Mansfield

Mansfield (pronounced manz-feeld)

The slang term for the protective metal structures attached to the underside of trucks and trailers, designed to protect occupants of vehicles in “under-run” crashes (the victim’s vehicle impacting, often at mid-windscreen height with the solid frame of the truck’s tray).  A Mansfield bar, technically is called the RUPS (Rear Underrun Protection System).

1967: The devices are known as “Mansfield” bars because interest in the system was heightened after the death of the actress Jayne Mansfield (1933-1967), killed in an under-run accident on 28 June 1967.  The origin of the surname Mansfield is habitational with origins in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire. The early formations, recorded in the thirteenth century Domesday Book, show the first element uniformly as the Celtic Mam- (mother or breast (Manchester had a similar linkage)) with the later addition of the Old English feld (pasture, open country, field) as the second element.  The locational sense is thus suggestive of an association of the field by a hill called “Man”.  The etymology, one suspects, would have pleased Jayne Mansfield.

The "Mansfield crash" aftermath, 1966 Buick Electra 225, 28 June, 1967 (left) and the much re-printed photograph (right) of Sofia Loren (b 1934, left) and Jayne Mansfield (right), Romanoff's restaurant, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, April 1957.  Ms Loren's sideways glance, one of the most famous in Hollywood's long history of such looks has been variously interpreted as "sceptical", "disapproving" and "envious", the latter a view probably restricted to men.  Ms Loren herself explained her look as one of genuine concern the pink satin gown might not prove equal to the occasion.  On the night, there were several photographers covering the event and images taken from other angles illustrate why that concern was reasonable. 

On 28 June 1967, Jayne Mansfield was a front-seat passenger in a 1966 Buick Electra 225 four-door hardtop, en route to New Orleans where she was next day to be the subject of an interview.  While cruising along the highway at around two in the morning, the driver failed to perceive the semi-truck in front had slowed to a crawl because an anti-mosquito truck ahead was conducting fogging and blocking the lane.  The mist from the spray masked the truck's trailer and, the driver unable to react in time, the car hit at high speed, sliding under the semi-trailer, killing instantly the three front-seat occupants.  Although the myth has long circulated she was decapitated, an idea lent some credence by the visual ambiguity of photographs published at the time, while it was a severe head trauma, an autopsy determined the immediate cause of death was a "crushed skull with avulsion of cranium and brain".  The phenomenon of the “under-run” accident happens with some frequency because of a co-incidence of dimensions in the machines using the roads.  Pre-dating motorised transport, loading docks were built at a height of around four feet (48 inches; 1.2 m) because that was the most convenient height for men of average height engaged in loading and unloading goods.  Horse-drawn carts and later trucks were built to conform to this standard so trays would always closely align with dock.  Probably very shortly after cars and trucks began sharing roads, they started crashing into each other and, despite impact speeds and traffic volumes being relatively low, the under-run accident was noted in statistics as a particular type as early as 1927.

In the post-war years, speeds and traffic volumes rose and, coincidentally, the hood-lines (bonnet) on cars became lower, the windscreen now often somewhere around four feet high so the under-run vulnerability was exacerbated, cars now almost designed to slide under a truck to the point of the windscreen, thus turning the tray into a kind of horizontal guillotine, slicing into the passenger compartment at head-height.  That’s exactly how Jayne Mansfield died and while the Buick was an imposing 223.4 inches (5,674 mm) in length, it was much lower than the sedans of earlier generations.  As a footnote, when introduced in 1959, the Electra 225 (1959-1980) gained its name from being 225.4 inches (5,725 mm) long and while during the 1960s it would be just a little shorter, by 1970 it did again deserve the designation even by 1975 growing to 233.4 inches (5,928 mm), making it the longest four-door hardtop ever built by GM (General Motors), a record unlikely to be broken.  The use of length as a model name was unusual but others have done it, most recently the Maybach (2002-2013), a revived marquee intended by Mercedes-Benz as a competitor for Rolls-Royce & Bentley.  The Maybach was an impressive piece of engineering but its very existence only devalued the Mercedes-Benz brand and was an indication the MBAs who has supplanted the engineers as the company’s dynamic really didn’t have a clue, even about marketing which was supposed to be their forte.  The Maybachs were designated “57” & “62”, the allusion to their length (5.7 & 6.2 metres respectively).  Between 1948-2016, many Land Rovers were given model designation according to their wheelbase (with a bit or rounding up or down for convenience) in inches, thus "80", "88", "110" etc. 

Rear under-run Mansfield bar.

The US authorities did react, federal regulations requiring trucks and trailers be built with under-ride guards (reflectorized metal bars hanging beneath the back-end of trailers) passed in 1953, but the standards were rudimentary and until the incident in 1967, little attention was paid despite similar accidents killing hundreds each year.  The statistics probably tended to get lost among the ever-increasing road-toll, cars of the era being death traps, seat belts and engineering to improve crashworthiness almost unknown.  Predictably, the industry did its math (which took longer in the pre-spreadsheet era) and argued, given that above a certain speed impacts would still cause fatalities, the costs of retro-fitting heavy vehicles would be disproportionate to the number of lives saved or injuries avoided or made less severe.  It's macabre math but it part of business and the most infamous example was Ford's numbers people working out it was projected to be cheaper to pay the costs associated with people being incinerated in rear-ended Pintos than it would be to re-engineer the fuel tank.   

The Mansfield bar works by preventing the nods of the car being slung under the truck, protecting the passenger compartment from impact.

