 1991.

The Daytona Yellow 1969 Chevrolet Corvette ZL1 coupé is the rarest and most valuable C3 Corvette (1968-1982) made, the “other ZL1” a Monaco Orange Roadster having a less pure pedigree (although at auction in January 2023 it realized US$3.14 million.  The yellow ZL1 last changed hands in October 1991 when it was sold in a government forfeiture auction for US$300,000 (then a lot of money) after being seized by the DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency).

The Act however was part of a reform process and the early initiatives included the statutes which would by the mid twentieth century evolve into modern negligence and compensation law, the most significant of the early steps being the Fatal Accidents Act 1846 (Lord Campbell’s Act) which for the first time codified the idea of the “wrongful death claim” and permitted families to sue on this basis.  Although now largely forgotten, the 1846 act was a significant marker of the transition of English law from a medieval, semi-religious system of atonement to a modern, rationalized law of tort, product liability and compensation.

Echoes do however remain in certain legal doctrines of forfeiture (such as state seizures of the proceeds of crime) and the US practice of civil asset forfeiture does, at least in a philosophical sense, sometimes treat property as “guilty”.  The US law provides for property (cars, boats, money etc) connected with the commission of a crime to be seized by the state even if the owner, personally, wasn’t “guilty”; it’s a modern interpretation of the medieval view the object itself bore responsibility.  What this means is the legal rationale is structurally similar to what once was the religious justification: What once was “given to God” as expiation as atonement for sin translates now into deterrence as an expression of public policy (removing dangerous tools or preventing criminals from profiting).  As a kind of “legal fiction”, under both regimes the object is treated as if it possesses some kind of independent agency.  Intriguingly, as an administrative convenience, that idea survived in Admiralty Law under which vessels can in suits be “personified”, thus cases like “The SS <ship name> v. Cargo”, the model for civil asset forfeiture procedures in which the object is the defendant (such as “United States v. One 1969 Chevrolet Corvette”).

Building from Biblical tradition, the idea of independent agency had a curious history in the legal systems of Christendom and in Europe from the Middle Ages through the early modern period, animals could be put on trial (in both secular courts and ecclesiastical courts) for murder.  These trials followed legal procedures similar to those in which a human was the accused although, obviously, cross-examination was somewhat truncated.  The most commonly tried animals were pigs, simply because it wasn’t uncommon for them freely to roam in urban areas and attacks on babies and infants were frequent.  In Normandy in 1386, a sow was dressed in human clothing and publicly executed for killing a child while at Châlons in 1499, a sow and her six piglets were tried; the sow was executed for killing a man, while the piglets were acquitted due to “lack of evidence.”  Nor were the defendants exclusively porcine, bulls and horses occasionally executed for killing people and in ecclesiastical courts there are many records of rodents and insects being charged with damaging crops.  Presumably because every day of the week rodents and insects were killed just for “being guilty of being rodents and insects”, ceremonial executions wouldn’t have had much symbolic value so the usual result handed down was excommunication(!) or a demand (from God, as it were) the creatures vacate the fields in which they were consuming the crops.

Perpetually hungry weevils enjoying lunch in a granary.

Sometimes the ecclesiastical courts could be imaginative.  In the Italian region of Tyrol in 1713, the priests ordered the hungry weevils to leave the vineyards where they were such a plague but in compensation granted their occupation of a barren piece of land as an alternative habitat.  The reaction of the insects to the ruling would have been rather as King Cnut (better known as Canute, circa 990–1035; King of England 1016-1035) would have predicted but despite that, there’s no record of the weevils being held in contempt of court.  Regrettably, there's no generally accepted collective noun for weevils but weevilage (a portmanteau word, the blend being weevil + (vill)age) seems more compelling than Adelognatha (the scientific term referring to a group of Curculionidae (a family of weevils) characterized by a specific anatomical feature).  There was at least some theological basis for the ecclesiastical courts claiming entomological jurisdiction because in scripture it was written beasts are God’s creatures like all others and over them God granted dominion to man (Genesis 1:26-28 (King James Version of the Bible (KJV, 1611)):

26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

Bovine trial in progress, rendered as a line drawing by Vovsoft.

