Leap

Leap (pronounced leep)

(1) To spring through the air from one point or position to another; to jump.

(2) Quickly or suddenly to move or act.

(3) To cause to leap.

(4) A spring, jump, or bound; a light, springing movement.

(5) The distance covered in a leap; distance jumped.

(6) A place leaped or to be leaped over or from.

(7) A sudden or abrupt transition.

(8) A sudden and decisive increase.

(8) In folk mythology, to copulate with or coverture of (a female beast) (archaic).

(9) In slang, to copulate with (a human) (archaic).

(10) A group of leopards.

(11) In figurative use, a significant move forward.

(12) In figurative use, a large step in reasoning (often one that is not justified by the facts, hence the sceptical phrase “a bit of a leap” & “quite a leap”).

(13) In mining (also used in geology), a fault.

(14) In aquatic management, a salmon ladder; a trap or snare for fish, historically constructed with fallen from twigs; a “weely”.

(15) In music, a passing from one note to another by an interval, especially by a long one, or by one including several other intermediate intervals.

(16) An intercalary measure, best-known as “leap year”, “leap second” et al.

(17) In pre-modern measures of weight, half a bushel.

Pre 900: From the Middle English lepen, from the Old English hlēapan, from the Proto-West Germanic hlaupan, from the Proto-Germanic hlaupaną (a doublet of lope, lowp, elope, gallop, galop, interlope and loop).  It was cognate with the German laufen (to run; to walk), the Old Norse hlaupa the Gothic hlaupan, the West Frisian ljeppe (to jump), the Dutch lopen (to run; to walk), the Danish løbe and the Norwegian Bokmål løpe, from the primitive Indo-European klewb- (to spring; stumble) (and may be compared with the Lithuanian šlùbti (to become lame) & klùbti (to stumble).  The verb forms are tangled things.  The third-person singular simple present tense is leaps, the present participle leaping, the simple past leaped or leapt (lept & lope the archaic forms) and the past participle is leaped or leapt or (lept & lopen the archaic forms).  That leapt and leaped remain in concurrent use is another of those annoy things in English which are hangovers from their ancient entrenchments in regional use and, as a general principle leapt tends to be is preferred educated British English while leaped is seen more frequently in North America (although leapt is in those places not uncommon, especially in areas with historical ties to England).  The transitive sense as in “pass over by leaping” was in use by the early fifteenth century and there are references to the children’s game “leap-frog” documented in the 1590s, and so obvious was the use of that figuratively it probably quickly was adopted but the first attested entry dates from 1704.  The familiar “to leap tall buildings in a single bound” comes from the Superman comics of the 1940s although in idiomatic use, “leaps” has been paired with “bounds” since at least since 1720.  Leap is a noun, verb & adjective, leaper & leapling are nouns and leaping and leapt & leaped are verbs; the noun plural is leaps.

The leap year is “a year containing 366 days” and use dates from late fourteenth century Middle English lepe gere, a genuine innovation because no equivalent term existed in the Old English. The origin is thought to come from the effect of fixed festival days, which normally advance one weekday per year, to “leap” ahead one day in the week.  The Medieval Latin was saltus lunae (omission of one day in the lunar calendar every 19 years), the Old English form being monan hlyp.  The adjustments happened in the calendars of many cultures, always with the purpose of ensuring the man-made devices for tracking dates (and therefore time) remained consistent with the sun; summer needed always to feel like summer and winter like winter.  Different methods of handling the intercalary were adopted and in England the bissextile was the device.  The noun & adjective bissextile (plural bissextiles) dates from the early 1580s and was from the Latin bisextilis annus (bissextile year), the construct being bisextus + -ilis, deconstructed as bis- (two; twice; doubled) + sextus (sixth) + dies (day) and was a reference to the Julian calendar's original reckoning of its quadrennial intercalary day as a 48-hour 24 February (subsequently distinguished as the two separate days of the sixth day before the March calends (sexto Kalendas Martii) and the “doubled sixth day”.  In modern use, 24 February is now understood as “five days before 1 March” but in Roman use it was called “the sixth” because the counting of dates was then inclusive.

The most physically demanding (and dangerous) part of Lindsay Lohan’s impressive leap into a Triumph TR4 in Irish Wish was undertaken by a body double (the young lady in this case deserving the “stunt-double” title).

Ready to leap: Lindsay Lohan with stunt double Aoife Bailey (b 1999).

Lindsay Lohan's Netflix movie Irish Wish (2024) was said by Irish reviewers to be "a mix of Leap Year meets Just My Luck meets Freaky Friday in which Lohan stars as quiet book editor Maddie Kelly, who embarks on a journey to find love by learning to love herself first."  Like Irish Wish, Leap Year (2010) was filmed in Ireland but unlike 2010, 2024 was a leap year.  IMCDB’s (Internet Movie Cars Database) comprehensive site confirmed the Triumph TR4 was registered in Ireland (ZV5660, VIN:STC65CT17130C) as running the 2.1 litre version (17130C) of the engine.  The Triumph 2.1 is sometimes listed as a 2.2 because, despite an actual displacement of 2138 cm³; in some places the math orthodoxy is ignored and a "round up" rule applied, something done usually in jurisdictions which use displacement-based taxation or registration regimes, the "rounding up" sometimes having the effect of "pushing" a vehicle into a category which attracts a higher rate.  Those buying a TR4 for use in competitions with a 2.0 litre limit could specify the smaller unit from the factory but being based on a tractor engine (!) and thus fitted with wet-cylinder liners, “sleeving” a 2.1 back to 2.0 wasn’t difficult.  The lack of the "IRS" (independent rear suspension) badge on the trunk (boot) lid indicates the use of the live rear axle and that detail was of no significance in the plot although, given the leap scene, a convertible of some sort would have been required.  Although on the road the IRS delivered a smoother ride, those using TR4s in competition usually preferred the live rear-axle because it made the car easier to steer “with the throttle”.