After 1967, although regulations were tightened and enforcement, though patchy, became more rigorous, deaths continued and in the US there are still an average of two-hundred fatalities annually in crashes involving Mansfield Bars.  There are proposals by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) to include Mansfield Bars on any truck inspection and suggesting to improve the design to something more effective, the devices since 1963 little more than brute force impact barriers and there’s interest in spring-loaded devices which would absorb more of the energy generated in a crash.  Coincidentally, the increasing preference by consumers for higher, bluff-fronted SUVs and light (a relative term, the "light" pick-up trucks popular in the US market regarded as "big" just about everywhere else, even in the Middle East, Australia and New Zealand where they're also sold) trucks has helped improve this aspect or road safety.

There’s concern too about side impacts.  Only a very small numbers of trucks have ever been fitted with any side impact protection and this omission also make corner impacts especially dangerous.  The cost of retro-fitting side (and therefore corner) Mansfield bars to a country’s entire heavy transport fleet would be onerous and it may be practical to phase in any mandatory requirements only over decades.

A photograph of a parked car & truck, the juxtaposition illustrating the limits of the protection afforded, especially in cases when the truck's tray extends well beyond the rear axle-line.  The moving truck was one of two hired by Lindsay Lohan (b 1986) when in early 2012 she moved out of 419 Venice Way, Venice Beach, Los Angeles where during 2011 she lived (in the house to the right; the semi-mirrored construction sometimes called a “pigeon pair”) next door to former special friend DJ Samantha Ronson (b 1977) who inhabited the one to the left (417).  She was compelled to move after a “freemason stalker threatened to kill her”, proving the Freemasons will stop at nothing.

Truganina, Melbourne, Australia, 4 June, 2025.

Mansfield bars can reduce injuries & fatalities but if the energy in a crash is sufficient (a product of mass, speed and the angle of contact at the point of impact), the consequences will still be catastrophic.  In the early morning of 4 June 2025 in Melbourne, Australia, a Mustang coupé crashed into the right-rear corner of a parked truck, the passenger (sitting in the left front seat of the RHD (right-hand drive) car) killed instantly while the driver was taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

Truganina, Melbourne, Australia, 4 June, 2025.

The damage sustained by the vehicles was what would be expected in the circumstances, the truck (build on a rigid steel ladder-chassis with a steel-framed freight compartment atop) suffering relatively minor damage while the Mustang’s (built to modern safety standards with the structure outside the passenger compartment designed as a “crumple zone” intended to absorb an impact’s energy before it reaches the occupants) left-front corner substantially was destroyed.  The right-side portion of the Mansfield bar which was hit was torn off in the impact, illustrating the limitations of the technology when speeds are very high, the same reason the car’s “safety cell” was unable to prevent a fatality.

The Seven Ups (1973).

Footage of crashes conducted during testing is illustrative but Hollywood does it better.  In the movie The Seven Ups (1973, produced & directed by Philip D'Antoni (1929-2018), a 1973 Pontiac Ventura Custom, while pursuing a 1973 Pontiac Grand Ville, crashes into a truck with an impact similar to the one in which Jayne Mansfield died; this being Hollywood, the driver emerges bruised & bloodied but intact.  In the movie, the truck is not fitted with a Mansfield bar but if the speed at the point of impact is sufficient, the physics are such that even such a device is unlikely to prevent fatalities.  A re-allocation of a name used on Pontiac’s full-sized (B-Body) line between 1960-1970, the Ventura (1971-1977) was built on the GM (General Motors) compact platform (X-Body), until then exclusive to the Chevrolet Nova (1968-1979 and badged between 1962-1968 as the Chevy II).

Solastalgia

Solastalgia (pronounced sol-las-jee-uh)

The pain or distress caused by the loss or lack or solace and the sense of desolation connected to the present state of one’s home and territory

2003: A coining by Professor Glenn Albrecht (b 1953), the construct built from the Latin sōlācium (solace, comfort) +‎ -algia (pain).  Sōlācium was from sōlor (to comfort, console, solace) + –ac- (a variant of –āx- (used to form adjectives expressing a tendency or inclination to the action of the root verb)) +‎ -ium, from the Latin -um (in this context used to indicate the setting where a given activity is carried out).  The –algia suffix was from the New Latin -algia, from the Ancient Greek -αλγία (-algía), from compounds ending in Ancient Greek ἄλγος (álgos) (pain) +‎ the Ancient Greek -ῐ́ᾱ (-ĭ́ā).  The most well-known was probably kephalalgíā (headache).  Solastalgia is a noun, Solastalgic is a noun and adjective and solastalgically is an adverb; the noun plural is solastalgias.

Elements what became the modern environmentalism can be found in writings from Antiquity and there are passages in Biblical Scripture which are quoted to support the notion Christ and God Himself were greenies.  However, as a political movement, it was very much a creation of the late twentieth century although Theodore Roosevelt (TR, 1858–1919; US president 1901-1909), despite his reputation as a big game hunter, made some notable contributions.  In what proved an active retirement, Roosevelt would often remark that more than the landmark anti-trust laws or his Nobel Peace Prize, the most enduring legacy of his presidency would be the federal legislation relating to the conservation and protection of the natural environment, both land and wildlife.  While he was in the White House, new national parks and forests were created, the total areas an impressive 360,000 square miles (930,000 km²), a reasonable achievement given the pressure vested interests exerted upon the Congress to prevent anything which would impinge upon “development”.

Portrait of Theodore Roosevelt (1903) by John Singer Sargent (1856–1925).