The principle was animals could be held accountable for causing harm and this was taken especially seriously when the harm caused was something like that of a crime a human might commit (like murder) and in the secular courts, if the victim was someone of some importance, the proceedings could involve defense lawyers, witnesses, and formal sentencing.  In the ecclesiastical courts, it was more symbolic or ritualistic: insects and rodents might be “summoned” but of course they never turned up so excommunication or other curses were invoked.  By the eighteenth century, the thinkers of the Enlightenment had prevailed and the idea of animals as moral agents was so ridiculed the practice of charging them was almost wholly abandoned although in certain circumstances an owner could be held liable for the damage they caused.  There was though the odd, rural holdout.  In Normandy in 1845 a sow was executed for killing a child (in the legal archives listed as the last “classic pig trial” (the last in the US held in New Hampshire in 1819)) and in Switzerland in 1906 a dog was sentenced to death for a similar offence (this believed to be Europe’s last “animal trial”).

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.

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.  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.  He was, in the words of of Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955): "prime-minister since God knows when".

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 although the matter of greenhouse gasses in the atmospheric can (over centuries) be fixed, the problems in the Middle East are insoluble and a graveyard of 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.

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.

Quartervent

Quartervent (pronounced kwawr-ter-vent)

A small, pivoted, framed (or semi-framed) pane in the front or rear side-windows of a car, provided to optimize ventilation.

1930s: The construct was quarter + vent.  Dating from the late thirteenth century, the noun quarter (in its numerical sense) was from the Middle English quarter, from the Anglo-Norman quarter, from the Old French quartier, from the Latin quartarius (a Roman unit of liquid measure equivalent to about 0.14 litre).  Quartus was from the primitive Indo-European kweturtos (four) (from which the Ancient Greek gained τέταρτος (tétartos), the Sanskrit चतुर्थ (caturtha), the Proto-Balto-Slavic ketwirtas and the Proto-Germanic fedurþô).  It was cognate to quadrus (square), drawn from the sense of “four-sided”.  The Latin suffix –arius was from the earlier -ās-(i)jo- , the construct being -āso- (from the primitive Indo-European -ehso- (which may be compared with the Hittite appurtenance suffix -ašša-) + the relational adjectival suffix -yós (belonging to).  The suffix (the feminine –āria, the neuter -ārium) was a first/second-declension suffix used to form adjectives from nouns or numerals.  The nominative neuter form – ārium (when appended to nouns), formed derivative nouns denoting a “place where stuff was kept”.  The Middle English verb quarteren, was derivative of the noun.  Dating from the mid fourteenth century, vent was from the Middle English verb venten (to furnish (a vessel) with a vent), a shortened form of the Old French esventer (the construct being es- + -venter), a verbal derivative of vent, from the Latin ventus (wind), in later use derivative of the English noun.  The English noun was derived partly from the French vent, partly by a shortening of French évent (from the Old French esvent, a derivative of esventer) and partly from the English verb.  The hyphenated form quarter-vent is also used and may be preferable.  Quarter-vent is a noun; the noun plural is quarter-vents.  In use, the action of using the function provided by a quarter-vent obviously can be described with terms like quarter-venting or quarter-vented but no derived forms are recognized as standard.

1959 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz.

Like almost all US passenger cars, the post-war Cadillacs all had quarter-vents (“vent windows” or “ventiplanes” to the Americans) and on the most expensive in the range they were controlled by an electric motor, a feature optional on the lesser models.  This was a time when the company's slogan “Standard of the World” really could be taken seriously.  In 1969, with General Motors (GM) phasing in flow-through ventilation, Cadillac deleted the quarter-vents, meaning purchasers no longer had to decide whether to pay the additional cost to have them electrically-activated (a US$71.60 option on the 1968 Calais and De Ville).  GM's early implementation of flow-through ventilation was patchy so the change was probably premature but by 1969 the system was perfected and as good as their air-conditioning (A-C), famous since the 1950s for its icy blast.    