The replacement of the bissextile by the then novel 29 February every four years-odd appears such an obviously good idea it seems strange it took centuries universally to be adopted in England although the documents reveal the shift was certainly well in progress by the mid-fifteenth century and in an echo of later practices, the more curmudgeonly the institution, the slower the intrusion of the new ways, the Admiralty and houses of parliament ignoring 29 February until well into the 1500s.  It wasn’t until the Calendar (New Style) Act (1750) passed into law that 29 February received formal recognition in UK law.  The reform worked well from the start but in some jurisdictions, government lawyers took no chances and for the handful of souls born on a 29 February, their birth dates were deemed to be 28 February or 1 March for all legal purposes (eligibility for drivers licenses or pensions, age of consent etc).  One born on 29 February is a “leapling” and there are said to be a few as five million of these lonely souls on the whole planet.  In many countries hospitals and midwives note the frequency with which expectant mothers approaching March request staff do whatever is required to avoid them giving birth to a leapling, fearing the child will feel deprived by having fewer birthdays than their siblings of friends.  The math of the leap year is it is one (1) evenly divisible by 4, (2) except for years are evenly divisible by 100 except that (3) years evenly divisible by 400 are leap years.  So, 2000 was while 1900 was not; 2100 will not be a leap year, but 2400 will be.  However, because the rotation of the Earth is changing (and thus the length of days), as is its distance from the Sun, even a 29 February now and then is not enough to keep everything in sync.  So, there are also leap seconds, spliced in as needed and unlike 29 February, only those dealing with atomic clocks and such notice addition.

Leap is common in idiomatic use:  To do something in “leaps and bounds” suggests commendably quick progress.  A “leap in the dark” is to take some action while being uncertain of consequences and the related “leap of faith” is trusting in something that cannot be seen or proven so in a sense they’re two ways of saying much the same thing although “leap of faith” does also imply some trust in something or someone.  To have one’s heart “leap into one’s throat” is an allusion to the sensation felt sometimes in the throat when something scary happens.  To “leap for joy” is much the same as “jump for joy” and describes joyous happiness.  To “leap at” something is enthusiastically to take up an offer, avail one’s self of an opportunity etc.  When doing so, one might be said to “leap into action”.  To be cautioned to “look before you leap” is to suggest one should be sure of things before doing something; if one ignores the advice then it’s a “leap of faith” or a “leap into the dark”.  To “leapfrog” is to skip a step in some process, the connotation almost always positive.  To suggest someone “take a flying leap” is much the same as telling them to “go jump in the lake” or, as is now more common: “fuck off”.  The concept of the "quantum leap" was in 1913 introduced (as the "quantum jump") by Danish physicist Niels Bohr (1885–1962) in his "Bohr model" of the atom.  In the strange world of quantum mechanics it describes the discontinuous change of the state of an electron in an atom or molecule from one energy level to another and was adopted figuratively to refer to an "abrupt, extreme change".  In modern use, it has come to mean a large or transformative change, a use to which pedants sometimes object but this is how the English language works.  The “leap year bug” is jargon rather than a idiom and describes the growing number of instances of problems caused by computers (and related machines) for whatever reason not correctly handling the existence of leap years.  Most are caused by human error and some are not being rectified because the original error has been built upon to such an extent that it’s easier to handle the bugs as they occur.  If something is said to be “a bit of a leap” or “quite a leap” it means there's some scepticism about the relationship one thing and another (often cause & effect). 

Jaguar's Leaper

Left to right (top row): Buick, Packard & Pierce-Arrow; (centre row): Rolls-Royce, Bentley & Mercury; (bottom row): Duesenberg, Mercedes-Benz & Nash.

The radiator cap of course began as a mere functional device which could be unscrewed to allow coolant to be added but, inevitably, possibilities occurred to stylists (they weren’t yet “designers”) and soon the things were a small platform for miniature (though many were anything but small) works of art to covey an image to suit at least what was imagined to be the character of the vehicle on which they sat.  Although such embellishments are now remembered for their decorative qualities (and many in the art deco era during the inter-war were lovely creations), some genuinely were functional and “topping-up” the coolant was for decades a frequent part of the motoring experience so, however attractive they may have been, their use as a handle means they may be thought architectonic as well as artistic. The Jaguar Leaper had fangs and while that sounds ominous for pedestrians, some of the radiator cap & hood emblems looked more lethal still and even before the “safety movement” of the 1960s, there had been discussions about the dangers they posed.  For the safety of pedestrians, the few survivors now are spring-loaded or retract when the vehicle is in motion.

Leaper on 1960 Jaguar Mark 2 3.8.  Owners found the fitting handy when opening the hood.

“Leaper” really was the factory’s name for the lunging feline figure which for decades adorned the space atop or behind the grill on many Jaguars.  The story of the origin is murky and while there may be some myth-making in it, the most likely explanation seems to be that when late in 1934 newly appointed Ernest William "Bill" Rankin (1898-1966, Advertising Manager and Public Relations Officer, Jaguar Cars 1934-1966) settled (from a list of charismatic wild animals) on “Jaguar” as a name for a new “sporty” SS (then the company name) car and, part of the “brand identity” was to design an appropriate radiator cap ornament.  Rankin was acquainted with the draftsman & technical illustrator Gordon Crosby (1885–1943) who he knew to be an amateur sculptor and it was to him the commission was granted.  Crosby delivered a prototype cast in bronze and according to company mythology, Jaguar’s founder, Sir William Lyons (1901–1985) thought it looked like “a cat shot off a fence” but liked the concept so, lengthened and softened into something sleeker, the refined shape emerged as the “Leaper”, first fitted in 1938.  The tales do differ, some suggesting Sir William’s “cat shot off a fence” thoughts were prompted by the sight of an earlier, third–party ornament which inspired him to task Mr Rankin with finding a replacement and, in the absence of documentary proof, Jaguar fans can pick the story they prefer.

Leaper on 1950 Jaguar Mark V 3.5.  The Mark V (1948-1951) was the last Jaguar with the external radiator cap.