Roosevelt though was not typical and in most places the profits from industrialization & development proved more compelling than abstractions about the environment; even when the effects of climate change became obvious, it was clear only a crisis would rapidly create the conditions for change.  Events such as the London’s “Great Smog” of 1952 were so dramatic changes were made (culminating in the Clean Air Act (1956)) and the state of the air quality in San Francisco & Los Angeles was by the late 1950s so obviously deteriorating that California enacted anti-pollution laws even before there was much federal legislation, the state remaining in the vanguard to this day.  Those political phenomenon for a while encouraged the thought that even though decisive action to reduce carbon emissions was improbable while climate change (once referred to as “the greenhouse effect” and later “global warming”) seemed both remote and conceptual, once the “crisis events” began to affect those living in the rich countries of the global north (ie “the white folks”), the term would morph into “climate crisis” and resource allocation would shift to address the problem.  That theory remains sound but what was under-estimated was the threshold point for the word “crisis”.  Despite the increasing frequency and severity of wildfires, soaring temperatures, polar vortexes and floods, thus far the political system is still being adjusted on the basis of gradual change: the imperative remains managing rather than rectifying the problem.  Once, television-friendly events such as (1) melting glaciers creating landslides destroying entire villages which have for centuries sate in the Swiss Alps, (2) suburbs of mansions in the hills of Los Angeles being razed to the ground by wildfires, (3) previously unprecedented floods in Europe and Asia killing hundreds and (4) heat waves routinely becoming a feature of once temperate regions would have been thought “crisis triggers” but the political system has thus far absorbed them.

Silent Spring (First edition, 1962) by Rachel Carson.

The origins of the environment movement in its modem form are often traced to the publication in 1962 of Silent Spring by marine biologist Rachel Carson (1907–1964) although it took years for the controversy that book generated to coalesce into an embryonic “green” movement.  Silent Spring was a best-seller which (in an accessible form) introduced to the general public notions of the threat chemical pollution posed to ecology, the power of her argument being to identify the issue not as something restricted to a narrow section of agricultural concerns but as part of a systemic threat to the balance of nature and the very survival of human civilization.  There were many other influences (demographic, cultural, economic, educational etc) at this time and by the late 1960s, it was apparent concerns about pollution, over-population, pesticide use and such had created an identifiable shared language and public visibility although it was something too fragmented to be called a movement, the goals and advocated courses of action remaining disparate.  Structurally however, organizations were being formed and a convenient turning point suggesting critical mass had been achieved came in the US in April, 1970 when some 20 million participants received wide coverage in the media for Earth Day, a warning to the politicians that “the environment” might affect voting patterns.  It was in this era that the framework of US environmental legislation was built including the Clean Air Act (1970), Clean Water Act (1972) and Endangered Species Act (1973) was formed, all passed during the administration of Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974) and under Nixon, in 1970, the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) was created, an institution of which Theodore Roosevelt would have approved.

Earth Emotions: New Words for a New World (2019) by Professor Glenn Albrecht.

When working as a academic, Glenn Albrecht was granted conventional academic titles (such as Professor of Sustainability) but his work puts him in the category of “ecophilosopher”, a concept which would have been understood by the natural scientists of Antiquity; it’s now an increasingly populated field with a niche in popular publishing.  The eco- prefix was from the French éco-, from the Latin oeco-, from Ancient Greek οἶκος (oîkos) (house, household) and was for generations familiar in “economy” and its derivatives but is now most associated with ecology or the environment (in the ecological sense).  For better or worse, it has come to be applied to novel constructs including ecotourism (forms of “sustainable” tourism claimed to cause less environmental damage), ecofascism (literally “fascist politics with support for ecological concerns” but used usually (as a derogatory) to refer to uncompromising, aggressive or violent environmental activism, the most extreme form of which is ecoterrorism (a label used rather loosely, even of vegans who stage protests outside restaurants serving the products of the slaughter industry)) and ecofeminism (a socio-political movement combining feminism and environmentalism).

The ecophilosophers have produced many publications but Professor Albrecht has been unusual in that he has been prolific also in the coining of words, especially those which relate to or are consequent upon what he calls the “sumbiocentric” (taking into account the centrality of the process of symbiosis in all of our deliberations on human affairs”).  Such creations in emerging or expanding fields of study are of course not unusual.  In environmentalism, new terms and words have in recent decades appeared but there’s been a element of technological determinism to some.  Although the notion humanity lives on a “ship travelling through space” had been in use since at least the mid-nineteenth century, the metaphor had been nautical and it wasn’t until “spaceships” started to be launched the 1960s the term was updated to the now familiar “spaceship earth”.  Neologisms, even if used in context can be baffling but helpfully, Professor Albrecht published also a “glossary of psycho erratic terms” with pocket definitions explaining his lexicon of the “Earth’s emotions”.

Endemophilia: A “love of place”, specifically the “particular love of the locally and regionally distinctive in the people of a place.”  The mechanism for this is: “Once a person realizes that the landscape they have before them is not replicated in even a general way elsewhere in the country or on their continent or even in the world, there is ample room for a positive Earth emotion based on rarity and uniqueness.”  This is classified as a spectrum condition in that the more “a uniqueness is understood… the more it can be appreciated”.  Professor Albrecht was speaking of geology, florna & fauna but figuratively the concept can be applied to the built environment in urban areas and it doesn’t demand an interest in architecture to take pleasure from the form of (some) buildings.