The now close to extinct quarter-vents were small, pivoted, framed (or semi-framed) panes of glass installed in the front or rear side windows of a car or truck; their purpose was to provide occupants with a source of ventilation, using the air-flow of the vehicle while in motion.  The system had all the attributes of other admirable technologies (such as the pencil) in that it was cheap to produce, simple to use, reliable and effective in its intended purpose.  Although not a complex concept, GM in 1932 couldn’t resist giving the things an impressively long name, calling them “No Draft Individually Controlled Ventilation” (NDICV being one of history’s less mnemonic initializations).  GM’s marketing types must have prevailed because eventually the snappier “ventiplanes” was adopted, the same process of rationality which overtook Chrysler in 1969 when the public decided “shaker” was a punchier name for their rather sexy scoop which, attached directly to the induction system and, protruding through a carefully shape lacuna in the hood (bonnet), shook with the engine, delighting the males aged 17-39 to whom it was intended to appeal.  “Shaker” supplanted Chrysler’s original “Incredible Quivering Exposed Cold Air Grabber” (IQECAG another dud); sometimes less is more.  Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) suggested a good title for his book might be Viereinhalb Jahre [des Kampfes] gegen Lüge, Dummheit und Feigheit (Four and a Half Years of Struggle against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice) but his publisher thought that a bit ponderous and preferred the more succinct Mein Kampf: Eine Abrechnung (My Struggle: A Reckoning) and for publication even that was clipped to Mein Kampf.  Unfortunately, the revised title was the best thing about it, the style and contents truly ghastly and it's long and repetitious, the ideas within able easily to be reduced to a few dozen pages (some suggest fewer but the historical examples cited for context do require some space).

The baroque meets mid-century modernism: 1954 Hudson Italia by Carrozzeria Touring.  

Given how well the things worked, there’s long been some regret at their demise, a process which began in the 1960s with the development of “through-flow ventilation”, the earliest implementation of which seems to have appeared in the Hudson Italia (1954-1955), an exclusive, two-door coupé co-developed by Hudson in Detroit and the Milan-based Italian coachbuilder Carrozzeria Touring.  Although some of the styling gimmicks perhaps haven’t aged well, the package was more restrained than some extravagances of the era and fundamentally, the lines were well-balanced and elegant.  Unfortunately the mechanical underpinnings were uninspiring and the trans-Atlantic production process (even though Italian unit-labor costs were lower than in the US, Touring’s methods were labor-intensive) involved two-way shipping (the platforms sent to Milan for bodies and then returned to the US) so the Italia was uncompetitively expensive: at a time when the bigger and more capable Cadillac Coupe de Ville listed at US$3,995, the Italia was offered for US$4,800 and while it certainly had exclusivity, it was a time when there was still a magic attached to the Cadillac name and of the planned run of 50, only 26 Italias were produced (including the prototype).  Of those, 21 are known still to exist and they’re a fixture at concours d’élégance (a sort of car show for the rich, the term an un-adapted borrowing from the French (literally “competition of elegance”) and the auction circuit where they’re exchanged between collectors for several hundred-thousand dollars per sale.  Although a commercial failure (and the Hudson name would soon disappear), the Italia does enjoy the footnote of being the first production car equipped with what came to be understood as “flow-through ventilation”, provided with a cowl air intake and extraction grooves at the top of the rear windows, the company claiming the air inside an Italia changed completely every ten minutes.  For the quarter-vent, flow-through ventilation was a death-knell although some lingered on until the effective standardization of A-C proved the final nail in the coffin.