The SS name came from the Swallow Sidecar Company which Lyons had in 1922 co-founded with William Walmsley (1892–1961), reorganized as “S.S. Cars” after 1934 when Walmsley withdrew and the adoption in 1935 of “Jaguar” as a model name was mere marketing and nothing to do with the by then unsavoury reputation of the German SS (Schutzstaffel (protection squad), which began in 1923 as a small security guard for Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) but which evolved into a kind of parallel army for the Nazi Party and later into an armed formation almost a million-strong).  Even by 1945 when motor vehicle production resumed and the corporate name S.S. Cars formerly was changed to “Jaguar Cars Limited”, the rationale was the stronger brand identity of the latter rather than an aversion to anything associative with the Nazis.  Indeed, in 1957 Jaguar returned to SS as designation with the release of the XKSS, a road-going version of the Le Mans-winning D-Type race car.

An early Leaper (left) and the later "in flight" version (right) with the fully extended hind legs.

First fitted to production SS Jaguars in 1938, it became standard equipment on all until 1951 when the Mark V was discontinued.  As the last Jaguar to feature an external radiator cap, the assumption was that was the end of the Leaper and the strikingly modernist XK120 which created a sensation at the 1948 London Motor Show had only a radiator grill; the spirit of the age was that the ornaments were antiquated relics.  However, elsewhere in the industry, modernity and nostalgia managed peacefully to co-exist and while there was no revival of external radiator caps, the ornaments refused to die and from expensive Mercedes-Benz and Rolls-Royce to the most humble Austins and Chevrolets, the chromed constructions continued and sometimes grew, those not able to sit atop grills (many now with no “top” as such) re-imagined as hood (bonnet) ornaments.  So, in 1955 the Jaguar Leaper made a comeback on the new small saloon (the 2.4), the mascot using the subtle post-war re-working of the hind legs, made more outstretched to suggest the big cat in “mid-leap”, about to take its prey.  On the saloons, the design lasted 14 years and it was fitted even to the XK150 for while the XK120 in 1948 had seemed streamlined modernity exemplified, the world had moved on and by 1957, although much improved and still stylish, the lines now seemed baroque rather than minimalist; the Leaper fitting in well.  For the big Mark X saloon in 1961, paradoxically, a smaller leaper was cast and this remained in use until the car (by then called 420G) was retired in 1970 so it was thus the last of the early Leapers, the XJ unadorned upon its debut in 1968 with the last of the legacy saloons produced in 1969.  The aftermarket though remained buoyant with many XJs and XJSs fitted with Leapers by owners who liked the look or dealers who thought they would.  It does seem they were fitted at the plant to almost all the New Zealand-assembled XJs and the factory may have been in two minds about it: the hoods of all XJs (1968-1992) included in the underside marks indicating where the holes should be drilled.  Not until the X300 XJ in 1994 would they again be factory-fitted to some models (in “pedestrian friendly” spring-loaded form) and this continued until 2005.

Leaper on a US market 1999 Jaguar Vanden Plas (X308).

The US market Vanden Plas models were the only Jaguars on which the leaper was used in conjunction with the fluted grill fitted to the home market (and some RoW (rest of the world)) Daimlers.  Because it was Mercedes-Benz and not Jaguar which after 1966 held the US rights to the Daimler brand, Daimlers since then sold in the US were badged as Jaguar Vanden Plas although they were otherwise identical to Daimlers including the fluted fittings.  The supercharged Daimler Vanden Plas was the most exclusive of the X308s and was noted for details such as the rear picnic tables being crafted from solid burl walnut timber rather than the veneer over plastic used on cheaper models.

1970 S2 Jaguar E-Type (top) from the "R2" run of 1000-odd (almost all of which were registered as 1971 models although some left the factory in 1970) with the leaper badges on the flanks and leaper badges, left-side (p/n BD35865, bottom left) and right side (p/n BD35866, bottom right).

The Series 2 E-Type (1968-1971) was marred by the clutter of bigger bumpers, protuberant headlight assemblies, badges and side-marker lights and so much did they detract from lovely, sleek lines of the Series 1 cars (1961-1967), bolting a luggage rack to the boot (trunk) lid probably seemed no longer the disfigurement it would once have been.  The disfigurement had begun with the transitional E-Types (the so-called 1.25 & 1.5 cars built in 1967).  The left-hand (left) and right-hand (right) fender badges, being directional, were different part numbers (BD35865 & BD35866 respectively) and those used on E-Types were silver on black whereas the variants used on the XJs were gold on black, some of which depicted the leaping feline at a slight slope, both matters of note for those wishing to restore cars to the challenging “factory original” standard.

1976 Jaguar XJC 4.2.

This XJC is one of many in the wild which, at some point, was fitted with a leaper but it’s a shame whoever made the addition didn't at the same time remove the unfortunate vinyl roof.  Like the headlight covers sometimes added to the later (S1.25 & 1.5) S1 E-Types, removing an XJC's vinyl roof is one of the rare exceptions the originality police tolerate and even encourage.

Still under the control of the doomed British Leyland, Jaguar lacked the resources fully to develop the XJC (1975-1998) and although it was displayed to much acclaim in 1973, not for another two seasons would it appear in showrooms, the programme starved of capital because greater priority was afforded to the XJ-S (1975-1996 and from 1991 officially “XJS”, a change most of the world informally had long adopted) which was thought a product with greater potential in the vital US market.  The XJC thus debuted with problems including (1) flawed sealing of the side windows which resulted in intrusive wind-noise, (2) a tendency of the doors to droop because, although longer and thus heavier than those of the four-door saloons, the same hinges were used and (3) the pillarless (ie a two-door hardtop) construction induced a slight flexing in the roof’s metal and while not a structural issue, because regulators had (quite sensibly) had lead removed from paint, the paint on the roof was prone to crazing.  The solutions (the development of exotic paint additives or re-designing the roof with heavier-gauge metal) would have been expensive and time-consuming so, in the British Leyland tradition, the Q&D (quick & dirty) approach was preferred and a vinyl roof was glued on but modern paints mean the ugly vinyl can now be removed so the roof’s lovely lines can be admired.  The leaper badges on the flanks (behind the front wheel arch) were factory-fitted on the Series 1 (1968-1973) & Series 2 (1973-1979) XJs.