Eutierria: A “feeling of total harmony with our place, and the naïve loss of ego (merging subject and ego) we often felt as children”.  Professor Albrecht cites the author Richard Louv (b 1949) who used the phrase “nature deficit disorder” in suggesting a word was needed to describe the state of harmony one could achieve if “connected to the Earth”.  Eutierria is a “positive feeling of oneness with the Earth and its life forces, where the boundaries between self and the rest of nature are obliterated, and a deep sense of peace and contentedness pervades consciousness”.

The HUCE (Harvard University Center for the Environment) in 2017 noted the phenomenon of mermosity, recording that some six months earlier New York Magazine had “published its most-read article ever, surpassing a photo spread of Lindsay Lohan.”  The topic the HUCE summarized as “Doom”, the apocalyptic visions of a world ravaged by climate change, the young especially afflicted by a crushing sense of dread.

Mermosity: “An anticipatory state of being worried about the possible passing of the familiar, and its replacement by that which does not sit comfortably in one’s sense of place.”  This is a word now with great currency because researchers have noted one aspect of the prominence in the media of (1) human-induced climate change and (2) the apparent inevitability of its adverse consequences has resulted in a pervading sense of doom among some, especially the young.  According to some psychologists, their young patients are exhibiting “mourning-like” behaviour, thinking the planet already in the throes of destruction and they exist merely as mourners at its protracted funeral.

Meteoranxiety: The “anxiety felt in the face of the threat of the frequency and severity of extreme weather events”.  This is an example of a feedback loop in that weather events (rain, storms, heatwaves etc) now tending by many to be attributed exclusively to human-induced climate change, thus exacerbating one’s mermosity.  In the literature of psychology, behavioral economics, neuroscience, philosophy, sociology & political science there are explanations (often replete with house jargon) explaining how “perception bias” & “cognitive bias” operate and interact but such things rarely are discussed on the TikTok news feeds which these days are so influential in shaping world views.

Solastalgia: “The pain or distress caused by the loss or lack or solace and the sense of desolation connected to the present state of one’s home and territory”.  This is the “lived experience of negative environmental change” and reflects the sense of loss of what once was (or one’s imagined construct of what once was), a phenomenon Professor Albrecht describes as “the homesickness you have when you are still at home”.  Although coined to be used in the context of climate change, it can be applied more widely and the feeling will be familiar to those who notice the lack of familiar landmarks in cities as urban redevelopment changes the architecture.  In those cases, the distress can be made more troubling still because even a building one may for years frequently have seen rapidly can fade from memory to the point where it can be hard to remember its appearance, even if it stood for decades.

Google ngram: Because of the way Google harvests data for their ngrams, they’re not literally a tracking of the use of a word in society but can be usefully indicative of certain trends, (although one is never quite sure which trend(s)), especially over decades.  As a record of actual aggregate use, ngrams are not wholly reliable because: (1) the sub-set of texts Google uses is slanted towards the scientific & academic and (2) the technical limitations imposed by the use of OCR (optical character recognition) when handling older texts of sometime dubious legibility (a process AI should improve).  Where numbers bounce around, this may reflect either: (1) peaks and troughs in use for some reason or (2) some quirk in the data harvested.  Being recent, the ngram for solastagia should be an untypically accurate indication of trends in use but it’s a quantitative and not qualitative measure: Although a word very much of the climate change era, it has been used in other contexts as, as a neologism, it appears also in many dictionaries and other on-line lists.

Sumbiocentric: “Taking into account the centrality of the process of symbiosis in all of our deliberations on human affairs”.  The special place environmentalism has assumed in the public consciousness means the sumbiocentric is positioned as something beyond just another construction of ethics and should be thought a kind of secular, moral theology.  Ominously, one apparent implication in this would appear to be the desirability (according to some the necessity) for some sort of internationally “co-ordinated” government, a concept with a wide vista and in various forms at times advocated by figures as diverse as the polemicist playwright George Bernard Shaw (GBS; 1856-1950) and Edward Teller (1908–2003), the so-called “father of the hydrogen bomb”.

Sumbiophilia: “The love of living together”.  This would apparently be the state of things in the symbiocene, a speculative era which would succeed the Anthropocene and be characterized by a harmonious and cooperative coexistence between humans and the rest of nature which presumably would be something of a new Jerusalem although shepherds, child care workers and others would be advised not to take literally the Biblical Scripture: “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.” (Isaiah 11:6, King James Version (KJV, 1611)).  However, other than sensible precautions when around carnivorous predators, all would exist in a symbiosis (living together for mutual benefit) without the destructive practices of the anthropocene.  In the world of Green Party wine & cheese evenings, sumbiophilia probably seems the most natural thing in the world although the party leadership would be sufficiently realistic to understand not all would agree so, when it was made compulsory, “re-education camps” would be needed to “persuade” the recalcitrant.  As used by Professor Albrecht, sumbiophilia is an ideal but one obviously counter-historical because the development of the nation state (which took millennia and was (more or less) perfected in the nationalisms which have been the dominant political paradigm since the nineteenth century) suggests what people love is not us all “living together” but groups of us “keeping the others out”.  Not for nothing are idealists thought the most dangerous creatures on Earth.

Terrafuric: “The extreme anger unleashed within those who can clearly see the self-destructive tendencies in the current forms of industrial-technological society and feel they must protest and act to change its direction”.  This is another spectrum condition ranging from writing truculent letters to the New York Times, to members of Extinction Rebellion super-gluing themselves to the road to assassinating the “guilty parties”, a la Luigi Mangione (b 1998).