1965 Ford Cortina GT with eyeball vents and quarter-vents.

The car which really legitimized flow-through ventilation was the first generation (1962-1966) of the Ford Cortina, produced over four generations (some claim it was five) by Ford’s UK subsidiary between 1962-1982).  When the revised model displayed at the Earls Court Motor Show in October 1964, something much emphasized was the new “Aeroflow”, Ford’s name for through-flow ventilation, the system implemented with “eyeball” vents on the dashboard and extractor vents on the rear pillars.  Eyeball vents probably are the best way to do through-flow ventilation but the accountants came to work out they were more expensive to install than the alternatives so less satisfactory devices came to be used.  Other manufacturers soon phased-in similar systems, many coining their own marketing trademarks including “Silent-Flow-Ventilation”, “Astro-Ventilation” and the inevitable “Flow-thru ventilation”.  For the Cortina, Ford took a “belt & braces” approach to ventilation, retaining the quarter-vents even after the “eyeballs” were added, apparently because (1) the costs of re-tooling to using a single pane for the window was actually higher than continuing to use the quarter-vents, (2) it wasn’t clear if there would be general public acceptance of their deletion and (3) smoking rates were still high and drivers were known to like being able to flick the ash out via the quarter-vent (and, more regrettably, the butts too).  Before long, the designers found a way economically to replace the quarter-vents with “quarter-panes” or “quarter-lights” (a fixed piece of glass with no opening mechanism) so early Cortinas were built with both although in markets where temperatures tended to be higher (notable South Africa and Australia), the hinged quarter-vents remained standard equipment.  When the Mark III Cortina (TC, 1970-1976) was released, the separate panes in any form were deleted and the side glass was a single pane.

Fluid dynamics in action: GM's Astro-Ventilation.

So logically a “quarter-vent” would describe a device with a hinge so it could be opened to provide ventilation while a “quarter-pane”, “quarter-light” or “quarter-glass” would be something in the same shape but unhinged and thus fixed.  It didn’t work out that way and the terms tended to be used interchangeably (though presumably “quarter-vent” was most applied to those with the functionality.  However, the mere existence of the fixed panes does raise the question of why they exist at all.  In the case or rear doors, they were sometimes a necessity because the shape of the door was dictated by the intrusion of the wheel arch and adding a quarter-pane was the only way to ensure the window could completely be wound down.  With the front doors, the economics were sometimes compelling, especially in cases when the opening vents were optional but there were also instances where the door’s internal mechanisms (the door opening & window-winding hardware) were so bulky the only way to make stuff was to reduce the size of the window.  In some cases, manufacturers "solved" the problem by making rear side glass fixed which lowered their costs but it was never popular with customers.

1976 Volkswagen Passat B1 (1973-1980 (1988 in Brazil)) without quarter-vents, the front & rear quarter-panes fixed.

The proliferation of terms could have come in handy if the industry had decided to standardize and the first generation Volkswagen Passat (1973-1980) was illustrative of how they might been used.  The early Passats were then unusual in that the four-door versions had five separate pieces of side glass and, reading from left-to-right, they could have been classified thus: (1) a front quarter-pane, (2) a front side-window, (3) a rear side-window, (4) a rear quarter-pane and (5) a quarter-window.  The Passat was one of those vehicles which used the quarter-panes as an engineering necessity to permit the rear side-window fully to be lowered.  However the industry didn’t standardize and in the pre-television (and certainly pre-internet) age when language tended to evolve with greater regional variation, not even quarter-glass, quarter-vent, quarter-window & quarter-pane were enough and the things were known variously also as a “fly window”, “valence window”, “triangle window” and (possibly annoying architects) “auto-transom”, the hyphen used and not.

PA Vauxhall Velox (1957-1962): 1959 (left) and 1960 (right).  The one-piece rear window was introduced as a running-change in late 1959.

Before flow-through ventilation systems and long before A-C became ubiquitous, quarter-vents were the industry standard for providing airflow to car interiors and it was common for them to be fitted on both front and rear-doors and frequently, the rear units were fixed quarter-panes (the lowering of the side window thing).  A special type of fixed quarter-pane were those used with rear windows, originally an economic imperative because initially it was too expensive to fabricate one piece glass to suit the “wrap-around styles becoming popular.  Improved manufacturing techniques let the US industry by the early 1950s overcome the limitations but elsewhere, the multi-piece fittings would continue to be used for more than a decade.