Jaguar’s cancelled Growler (left) and the new (EV-friendly) Leaper.  According to the MBAs, the message the Leaper conveys is: “Always leaping forward, it is a representation of excellence and hallmark of the brand.”

The companion bad to the Leaper was the “Growler” which featured the head of a Jaguar, mid-growl.  There were over the years many version of the growler and it appeared variously on trunk-lids, grills, steering wheel bosses and such.  Because as a fitting it was never rendered in a way likely to cause injury to pedestrians, it might have been supposed it wouldn’t be vulnerable to cancellation but it transpired the Growler poses a significant moral hazard, presumably on the basis that while the somehow sensuously feminine Leaper is acceptable, the Growler embodies toxic masculinity.  Whether Jaguar’s MBAs discovered this from focus groups or divined it from their own moral superiority hasn’t be revealed but in 2024 the company announced the Growler would not re-appear when the new range was launched in 2025.  Given the public response to the DEI (diversity, equity & inclusion) themed preview of the company's EV (electric vehicle) re-brand, the presence or not of the Growler may not be of great significance but a new expression of the Leaper, (with something of a stylistic debt to the IBM logo), would be included so there’s that.

Simulacrum

Simulacrum (pronounced sim-yuh-ley-kruhm)

(1) A slight, unreal, or superficial likeness or semblance; a physical image or representation of a deity, person, or thing.

(2) An effigy, image, or representation; a thing which has the appearance or form of another thing, but not its true qualities; a thing which simulates another thing; an imitation, a semblance; a thing which has a similarity to the appearance or form of another thing, but not its true qualities

(3) Used loosely, any representational image of something (a nod to the Latin source).

1590–1600: A learned borrowing of the Latin simulācrum (likeness, image) and a dissimilation of simulaclom, the construct being simulā(re) (to pretend, to imitate), + -crum (the instrumental suffix which was a variant of -culum, from the primitive Indo-European –tlom (a suffix forming instrument nouns).  The Latin simulāre was the present active infinitive of simulō (to represent, simulate) from similis (similar to; alike), ultimately from the primitive Indo-European sem- (one; together).  In English, the idea was always of “something having the mere appearance of another”, hence the conveyed notion of a “a specious imitation”, the predominant sense early in the nineteenth century while later it would be applied to works or art (most notably in portraiture) judged, “blatant flattery”.  In English, simulacrum replaced the late fourteenth century semulacre which had come from the Old French simulacre.  As well as the English simulacrum, the descendents from the Latin simulācrum include the French simulacre, the Spanish simulacro and the Polish symulakrum.  Simulacrum is a noun and simulacral is an adjective; the noun plural is simulacrums or simulacra (a learned borrowing from Latin simulācra).  Although neither is listed, by lexicographers, in the world of art criticism, simulacrally would be a tempting adverb and simulacrumism an obvious noun.  The comparative is more simulacral, the suplerative most simulacral.

Simulacrum had an untroubled etymology didn’t cause a problem until French post-structuralists found a way to add layers of complication.  The sociologist & philosopher Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007) wrote a typically dense paper (The Precession of Simulacra (1981)) explaining simulacra were “…something that replaces reality with its representation… Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being, or a substance. It is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal.... It is no longer a question of imitation, nor duplication, nor even parody. It is a question of substituting the signs of the real for the real.” and his examples ranged from Disneyland to the Watergate scandal.  One can see his point but it seems only to state the obvious and wicked types like Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Joseph Goebbels (1897-1975; Nazi propaganda minister 1933-1945) said it in fewer words.  To be fair, Baudrillard’s point was more about the consequences of simulacra than the process of their creation and the social, political and economic implication of states or (more to the point) corporations attaining the means to “replace” reality with a constructed representation were profound.  The idea has become more relevant (and certainly more discussed) in the post-fake news world in which clear distinctions between that which is real and its imitations have become blurred and there’s an understanding that through many channels of distribution, increasingly, audiences are coming to assume nothing is real.

Mannerist but not quite surrealist: Advertising for the 1961 Pontiac Bonneville Sports Coupe (left) with graphical art by Art Fitzpatrick (1919–2015) & Van Kaufman (1918-1995) and a (real) 1961 Pontiac Bonneville Sports Coupe (right) fitted with Pontiac's much admired 8-lug wheels, their exposed centres actually the brake drum to which the rim (in the true sense of the word) directly was bolted.

The work of Fitzpatrick & Kaufman is the best remembered of the 1960s advertising by the US auto industry and their finest creations were those for General Motors’ (GM) Pontiac Motor Division (PMD).  The pair rendered memorable images but certainly took some artistic licence and created what were even then admired as simulacrums rather than taken too literally.  While PMD’s “Year of the Wide-Track” (introduced in 1959) is remembered as a slogan, it wasn’t just advertising shtick, the decision taken to increase the track of Pontiacs by 5 inches (127 mm) because the 1958 frames were used for the much wider 1959 bodies, rushed into production because the sleek new Chryslers had rendered the old look frumpy and suddenly old-fashioned.  It certainly enhanced the look but the engineering was sound, the wider stance also genuinely improved handling.  Just to make sure people got the message about the “wide” in the “Wide Track” theme, their artwork deliberately exaggerated the width of the cars they depicted and while it was the era of “longer, lower, wider” (and PMD certainly did their bit in that), things never got quite that wide.  Had they been, the experience of driving would have felt something like steering an aircraft carrier's flight deck.

1908 Cadillac Model S: The standard 56 inch (1422 mm) track (left) and the 61 inch (1549 mm) "wide track" (right), the more "sure-footed" stance designed for rutted rural roads.  