Terranascia (“Earth creating forces”) and terraphthora (“Earth destroying forces”) are companion terms which could be used by geologists, cosmologists and others but the significance in this context is that humans are now (and have long been) among the most ecologically destructive forces known.

Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger (2017) by Antonia Grunenberg (b 1944).  Hannah Arendt's (1906-1975) relationship with Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) began when she was a 19 year old student of philosophy and he her professor, married and aged 36.  Both, for different reasons, would more than once have experienced solastalgia.

Solastalgia began life in the milieu of the climate change wars but poets and others beyond the battleground have been drawn to the word, re-purposing it in abstract or figurative ways, comparing the process of literal environmental degradation with losses elsewhere.  The adaptations have included (1) Social & cultural change (loss of familiar traditions or communities), (2) Linguistic erosion (mourning the disappearance of words, dialects or the quirks in language with which one grew up, replaced often by new (and baffling) forms of slang), (3) One’s personal emotional framework (the loss of friends, partner or family members), (4) Aging (the realization of mounting decrepitude), (5) Digital displacement (a more recent phenomenon which covers a range including an inability to master new technology, grief when once enjoyed digital spaces become toxic, commercialized or abandoned and having to “upgrade” from familiar, functional software to newer versions which offer no advantages), (6) Artistic loss (one’s favourite forms of music, art or literature become unfashionable and neglected) and (7) Existential disconnection (not a new idea but now one an increasing number claim to suffer; a kind of philosophical estrangement in which one feels “the world” (in the sense the German philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) used the word) has become strange and unfamiliar).

Quadraphonic

Quadraphonic (pronounced kwod-ruh-fon-ik)

(1) Of, noting, or pertaining to the recording and reproduction of sound over four separate transmission or direct reproduction channels instead of the customary two of the stereo system.

(2) A quadraphonic recording.

(3) A class of enhanced stereophonic music equipment developed in the 1960s.

1969: An irregular formation of quadra, a variant (like quadru) from the older Latin form quadri- (four) + phonic from the Ancient Greek phonē (sound, voice).  All the Latin forms were related quattor (four) from the primitive Indo-European kwetwer (four).  Phonē was from the primitive Indo-European bha (to speak, tell, say) which was the source also of the Latin fari (to speak) and fama (talk, report).  Phonic, as an adjective in the sense of “pertaining to sound; acoustics" was used in English as early as 1793. Those for whom linguistic hygiene is a thing approved not at all of quadraphonic because it was a hybrid built from Latin and Greek.  They preferred either the generic surround sound which emerged later or the pure Latin lineage of quadrasonic (sonic from sonō (make a noise, sound)) which appeared as early as 1970 although it seems to have been invented as a marketing term rather than by disgruntled pedants.  Quadraphonic, quadrasonic and surround sound all refer to essentially the same thing: the reproduction of front-to-back sound distribution in addition to side-to-side stereo.  In live performances, this had been done for centuries and four-channel recording, though not mainstream, was by the 1950s, not uncommon.  Quadraphonic is and adjective but had been used as a noun; the (equally irregular) noun plural is quadraphonics.

Surround sound

Quadraphonic was an early attempt to mass-market surround sound.  It used four sound channels with four physical speakers intended to be positioned at the four corners of the listening space and each channel could reproduce a signal, in whole or in part, independent of the others.  It was briefly popular with manufacturers during the early 1970s, many of which attempted to position it as the successor to stereo as the default standard but consumers were never convinced and quadraphonic was a commercial failure, both because of technical issues and the multitude of implementations and incompatibilities between systems; many manufacturers built equipment to their own specifications and no standard was defined, a mistake not repeated a generation later with the CD (compact disc).  Nor was quadraphonic a bolt-on to existing equipment; it required new, more expensive hardware.

Quadraphonic audio reproduction from vinyl was patchy and manufacturers used different systems to work around the problems but few were successful and the physical wear of vinyl tended always to diminish the quality.  Tape systems also existed, capable of playing four or eight discrete channels and released in reel-to-reel and 8-track cartridge formats, the former more robust but never suited to the needs of mass-market consumers.  The rise of home theatre products in the late 1990s resurrected interest in multi-channel audio, now called “surround sound” and most often implemented in the six speaker 5.1 standard.  Modern electronics and the elimination of vinyl and tape as storage media allowed engineers to solve the problems which beset quadraphonic but there remain audiophiles who insist, under perfect conditions, quadraphonic remains the superior form of audio transmission for the human ear.

Highway Hi-Fi record player in 1956 Dodge.

First commercially available in 1965, the eight-track cartridge format (which would later become the evil henchman of quadraphonic) convinced manufacturers it was the next big thing and they rushed to mass-production and one genuine reason for the appeal was that the 8-track cartridge was the first device which was practical for use as in-car entertainment.  During the 1950s, the US car industry had offered the option of record players, neatly integrated into the dashboard and in the relatively compact space of a vehicle's interior, the sound quality could be surprisingly high.  Although not obviously designed with acoustic properties optimized for music, the combination of parallel flat surfaces, a low ceiling and much soft, sound absorbing material did much to compensate for the small size and range offered by the speakers.  However, although they worked well when sitting still in showroom or in certain vehicles, on the road things could be different.  The records (the same size as the classic 7 inch (180 mm) 45 rpm "singles") played by means of a stylus (usually called "the needle") which physically traced the grooves etched into the plastic disks rotating at 16.66 rpm which, combined with an etching technique called "ultra micro-grooving" meant the some 45 minutes of music were available, a considerable advance on the 4-5 minutes of the standard single.  The pressings were also thicker than other records, better to resist the high temperatures caused by heat-soak from the engine and the environment although, in places like Arizona, warping was soon reported.  To keep the stylus in the track, the units were fitted with a shock-absorbing, spring enclosure and a counterweighted needle arm.  Improbably, in testing, the system performed faultlessly even under the most adverse road conditions so the designers presented the product for corporate approval.  At that point there was a delay because the designers worked for the Colombia Broadcasting Corporation (CBS) which had affiliations with thousands of radio stations all over the country and no wish to cannibalize their own markets; if people could play records in their cars, the huge income stream CBS gained from advertising would be threatened as drivers tuned out.  The proposal was rejected.