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

The 1957 Mercury Turnpike Cruiser was notable for (1) the truly memorable model name, (2) introducing the “Breezeway" rear window which could be lowered and (3) having a truly bizarre arrangement of “features” above the windscreen.  Unfortunately, the pair of “radio aerials” protruding from the pods at the top of the Mercury’s A-pillars were a mere affectation, a “jet-age” motif decorating what were actually air-intakes.

Brochure for 1957 Mercury Turnpike Cruiser promoting, inter-alia, the Breezeway retractable rear window.

A three-piece construction was however adopted as part of the engineering for the “Breezeway”, a retractable rear window introduced in 1957 on the Mercury Turnpike Cruiser.  It was at the time novel and generated a lot of publicity but the concept would have been familiar to those driving many roadsters and other convertibles which had “zip-out” rear Perspex screens, allowing soft-top to remain erected while the rear was open.  Combined with the car’s quarter-vents, what this did was create the same fluid dynamics as flow-through ventilation.  The way Mercury made the retractable glass work was to section the window in a centre flat section (some 80% of the total width), flanked by a pair of fixed quarter-panes.  After the run in 1957-1959, it was resurrected for use on certain Mercury Montclairs, Montereys and Park Lanes.

1958 (Lincoln) Continental Mark III Convertible (with Breezeway window).  The platform was unitary (ie no traditional chassis) which with modern techniques easily was achievable on the sedans and coupes but the convertible required so much additional strengthening (often achieved by welding-in angle iron) that a Mark III Convertible, fueled and with four occupants, weighed in excess of 6000 lb (2720 kg). 

Ford must have been much taken with the feature because it appeared also on the gargantuan “Mark” versions of the (Lincoln) Continentals 1958, 1959 & 1960, dubbed respectively Mark III, IV, & V, designations Ford shamelessly would begin to recycle in 1969 because the corporation wanted the new Mark III to be associated with the old, classic Continental Mark II (1956-1957) rather than the succeeding bloated trio.  The “Breezeway” Lincolns also featured a reverse-slanted rear window, something which would spread not only to the Mercurys of the 1960s but also the English Ford Anglia (105E, 1959-1968) and Consul Classic (1961-1963) although only the US cars ever had the retractable glass.  The severe roofline was used even on the convertible Continentals, made possible by them sharing the rear window mechanism used on the sedan & couple, modified only to the extent of being retractable into a rear compartment.

1967 Chevrolet Camaro 327 Convertible with vent windows (left), 1969 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 without vent windows (centre) and Lindsay Lohan (b 1986) & Jamie Lee Curtis (b 1958) in 1969 Chevrolet Camaro Convertible during filming of the remake of Freaky Friday (2003), Los Angeles, August 2024.  Freakier Friday is slated for release in August, 2025).

Through Chevrolet's COPO (Central Office Production Order) system, 69 1969 Camaros were built with the ZL1, an all-aluminum version of the 427 cubic inch (7.0 litre) big-block V8.  The COPO had been established as an efficient way to coordinate the production of fleet orders (law enforcement agencies, utility companies etc) for runs of vehicles in a certain specification but the drag racing community and others worked out it could be used also as “back-door” way to order small runs of cars with otherwise unavailable high-performance engines.  The Freakier Friday Camaro (badged as a 396 SS but several were used during filming including at least one with a roll-over bar for the stunt work) lacks the vent windows which were deleted from the range after 1967 when “Astro-Ventilation” (GM’s name for flow-through ventilation) was added.  In North American use, the devices typically are referred to as “vent windows” while a “quarter light” is a small lamp mounted (in pairs) in the lower section of the front bodywork and a “quarter-vent” is some sort of (real or fake) vent installed somewhere on the quarter panels.  As flow-through ventilation became standardized and A-C installation rates rose, Detroit abandoned the quarter-vent which pleased industry because it eliminated both parts and labor, lowering the cost of production (the savings absorbed as profits rather than being passed to the customers).  On the small, cheap Ford Pinto (1971-1980), removing the feature saved a reported US$2.16 per unit but, being small and cheap, A-C rarely was ordered by Pinto buyers which was probably a good thing because, laboring under the 1970s burdens of emission controls, the weight of  impact-resistant bumper bars and often an automatic transmission a Pinto was lethargic enough with out adding power-sapping A-C compressor and plumbing.  Responding (after some years of high inflation) to dealer feedback about enquires from Pinto customers indicating a interest in the return of vents, Fords cost-accountants calculated the unit cost of the restoration would be some US$17.  