Pontiac made much of the “Year of the Wide Track” and it worked so well “wide track” would be an advertising hook for much of the 1960s although the idea wasn’t new, Cadillac in 1908 offering a wide track option for their Model S.  While the four cylinder Cadillacs were coming to be offered with increasingly large and elaborate coachwork, to increase the appeal of the single cylinder, 98 cubic inch (1.6 litre) Model S for rural buyers, there was the option of a 61 inch (1549 mm) track, 5 inches (127 mm) wider than standard.  The extra width was designed exactly to match the ruts in the roads of the rural Southwest, cut by generations of horse-drawn wagons.  Though a thoughtful gesture, times were changing and the 1908 Model S would prove the last single cylinder Cadillac, the corporation the next season standardizing the line around the Model Thirty which upon release would use the 226 cubic inch (3.7 litre) four-cylinder engine although in a harbinger of the 1950s and 1960s, it would be enlarged to 255 cubic inches (4.2 litre) for 1910, 286 cubic inches (4.7 litres) for 1911-1912 and finally 366 cubic inches (6.0 litres) for 1914.  For 1915, there was another glimpse of Cadillac’s path in the twentieth century with the introduction of the Model 51, fitted with the company’s first V8 with a displacement of 314 cubic inches (5.1 litres).  As the photographs suggest, nor was there anything new in the luxurious tufted leather upholstery Detroit in the 1970s came to adore, the style of seating used in the early (“brass era”), up-market automobiles taken straight from gentlemen’s clubs.

Fitzpatrick & Kaufman’s graphic art for the 1967 Pontiac Catalina Convertible advertising campaign.  One irony in the pair being contracted by PMD is that for most of the 1960s, Pontiacs were distinguished by some of the industry’s more imaginative and dramatic styling ventures and needed the artists' simulacral tricks less than some other manufacturers (and the Chryslers of the era come to mind, the solid basic engineering below cloaked sometimes in truly bizarre or just dull  bodywork).

This advertisement from 1961 hints also at something often not understood about what was later acknowledged as the golden era for both the US auto industry and their advertising agencies.  Although the big V8 cars of the post-war years are now remembered mostly for the collectable, high-powered, high value survivors with large displacement and induction systems using sometimes two four-barrel or three two-barrel carburetors, such things were a tiny fraction of total production and most V8 engines were tuned for a compromise between power (actually, more to the point for most: torque) and economy, a modest single two barrel sitting atop most and after the brief but sharp recession of 1958, even the Lincoln Continental, aimed at the upper income demographic, was reconfigured thus in a bid to reduce the prodigious thirst of the 430 cubic inch (7.0 litre) MEL (Mercury-Edsel-Lincoln) V8.  Happily for country and oil industry, the good times returned and by 1963 the big Lincolns were again guzzling gas four barrels at a time (the MEL in 1966 even enlarged to a 462 (7.6)) although there was the courtesy of the engineering trick of off-centering slightly the carburetor’s location so the primary two throats (the other two activated only under heavy throttle load) sat directly in the centre for optimal smoothness of operation.  Despite today’s historical focus on the displacement, horsepower and burning rubber of the era, there was then much advertising copy about (claimed) fuel economy, though while then as now, YMMV (your mileage may vary), the advertising standards of the day didn’t demand such a disclaimer.

Portrait of Oliver Cromwell (1650), oil on canvas by Samuel Cooper (1609-1672).

Even if it’s something ephemeral, politicians are often sensitive about representations of their image but concerns are heightened when it’s a portrait which, often somewhere hung on public view, will long outlive them.  Although in the modern age the proliferation and accessibility of the of the photographic record has meant portraits no longer enjoy an exclusivity in the depiction of history, there’s still something about a portrait which conveys, however misleadingly, a certain authority.  That’s not to suggest the classic representational portraits have always been wholly authentic, a good many of those of the good and great acknowledged to have been painted by “sympathetic” artists known for their subtleties in rendering their subjects variously more slender, youthful or hirsute as the raw material required.  Probably few were like Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658; Lord Protector of the Commonwealth 1653-1658) who told Samuel Cooper to paint him “warts and all”.  The artist obliged.

Randolph Churchill (1932), oil on canvas by Philip de László (left) and Randolph Churchill’s official campaign photograph (1935, right).

There have been artists for whom a certain fork of the simulacrum has provided a long a lucrative career.  Philip Alexius László de Lombos (1869–1937 and known professionally as Philip de László) was a UK-based Hungarian painter who was renowned for his sympathetic portraiture of royalty, the aristocracy and anyone else able to afford his fee (which for a time-consuming large, full-length works could be as much as 3000 guineas).  His reputation as a painter suffered after his death because he was dismissed by some as a “shameless flatterer” but in more recent years he’s been re-evaluated and there’s now much admiration for his eye and technical prowess, indeed, some have noted he deserves to be regarded more highly than many of those who sat for him.  His portrait of Randolph Churchill (1911-1968) (1932, left) has, rather waspishly, been described by some authors as something of an idealized simulacrum and the reaction of the journalist Alan Brien (1925-2008) was typical.  He met Churchill only in when his dissolute habits had inflicted their ravages and remarked that the contrast was startling, “…as if Dorian Gray had changed places with his picture for one day of the year.”  Although infamously obnoxious, on this occasion Churchill responded with good humor, replying “Yes, it is hard to believe that was me, isn’t it?  I was a joli garçon (pretty boy) in those days.”  That may have been true for as his official photograph for the 1935 Wavertree by-election (where he stood as an “Independent Conservative” on a platform of rearmament and opposition to Indian Home Rule) suggests, the artist may have been true to his subject.  Neither portrait now photograph seems to have helped politically and his loss at Wavertree was one of several he would suffer in his attempts to be elected to the House of Commons.

Portrait of Gina Rinehart (née Hancock, b 1954) by Western Aranda artist Vincent Namatjira (b 1983), National Gallery of Australia (NGA) (left) and photograph of Gina Rinehart (right).