Highway Hi-Fi record player in 1956 Plymouth.

Discouraged but not deterred, the engineers went to Detroit and demonstrated the players to Chrysler which had their test-drivers subject the test vehicles to pot-holes, railway tracks and rolling undulations.  The players again performed faultlessly and Chrysler, always looking for some novelty, placed an order for 18,000, a lucrative lure which convinced even CBS to authorize production, their enthusiasm made all the greater by the proprietary format of the disks which meant CBS would be the exclusive source.  So, late in 1956, Chrysler announced the option of "Highway Hi-Fi", a factory-installed record player mounted under the car's dashboard at a cost of (US$200 (some US$1750 in 2023 terms)).  Highway Hi-Fi came with six disks, the content of which reflected the reactionary tastes of CBS executives and their desire to ensure people still got their popular music from radio stations but the market response was positive, Chrysler selling almost 4000 of the things in their first year, the early adopters adopting with their usual alacrity.

The second generation of players used standard 45 rpm singles: Austin A55 Farina (left) and George Harrison's (1943–2001) Jaguar E-Type S1 (right); all four Beatles had the players fitted in their cars and lead guitarist Harrison is pictured here stocking his 14-stack array.  The lady on the left presumably listened to different music than the Beatle on the right (although their in-car hardware was identical) but tastes can't always be predicted according to stereotype; although he disapproved of most modern music, Rudolf Hess (1894–1987; Nazi deputy Führer 1933-1941) told the governor of Spandau prison (where he spent 40 of his 46 years in captivity) he enjoyed The Beatles because their tunes "were melodic".  

At that point, problems surfaced.  Tested exclusively in softly-sprung, luxury cars on CBS's and Chrysler's executive fleets, the Highway Hi-Fi had to some extent been isolated from the vicissitudes of the road but when fitted to cheaper models with nothing like the same degree of isolation, the styluses indeed jumped around and complaints flowed, something not helped by dealers and mechanics not being trained in their maintenance; even to audio shops the unique mechanism was a mystery.  Word spread, sales collapsed and quietly the the option was withdrawn in 1957.  The idea however didn't die and by the early 1960s, others had entered the field and solved most of the problems, disks now upside-down which made maintaining contact simpler and now standard 45 rpm records could be used, meaning unlimited content and the inherent limitation of the 4 minute playing time was overcome with the use of a 14-disk stacker, anticipating the approach taken with CDs three decades later.  Chrysler tried again by the market was now wary and the option was again soon dropped.

1966 Ford Mustang with factory-fitted 8-track player.

Clearly though, there was demand for in-car entertainment, the content of which was not dictated by radio station programme directors and for many there were the additional attractions of not having to endure listening either to advertising or DJs, as inane then as now.  It was obvious to all tape offered possibilities but although magnetic tape recorders had appeared as early as 1930s, they were bulky, fragile complicated and expensive, all factors which mitigated against their use as a consumer product fitted to a car.  Attention was thus devoted to reducing size and complexity so the tape could be installed in a removable cartridge and by 1963, a consortium including, inter alia, Lear, RCA, Ford & Ampex had perfected 8-track tape which was small, simple, durable and able to store over an hour of music.  Indeed, so good was the standard of reproduction that to take advantage of it, it had to be connected to high quality speakers with wiring just as good, something which limited the initial adoption to manufacturers such as Rolls-Royce and Cadillac or the more expensive ranges of others although Ford's supporting gesture late in 1965 of offering the option on all models was soon emulated.  Economies of scale soon worked its usual wonders and the 8-track player became an industry standard, available even in cheaper models and as an after-market accessory, some speculating the format might replace LP records in the home.

Lindsay Lohan's A Little More Personal (Raw) as it would have appeared if released in the 8-Track format.

That never happened although the home units were widely available and by the late 1960s, the 8-track was a big seller for all purposes where portability was needed.  It maintained this position until the early 1970s when, with remarkable suddenness, it was supplanted the the cassette, a design dating from 1962 which had been smaller and cheaper but also inferior in sound delivery and without the broad content offered by the 8-track supply system.  That all changed by 1970 and from that point the 8-track was in decline, reduced to a niche by late in the decade, the CD in the 1980s the final nail in the coffin although it did for a while retain an allure, Jensen specifying an expensive Lear 8-track for the Interceptor SP in 1971, despite consumer reports at the time confirming cassettes were now a better choice.  The market preferring the cheaper and conveniently smaller cassette tapes meant warehouses were soon full of 8-track players and buyers were scarce.  In Australia, GMH (General Motor Holden) by 1975 had nearly a thousand in the inventory which also bulged with 600-odd Monaro body-shells, neither of which were attracting customers.  Fortunately, GMH was well-acquainted with the concept of the "parts-bin special" whereby old, unsaleable items are bundled together and sold at what appears a discount, based for advertising purposes on a book-value retail price there’s no longer any chance of realizing.