Ford Australia’s early advertising copy for the XA Falcon range included publicity shots both with and without the optional quarter-vents (left) although all sedans & station wagons had the non-opening, rear quarter-panes, fitted so the side window completely could be lowered.  One quirk of the campaign was the first shot released (right) of the “hero model” of the range (the Falcon GT) had the driver’s side quarter-vent airbrushed out (how “Photoshop jobs” used to be done), presumably because it was thought to clutter a well-composed picture.  Unfortunately, the artist neglected to defenestrate the one on the passenger’s side.

Released in Australia in March 1972, Ford’s XA Falcon was the first in the lineage to include through-flow ventilation, the previously standard quarter-vent windows moved to the option list (as RPO (Regular Production Option) 86).  Because Australia often is a hot place and many Falcons were bought by rural customers, Ford expected a high take-up rate of RPO 86 (it was a time when A-C was expensive and rarely ordered) so the vent window hardware was stockpiled in anticipation.  However, the option didn’t prove popular but with a warehouse full of the parts, they remained available on the subsequent XB (1973-1976) and XC (1976-1979) although the take-up rate never rose, less the 1% of each range so equipped and when the XD (1979-1983) was introduced, there was no such option and this continued on all subsequent Falcons until Ford ceased production in Australia in 2016, by which time A-C was standard equipment.

Great moments in tabloid journalism: Sydney's Sun-Herald, Sunday 25 June, 1972.  The Sun-Herald was then part of the Fairfax group, proving Rupert Murdoch (b 1931) can't be blamed for everything.

The infrequency with which RPO 86 was ordered has been little noted by history but on one car with the option the fixtures did become a element which enabled a owner to claim the coveted “one-of-one” status.  In August 1973, near the end of the XA’s run, with no fanfare, Ford built about 250 Falcons with RPO 83, a bundle which included many of the parts intended for use on the stillborn GTHO Phase IV, cancelled (after four had been built) in 1972 after a newspaper generated one of their moral panics, this time about the “160 mph super cars” it was claimed the local manufacturers were about to unleash and sell to males ages 17-25.  Actually, none of them were quite that fast but not often has the tabloid press been too troubled by facts and the fuss spooked the politicians (it's seldom difficult to render a "minister horrified").  Under pressure, Holden cancelled the LJ Torana V8, Ford the GTHO Phase IV and Chrysler reconfigured it's E55 Charger 340 as a luxury coupé, available only with an automatic transmission and no high-performance modifications.

The “quarter-vent XA RPO 83 GT”: 1973 Ford Falcon XA GT sedan (Body Identification: 54H; Model Code: 18238) in Calypso Green (code J) with Onyx Black (code B) accents over Black Vinyl (Code B) with 351 4V V8 (Code T) and four-speed manual transmission (Code L).  It’s the only one produced with both RPO 83 (a (variably fitted) bundle of parts left-over from the aborted GTHO Phase IV project) and RPO 86 (front quarter-vent windows).  In the collector market they're referred to usually as “the RPO83 cars”.