While some simulacrums can flatter to deceive, others are simply unflattering.  That was what Gina Rinehard (described habitually as “Australia’s richest woman”) felt about two (definitely unauthorized) portraits of which are on exhibition at the NGA.  Accordingly, she asked they be removed from view and “permanently disposed of”, presumably with the same fiery finality with which bonfires consumed portraits of Theodore Roosevelt (TR, 1858–1919; US president 1901-1909) and Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955), both works despised by their subjects.  Unfortunately for Ms Reinhart, her attempted to save the nation from having to look at what she clearly considered bad art created only what is in law known as the “Streisand effect”, named after an attempt in 2003 by the singer Barbra Streisand (b 1942) to suppress publication of a photograph showing her cliff-top residence in Malibu, taken originally to document erosion of the California coast.  All that did was generate a sudden interest in the previously obscure photograph and ensure it went viral, overnight reaching an audience of millions as it spread around the web.  Ms Reinhart’s attempt had a similar consequence: while relatively few had attended Mr Namatjira’s solo Australia in Colour exhibition at the NGA and publicity had been minimal, the interest generated by the story saw the “offending image” printed in newspapers, appear on television news bulletins (they’re still a thing with a big audience) and of course on many websites.  The “Streisand effect” is regarded as an example “reverse psychology”, the attempt to conceal something making it seem sought by those who would otherwise not have been interested or bothered to look.  People should be careful in what they wish for.

Side by side: Portraits of Barak Obama (2011) and Donald Trump (2018), both oil on canvas by Sarah A Boardman, on permanent display, Gallery of Presidents, Third Floor, Rotunda, State Capitol Building, Denver, Colorado.

In March 2025 it was reported Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021 and since 2025) was not best pleased with a portrait of him hanging in Colorado’s State Capitol; he damned the work as “purposefully distorted” and demanded Governor Jared Polis (b 1975; governor (Democratic) of Colorado since 2019) immediately take it down.  In a post on his Truth Social platform, Mr Trump said: “Nobody likes a bad picture or painting of themselves, but the one in Colorado, in the State Capitol, put up by the Governor, along with all the other Presidents, was purposefully distorted to a level that even I, perhaps, have never seen before.  The artist also did President Obama and he looks wonderful, but the one on me is truly the worst. She must have lost her talent as she got older.  In any event, I would much prefer not having a picture than having this one, but many people from Colorado have called and written to complain. In fact, they are actually angry about it!  I am speaking on their behalf to the radical left Governor, Jared Polis, who is extremely weak on crime, in particular with respect to Tren de Aragua, which practically took over Aurora (Don’t worry, we saved it!), to take it down. Jared should be ashamed of himself!”

At the unveiling in 2019 it was well-received by the Republicans assembled.  If Fox News had an art critic (the Lord forbid), she would have approved but presumably that would now be withdrawn and denials issued it was ever conferred.  

Intriguingly, it was one of Mr Trump’s political fellow-travellers (Kevin Grantham (b 1970; state senator (Republican, Colorado) 2011-2019) who had in 2018 stated a GoFundMe page to raise the funds needed to commission the work, the US$10,000 pledged, it is claimed, within “a few hours”.  Ms Boardman’s painting mush have received the approval of the Colorado Senate Republicans because it was them who in 2019 hosted what was described as the “non-partisan unveiling event” when first the work was displayed hanging next to one of Mr Trump’s first presidential predecessor (Barack Obama (b 1961; US president 2009-2017), another of Ms Boardman’s commissions.  Whether or not it’s of relevance in the matter of now controversial portrait may be a matter for professional critics to ponder but on her website the artist notes she has “…always been passionate about painting portraits, being particularly intrigued by the depth and character found deeper in her subjects… believing the ultimate challenge is to capture the personality, character and soul of an individual in a two-dimensional format...”  Her preferred models “…are carefully chosen for their enigmatic personality and uniqueness...” and she admits some of her favorite subjects those “whose faces show the tracks of real life.”

Variations on a theme of simulacra: Four AI (artificial intelligence) generated images of Lindsay Lohan by Stable Diffusion.  The car depicted (centre right) is a Mercedes-Benz SL (R107, 1971-1989), identifiable as a post-1972 North American model because of the disfiguring bumper bar. 

So a simulacrum is a likeness of something which is recognizably of the subject (maybe with the odd hint) and not of necessity “good” or “bad”; just not exactly realistic.  Of course with techniques of lighting or angles, even an unaltered photograph can similarly mislead but the word is used usually of art or behavior such as “a simulacrum or pleasure” or “a ghastly simulacrum of a smile”.  In film and biography of course, the simulacrum is almost obligatory and the more controversial the subject, the more simulacral things are likely to be: anyone reading AJP Taylor’s study (1972) of the life of Lord Beaverbrook (Maxwell Aitken, 1879-1964) would be forgiven for wondering how anyone could have said a bad word about the old chap.  All that means there’s no useful antonym of simulacrum because one really isn’t needed (there's replica, duplicate etc but the sense is different) while the synonyms are many, the choice of which should be dictated by the meaning one wishes to denote and they include: dissimilarity, unlikeness, archetype, clone, counterfeit, effigy, ersatz, facsimile, forgery, image, impersonation, impression, imprint, likeness, portrait, representation, similarity, simulation, emulation, fake, faux & study.  Simulacrum remains a little unusual in that while technically it’s a neutral descriptor, it’s almost always used with a sense of the negative or positive.

Zephyr

Zephyr (pronounced zef-uhr (U) or zef-er (non-U))

(1) A gentle, mild breeze, considered the most pleasant of winds.

(2) By extension, any of various things of fine, light quality (fabric, yarn etc), most often applied to wool.

(3) In the mythology of Antiquity, the usual (Westernised) spelling of Ζεφυρος (Zéphuros or Zéphyros), the Greek and Roman god of the west wind, son of Eos & Astraeus and brother of Boreas; the Roman name was Zephyrus, Favonius.

(4) As a literary device, the west wind personified which should be used with an initial capital letter.

(5) In the mythology of Antiquity, as Zephyrette, a daughter of Aeolus; a tiny female spirit of the wind. 

(6) A model name used on cars of variable distinction produced by the Ford Motor Company (FoMoCo) and sold under the Ford, Mercury & Lincoln brands.

(7) A type of soft confectionery made by whipping fruit and berry purée (mostly apple purée) with sugar and egg whites, to which is added a gelling agent such as pectin, carrageenan, agar, or gelatine.  Often called zefir, the use was a semantic loan from the Russian зефи́р (zefír). 