1976 Holden HX LE

Thus created was the high-priced, limited edition Holden LE (not badged as a Monaro although it so obviously looked like one that they've never been known as anything else), in "LE Red" (metallic crimson) with gold pin-striping, Polycast "Honeycomb" wheels, fake (plastic) burl walnut trim, deep cut-pile (polyester) carpet and crushed velour (polyester) upholstery with plaid inserts over vinyl surrounds in matching shades; in the 1970s, this was tasteful.  Not exactly suited to the image of luxury were the front and rear spoilers but they too were sitting unloved in the warehouse so they became part of the package and, this being the 1970s, rear-seat occupants got their own cigar lighter, conveniently located above the central ashtray.  Not designed for the purpose, the eight-track cartridge player crudely was bolted to the console but the audio quality was good and five-hundred and eighty LEs were made, GMH pleasantly surprised at how quickly they sold.  When new, they listed at Aus$11,500, a pleasingly profitable premium of some 35% above the unwanted vehicle on which it was based.  These days, examples are advertised for sale for (Aus$) six-figure sums but those who now buy a LE do so for reasons other than specific-performance.  Although of compact size (in US terms) and fitted with a 308 cubic inch (5.0 litre) V8, it could achieve barely 110 mph (175 km/h), acceleration was lethargic by earlier and (much) later standards yet fuel consumption was very high; slow and thirsty the price to be paid for the early implementations of the emission control devices bolted to engines designed during more toxic times.

1976 Holden HX LE Polycast "Honeycomb" wheel (14 x 7").

The Polycast process used a conventional steel wheel with a decorative face of molded polyurethane, attached with mechanical fasteners or bonded using adhesives (in some, both methods were applied) and although some snobs still call them "fake alloy" wheels, legitimately, they're a category of their own.  Because the rubbery, molded plastic fulfilled no structural purpose, designers were able to create intricate shapes which would then have been too delicate or complex to render (at an acceptable cost) in any sort of metal.  By consensus, some of the Ploycast wheels were among the best looking of the decade and, unstressed, they were strong, durable and long-lasting while the manufacturers liked them because the tooling and production costs were much lower than for aluminium or magnesium-alloy.  Another benefit was, being purely decorative (essentially a permanently attached wheelcover), their use faced no regulatory barriers; US safety rules were even then strict and Citroën at the time didn't both seeking approval for the more exotic "resin" wheels offered in Europe on the SM).

Aftermath of the pace car crash, Indianapolis 500, 29 May 1971; dozens were injured but there were no fatalities, despite impact with the well-populated camera stand being estimated at 60 mph (100 km/h).

The Holden LE's wheels came straight from the Pontiac parts bin in the US where they'd first appeared on the 1971 Firebird Trans-Am.  The concept proved popular with manufacturers and a set of Motor Wheels' "Exiter" (14" x 7", part number 36830 and advertised also as "Exciter") was fitted to the Dodge Challenger Pace car which crashed during the 1971 Indianapolis 500.  The crash was unrelated to the wheels, the driver (one of the Dodge dealers providing the pace car fleet) blaming the incident on somebody moving the traffic cone he'd used in practice as his pit-lane braking marker.    Motor Wheel's advertising copy: “What wheel can survive this beating?” and “...the new wheel too tough for the 'mean machine'” predated the crash at Indianapolis and was intended to emphasise the strength of the method of construction.

Twenty years on, the “parts bin special” idea was a part of local story-telling.  Although most doubt the tale, it's commonly recounted the 85 HSV VS GTS-R Commodores Holden built in 1996 were all finished in the same shade of yellow because of a cancelled order for that number of cars in "taxi spec", the Victorian government having mandated that color for the state's cabs.  While a pleasing industry myth, most suspect it's one of those coincidences and the government's announcement came after the bodies for the GTS-R had already been painted.  Being "taxi yellow" doesn't appear to have deterred demand and examples now sell for well into six figures (in Aus$).      

1971 Holden HQ Monaro LS 350

The overwrought and bling-laden Holden LE typified the tendency during the 1970s and of US manufacturers and their colonial off-shoots to take an elegant design and, with a heavy-handed re-style, distort it into something ugly.  A preview of the later “malaise era” (so named in the US for many reasons), it was rare for a facelift to improve the original.  The HQ Holden (1971-1974) was admired for an delicacy of line and fine detailing; what followed over three subsequent generations lacked that restraint although to be fair, while the last of the series (HZ, 1977-1980) ascetically wasn't as pleasing as the first, dynamically, it was much-improved.   

1973 Ford Falcon XA GT Hardtop (RPO83).

In the era of the LE, Ford Australia had it's own problem with unwanted two-door bodyshells.  Released too late to take advantage of what proved a market fad, Ford’s Falcon Hardtops (XA; 1972-1973, XB; 1973-1976 & XC; 1976-1979) never enjoyed the success of Holden’s Monaro (1968-1976), Chrysler’s Valiant Charger (1971-1978) or even that of Ford’s own, earlier Falcon Hardtop (XM; 1964-1965 & XP; 1965-1966).  The public’s increasing and unpredicted uninterest in the style meant that by 1976, like Holden, Ford had languishing in unwanted in their hands hundreds of body-shells for the big (in Australian terms although in the US they would have been classed “compacts”) coupés.  When released in 1972 Ford’s expectation was it would every year sell more than 10,000 Hardtops but that proved wildly optimistic and not even discounting and some “special editions” did much to stimulate demand.  By 1977 sales had dropped to a depressing 913 and with over 500 bodies in stock, the projection no more than 100 would attract buyers meant a surplus of 400; an embarrassing mistake.