So in 1973 Ford's warehouse still contained all the parts which were to be fitted to the GTHO Phase IV so they’d be homologated for competition and although the rules for racing had been changed to ensure there was no longer any need to produce small batches of “160 mph (257 km/h) super cars”, Ford still wanted to be able to use the heavy-duty bits and pieces in competition so quietly conjured up RPO 83 and fitted the bundle on the assembly line, most of the cars not earmarked for allocation to racing teams sold as “standard” Falcon GTs.  Actually, it’s more correct to say “bundles” because while in aggregate the number of the parts installed was sufficient to fulfil the demands of homologation, not all the RPO 83 GTs received all parts so what a buyer got really was “luck of the draw”; with nobody being charged extra for RPO 83, Ford didn’t pay too much attention to the details of the installations and many who purchased one had no idea the parts had been included, the manual choke's knob the only visually obvious clue.  Ford made no attempt to publicize the existence of RPO 83, lest the tabloids run another headline.  It’s certain 250 RPO 83 cars were built (130 four-door sedans & 120 two-door Hardtops) but some sources say the breakdown was 131 / 121 while others claim an addition nine sedans were completed.  Being a genuine RPO 83 car, the Calypso Green GT attracts a premium and while being only RPO 83 with quarter-vent windows is not of any great significance, it does permit the prized “one-of-one” claim and not even any of the four GTHO Phase IVs built (three of which survive) had them.  In the collector market, the “one-of-one” status can be worth a lot of money (such as a one-off convertible in a run of coupés) but a Falcon’s quarter-vents are only a curiosity.

The Bathurst 1000 winning RPO83 Falcon GTs, 1973 (left) & 1974 (right).

All else being equal, what makes one RPO83 more desirable than another is if it was factory-fitted with all the option's notional inventory and most coveted are the ones with four-wheel disk brakes.  Because the project was focused on the annual endurance event at Bathurst's high-speed Mount Panorama circuit, the disks were as significant as an additional 50 horsepower and a few weeks before the RPO 83 run they'd already been fitted to the first batch of Landaus, which were Falcon Hardtops gorped-up (what bling used to be called) with hidden headlights, lashings of leather, faux woodgrain and a padded vinyl roof, all markers of distinction in the 1970s and, unusually, there was also a 24 hour analogue clock.  Essentially a short wheelbase, two-door LTD (which structurally was a Falcon with the wheelbase stretched 10 inches (250 mm) to 121 (3075 mm)), the Landau was not intended for racetracks but because it shared a body shell and much of the running gear with the Falcon GT Hardtops, Ford claimed Landau production counted towards homologation of the rear disks.  Fearing that might be at least a moot point, a batch were installed also on some of the RPO83 cars and duly the configuration appeared at Bathurst for the 1973 event, their presence of even greater significance because that was the year the country switched from using imperial measures to metric, prompting the race organizers to lengthen the race from 500 miles (804 km) to 625 (1000), the Bathurst 500 thus becoming the Bathurst 1000.  RPO83 Falcon GTs won the 1973 & 1974 Bathurst 1000s.

The “quarter-vent XB GT”: 1973 Ford Falcon XB GT sedan (Body Identification: 54H; Model Code: 18338) in Polar White (Code 3) with Onyx Black (code B) accents over Parchment Vinyl (Code P) with 351C 4V V8 (Code T) and four-speed manual transmission (Code L).  The only one produced with RPO 86 (front quarter-vent windows).

So with a large stock sitting in the warehouse, despite the dismally low take-up rate, the quarter-vents remained available when the XB Falcon (1973-1976) range was released and of the 1952 XB GT sedans sold (there were also 949 two-door Hardtops) a single buyer ticked the RPO 86 box.  Again, although granting the coveted “one-of-one” status, it’s not something of great significance although the car to which the pair of vents was fitted is one of the more desirable XB GTs because it was one of the 139 XB GTs built with the combination of the “4V Big Port” 351 V8 and four-speed Top Loader manual transmission.  The first 211 XB GTs received the fully-imported 351 Clevelands, “using up” what was in stock, subsequent models switching to the locally made variant.

US Built 351C-4V in 1973 XB Falcon GT.