Circa 1350: From the Middle English zeferus & zephirus, from the Old English zefferus, from the Latin zephyrus, from the Ancient Greek Ζέφυρος (Zéphuros or Zéphyros) (the west wind), probably from the Greek root zophos (the west, the dark region, darkness, gloom).  The Latin Zephyrus was the source also of zéphire (French), zefiro (Spanish) and zeffiro (Italian).  The feminine form zephyrette (capitalised and not) is rare and the alternative spellings were zephir & zefir, the latter (in the context of food) still current.  The casual use in meteorology dates from circa 1600 and the meaning has shifted from the classical (something warm, mild and occidental) to now be any gentle breeze or waft where the wish is to suggest a wind not strong and certainly not a gust, gale, cyclone, blast, typhoon or tempest.  Zephyr is a noun & verb, zephyred is a verb & adjective, zephyring is a verb and zephyrous, zephyrlike & zephyrean are adjectives; the noun plural is zephyrs.  The adverb zephyrously is non-standard.

Cupid and Psyche (1907) by Edvard Munch (1863–1944).

In Greek mythology, Ζεφυρος (transliterated as Zéphuros or Zéphyros) was the god of the west wind, one of the four seasonal Anemoi (wind-gods), the others being his brothers Notus (god of the south wind), Eurus (god of the east wind) and Boreas (god of the east wind).  The Greek myths offer many variations of the life of Zephyrus, the offspring of Astraeus & Eos in some versions and of Gaia in other stories while there were many wives, depending on the story in which he was featured.  Despite that, he’s also sometimes referred to as the “god of the gay”, based on the famous tale of Zephyrus & Hyakinthos (Hyacinthus or Hyacinth).  Hyacinth was a Spartan youth, an alluring prince renowned for his beauty and athleticism and he caught the eye of both of both Zephyrus and Apollo (the god of sun and light) and the two competed fiercely for the boy’s affections.  It was Apollo whose charms proved more attractive which left Zephyrus devastated and in despair.  One day, Zephyrus chanced upon the sight of Apollo and Hyacinth in a meadow, throwing a discus and, blind with anger, sent a great gust of wind at the happy couple, causing the discus to strike Hyacinth forcefully in the head, inflicting a mortal injury.  Stricken with grief, as Hyacinth lay dying in his arms, Apollo transformed the blood trickling to the soil into the hyacinth (larkspur), flower which would forever bloom in memory of his lost, beautiful boy. Enraged, Apollo sought vengeance but Zephyrus was protected by Eros, the god of love, on what seems the rather technical legal point of the intervention of Zephyrus being an act of love.  There was however a price to be paid for this protection, Zephyrus now pledged to serve Eros for eternity and the indebted god of the west wind soon received his first task.  There are other tales of how Cupid and Psyche came to marry but in this one, with uncharacteristic clumsiness, Cupid accidently shot himself with one of his own arrows of love while gazing upon the nymph Psyche and it was Zephyrus who kidnapped her, delivering his abducted prize to Cupid to be his bride.

Chloris and Zephyr (1875) by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905), Musee des Beau-Arts of the Musées Mulhouse Sud Alsace.

Zephyros was in classical art most often depicted as a handsome, winged youth and a large number of surviving Greek vases are painted with unlabeled figures of a winged god embracing a youth and these are usually identified as Zephyros and Hyakinthos although, some historians detecting detail differences list a number of them as being of Eros (the god of Love) with a symbolic youth.  Although sometimes rendered as a winged god clothed in a green robe and crowned with a wreath of flowers, in Greco-Roman mosaics, Zephyros appears usually in the guise of spring personified, carrying a basket of unripened fruit.  In some stories, he is reported to be the husband of Iris, the goddess of the rainbow and Hera’s messenger and in others, Podarge the harpy (also known as Celano) is mentioned as the wife of Zephyrus but in most of the myths he was married to Chloris.  Chloris by most accounts was an Oceanid nymph and in the tradition of Boreas & Orithyia and Cupid and Psyche, Zephyrus made Chloris his wife by abduction, making her the goddess of flowers, for she was the Greek equivalent of Flora and, living with her husband, enjoyed a life of perpetual spring.

Standardized wind: The Beaufort wind force scale

With strategically placed palms, Lindsay Lohan resists a zephyr's efforts to induce a wardrobe malfunction, MTV Movie Awards, Los Angeles, 2008 (left) which may be C&Ced (compared & contrasted) with the stronger breeze (probably 3-4 on the Beaufort Scale) disrupting the modern art installation that is Donald Trump's (b 1946; US president 2017-2021 and since 2025) hair (right).

Beaufort Wind Scale, circa 1865.

The Beaufort wind force scale was devised because the British Admiralty was accumulating much data about prevailing weather conditions at spots around the planet where the Royal Navy sailed and it was noticed there was some variation in way different observers would describe the wind conditions.  In the age of sail, wind strength frequency and direction was critical to commerce and warfare and indeed survival so the navy needed to information to be as accurate an consistent as possible but in the pre-electronic age the data came from human observation, even mechanical devices not usually in use.  What Royal Navy Captain (later Rear Admiral) Sir Francis Beaufort 1774–1857) early in nineteenth century noticed was that a sailor brought up in a blustery place like the Scottish highlands was apt to understate the strength of winds while those from calmer places were more impressed by even a moderate breeze, little more than what a hardy Scots sold salt would call a zephyr.  Accordingly, he developed a scale which was refined until formally adopted by the Admiralty during the 1930s after he’d been appointed Hydrographer of the Navy.  The initial draft reflected the functional purpose, the lowest rating describing the sort of gentle zephyr which was just enough to enable a ship's captain slowly to manoeuvre while the highest was of the gale-force winds which would shred the sails.  As sails gave way to steam, the scale was further refined by referencing the effect of wind upon the sea rather than sails and it was adopted also by those working in shore-based meteorological stations.  In recent years, categories up to 17 have been added to describe the phenomena described variously as hurricanes, typhoons & cyclones.

The National Biscuit Company's Zephyrettes, circa 1915.