Edsel Ford II with Falcon Cobra #001, publicity shot, Ford Australia's Head Office, Campbellfield, Victoria.  The badge below the Cobra decal reads 5.8; Australia switched to the metric system in 1973 but because of the nature of the machines, almost always the V8s are described either as 302 (4.9) or 351 (5.8), cubic inches being a muscle car motif. 

Scrapping them all had been discussed but in Australia at the time was Edsel Ford II (b 1948), great-grandson of Henry Ford (1863-1947), grandson of Edsel Ford (1893–1943) and the only son of Henry Ford II (1917–1987).  The scion had been sent to southern outpost to learn the family business and been appointed assistant managing director of Ford Australia; his solution profitably to shift the surplus hardtops was hardly original but, like many sequels, it worked.  What Edsel Ford suggested was to use the same approach which in 1976 had been such a success when applied in the US to the Mustang II (1973-1978): Create a dress-up package with the motifs of the original Shelby Mustangs (1965-1968), the most distinctive of which were the pair of broad, blue stripes running the vehicle’s full length.  In truth, the stripes had been merely an option on the early Shelby Mustangs but so emblematic of the breed did they become it’s now rare to see one un-striped.  The blinged-up Mustang IIs had been dubbed “Cobra II” and although mechanically unchanged, proved very popular.  One (unverified) story which is part of industry folklore claims the American’s suggestion was initially rejected by local management and discarded before a letter arrived from Ford’s Detroit head office telling the colonials that if Edsel Ford II wanted a Falcon Cobra with stripes, it must be done.  As Edsel's father once told a Lee Iacocca (1924–2019) who seemed to be getting ideas above his station: "Don't forget my name is on the building". 

Falcon Cobra #31.  The rear-facing bonnet (hood) scoop was the most obvious visual clue identifying the Option 97 (#002-031) cars although the after market responded and it became possible to buy replica scoops as well as the decals and plaques for those who wanted their own "Cobra look".

The Australian cars thus came to be “Cobra” and as well as providing a path to monetizing what had come to be seen as dead stock, the cars would also be a platform with which Ford could homologate some parts for use in racing.  The latter task was easy because in November 1977 Ford had built 13 “special order” XC Hardtops which conformed with the “evolution” rules of the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport (CAMS, then the regulatory body) for homologating parts for Group C touring car events.  Cognizant of the furore which had erupted in 1972 when high-output engines were homologated in road cars, the changes were mostly about durability and included enlarged rear wheel wells to accommodate wider wheels and tyres, a reverse hood (bonnet) scoop which drew desirable cool-air from the low-pressure area at the base of the windscreen, twin electric fans (switchable from the cockpit) which replaced the power-sapping engine-driven fan, a front tower brace (K-brace) which stiffened the body structure, an idler arm brace and front and rear spoilers.

Falcon Cobra #094 which was one of the "fully optioned" of the Option 96 build (#081-200 including the 351 V8, air-conditioning, power steering & power windows).

A prototype Falcon Cobra was built in April 1978 with production beginning the following July.  Unusually, all were originally painted Bold Blue before the areas which would become the stripes and the sill & wheel-arch highlights was masked with a coating of Sno White was painted over the top (thin Olympic (Blaze) Blue accent stripes separated the colors and “Cobra” decals were fitted to the sides and rear).  Each of the 400 built was fitted with a sequentially numbered plaque (001 to 400) on the dash and the production breakdown was:

#001: Created for promotional use, it was allocated for the photo-sessions from which came the images used in the first brochures (351 automatic).

#002-031: The Option 97 run which contained the parts and modifications intended for competition and produced in conformity with CAMS’s “evolution” rules (351 manual).

#032-041: 351 manual with air-conditioning (A/C) & power steering (P/S).

#042-080: 351 manual with A/C, P/S & power windows (P/W).

#081-200: 351 automatic with A/C, P/S & P/W.

#201-300: 302 manual.

#301-360 (except 351): 302 automatic with A/C & P/S.

#351: 351 manual.

#361-400: 302 automatic with A/C, P/S & P/W.

Moffat Ford Dealers team cars in the Hardie-Ferodo 1000 at Bathurst, finishing 1-2 in 1977 (left) and on the opening lap in 1978 (right).  In 1978, the cars (actually 1976 XB models modified to resemble XCs) matched their 1977 qualifying pace by starting second & third on the grid but in the race both recorded a DNF (did not finish). 

The Option 97 run (#002-031) included the modifications fitted to the 13 cars built in November 1997 but also included was engine & transmission oil coolers, a tramp rod (fitted only to the left-side because most racing in Australia is on anti-clockwise circuits and most turns thus to the left) and a special front spoiler which directed cooling air to the front brakes.  Visually, the Option 97 run was differentiated from the rest by the (functional) bonnet scoop and a pair of Scheel front bucket seats (part number KBA90018) in black corduroy cloth. Collectively, the 370 Option 96 and 30 Option 97 made up the 400 SVP (Special Value Pack) that was the Falcon Cobra.  The Cobra’s blue & white livery appeared on the race tracks in 1978 but the best known (the pair run by Allan Moffat's (v 1939) “Moffat Ford Dealers” team were actually modified XB Hardtops built in 1976 and the same vehicles which had completed the photogenic 1-2 at Bathurst in 1977.