Ford Australia had been importing from the US the high-performance 351C-4V (4 venturi (ie two-barrel carburetor) V8 for use in the GT but when advised US production of that configuration was ending, the decision was taken to produce a local “high-performance” version of the 351 using the 351C 2V “small port” cylinder heads with “open” combustion chambers and a four-barrel carburetor; Ford Australia only ever manufactured the “small port” heads.  That means the Australian nomenclature “351C-4V” (small ports & four barrel carburetor) differs in meaning from that used in the US where it translated to “big ports & four barrel carburetor”.  It sounded a retrogressive step and while there was some sacrifice in top-end power, the antipodean combo turned out to be ideal for street use because the fluid dynamics of the flow rate through the smaller ports made for better low and mid-range torque (most useful for what most drivers do most of the time) whereas the big-port heads really were optimized for full-throttle operation, something often done on race tracks but rarely on public roads… even in the Australia of the early 1970s.  Still, some did miss the responsiveness of the high-compression US-built engine, even if the difference was really apparent only above 80 mph (130 km/h).

The other ceremony which happened in Australia on 11 November, 1975: Ford Australia's photo shoot, Melbourne, Victoria.

Although only 2,901 XB GTs were produced, as the “halo” model it was an important image-maker and the XB range proved successful with almost 212,000 sold over its 34 month life (over 18 months in a more buoyant economy XA production had reached over 129,000).  Stylistically, the XB was an improvement over the poorly detailed XA and much was made (among Fords claimed 2,056 changes from the XA) of the headlight’s high-beam activation shifting from a foot-operated button to a steering column stalk which, thirty-odd years on from the achievement of nuclear fission, doesn’t sound like much but motoring journalists had for years been advocating for “a headlight flasher” having been impressed by the “safety feature” when being “flashed” on the German Autobahns by something about to pass at high speed.  More welcome still was the GT’s four-wheel disk brakes, acknowledged as good as any then in volume production.  The success of the XB coincided with Ford Australia’s two millionth vehicle leaving the assembly line so on Tuesday 11 November, 1975, Ford’s public relations office invited journalists and camera crews to a ceremony to mark the occasion, laying on the usual catering (including free cigarettes!) to ensure a good attendance.

Ford Australia pre-release publicity shot for the XB range release (embargoed until 15 September 1973).

1973 Ford Falcon XB GT Hardtop (Body Identification: 65H; Model Code: 18318) in Yellow Blaze (Code M) with Onyx Black (code B) accents over Black Vinyl (Code B) with 351C 4V V8 (Code T) and three-speed T-Bar automatic transmission (Code B).  Because the various side windows used by the Hardtop, Ute and Panel Van derivatives were different to fit the door and roof shapes, the quarter-vents were never offered on those and RPO 86 on the Hardtops was the dreaded vinyl roof in tan.  The sunroof (RPO 10) was a rarely (168 Falcons and 244 Fairmonts) specified option.

Unfortunately, the pictures of the dutifully polished XB Fairmont (a Falcon with some gorp) sedan didn’t generate the publicity expected because the next editions of the daily newspapers (there were then a lot of those and they sold in big numbers) had a more sensational story to cover: On that Tuesday Sir John Kerr (1914–1991; governor-general of Australia 1974-1977) had dismissed from office Gough Whitlam (1916–2014; prime minister of Australia 1972-1975) and his troubled administration.  It was the first time the crown had sacked a prime-minister since William IV (1765–1837; King of the UK 1830-1837) in 1834 dismissed Lord Melbourne (1779–1848; prime minister of the UK 1834 & 1835-1841) and although in 1932 Sir Philip Game (1876–1961; governor of NSW 1930-1935) had sundered the commission of Jack Lang (1876–1975; premier of New South Wales 1925-1927 & 1930-1932), most Australians who pondered such things believed the days of meddling viceroys were done.  Sir John however proved the royal prerogative still existed (although paradoxically perhaps now only in the hands of a monarch’s representative rather than their own) and the footnote in the history of Australian manufacturing passed almost unnoticed.