In the mythology of Antiquity, Zephyrette was a daughter of Aeolus and a tiny female spirit of the wind.  That the nymph's name was early in the twentieth century appropriated by the National Biscuit Company (1898–1971, Nabisco (1971–1985) & RJR Nabisco (1985–1999) and now a subsidiary of Mondelēz International) to describe a light, crisp cracker, recommended to be used for hors d'oeuvres might outrage feminists studying denotation and connotation in structural linguistics and the more they delve, the greater will be the outrage.  Mostly, the word "zephyr" now is used by novelists and poets because while indicative of the force of a wind, it's not defined and is thus not a formal measure so what's a zephyr in one poem might be something more or less in another.  In other texts, such inconsistencies might be a problem but for the few thousand souls on the planet who still read poetry, it's all part of the charm.

For good & bad: FoMoCo's Zephyrs

Lincoln Zephyr V12, 267 cubic inches (4.4 litre).  It was the last of the American V12s.

In the inter-war era, the finest of the big American cars, the Cadillacs, Lincolns, Packards and Duesenbergs, offered craftsmanship the equal of anything made in Europe and engineering which was often more innovative.  The 1930s however were difficult times and by mid-decade, sales of the big K-Series Lincolns, the KA (385 cubic inch (6.3 litre) V8) and KB (448 cubic inch (6.3 litre) V12) were falling.  Ford responded by designing a smaller, lighter Lincoln range to bridge the gap between the most expensive Ford and the lower-priced K-Series Lincolns, the intention originally to power it with an enlarged version of the familiar Ford V8 but family scion Edsel Ford (1893–1943; president of the Ford Motor Company (FoMoCo), 1919-1943), decided instead to develop a V12, wanting both a point of differentiation and a link to K-Series which had gained for Lincoln a formidable reputation for power and durability.  Develop may however be the wrong word, the new engine really a reconfiguration of the familiar Ford V8, the advantage in that approach being it was cheaper than an entirely new engine, the drawback the compromises and flaws of the existing unit were carries over and in some aspects, due to the larger size and greater internal friction, exaggerated.

Lincoln Zephyr V12, 292 cubic inches (4.8 litre).

The V12 however was not just V8 with four additional pistons, the block cast with a vee-angle of 75^o rather than the eight’s 90^o, a compromise between compactness and the space required for a central intake manifold and the unusual porting arrangement for the exhaust gases.  The ideal configuration for a V12 is 60^o and without staggered throws on the crankshaft, the 75^o angle yielded uneven firing impulses, although, being a relatively slow and low-revving unit, the engine was felt acceptably smooth.  The cylinder banks used the traditional staggered arrangement, permitting the con-rods to ride side-by-side on the crank and retained the Ford V-8’s 3.75 inch (90.7 mm) stroke but used a small bore of just 2.75 inches (69.75 mm), then the smallest of any American car then in production, yielding a displacement of 267 cubic inches (4.4 litres), a lower capacity than many of the straight-eights and V8s then on the market.

Because the exhaust system was routed through the block to four ports on each side of the engine, cooling was from the beginning the problem it had been on the Ford V8 but on a larger scale.  Although the cooling system had an apparently impressive six (US) gallon (22.7 litre) capacity, it quickly became clear this could, under certain conditions, be marginal and the radiator grill was soon extended to increase airflow.  Nor was lubrication initially satisfactory, the original oil pump found to be unable to maintain pressure when wear developed on the curfaces of the many bearings; it was replaced with one that could move an additional gallon (3.79 litre) a minute.  Most problems were resolved during the first year of production and the market responded to the cylinder count, competitive price and styling; after struggling to sell not even 4000 of the big KAs in 1935, Lincoln produced nearly 18,000 Zephyrs in 1936, sales growing to over 25,000 the following year.  Production between 1942-1946 would be interrupted by the war but by the time the last was built in 1948, by which time it had been enlarged to 292 cubic inches (4.8 litre (there was in 1946, briefly, a 306 cubic inch (5.0 litre) version) over 200,000 had been made, making it the most successful of the American V12s.  It was an impressive number, more than matching the 161,583 Jaguar built over a quarter of a century (1971-1997) and only Daimler-Benz has made more, their count including both those used in Mercedes-Benz cars and the the DB-60x inverted V12 aero-engines famous for their wartime service with the Luftwaffe and the Mercedes-Benz T80, built for an assault in 1940 on the LSR (Land Speed Record).  Unfortunately, other assaults staged by the Third Reich (1939-1945) meant the run never happened but the T80 is on permanent exhibition in the factory's museum in Stuttgart so viewers can ponder Herr Professor Ferdinand Porsche's (1875–1951) pre-war slide-rule calculations of a speed of 650 km/h (404 mph) (not the 750 km/h (466 mph) sometimes cited).

1939 Lincoln-Zephyr Three Window Coupe (Model Code H-72, 2500 of which were made out of the Zephyr’s 1939 production count of 21,000).  It was listed as a six-seater but the configuration was untypical of the era, the front seat a bench with split backrests, allowing access to the rear where, unusually, there were two sideways-facing stools.  In conjunction with the sloping roofline, it was less than ideal for adults and although the term “3+2” was never used, that’s probably the best description.  The H-72 Three Window Coupe listed at US$1,320, the cheapest of the six variants in the 1939 Zephyr range.

It may sound strange that in a country still recovering from the Great Depression Ford would introduce a V12 but the famous “Flathead” Ford V8 was released in 1932 when economic conditions were at their worst; people still bought cars.  The V12 was also different in that although a configuration today thought of as exotic or restricted to “top of the line” models, for Lincoln the Zephyr was a lower-priced, mid-size luxury car to bridge a gap in the corporate line-up.  Nor was the V12 a “cost no object” project, the design using the Flathead’s principle elements and while inaccurate at the engineering level to suggest it was the “Ford V8 with four cylinders added” the concept was exactly that and if the schematics are placed side-by-side, the familial relationship is obvious.  Introduced in November 1935 (as a 1936 model), the styling of the Lincoln Zephyr attracted more favourable comment than Chrysler’s Airflows (1934-1937), an earlier venture into advanced aerodynamics (then known as “streamlining”) and the name had been chosen to emphasize the wind-cheating qualities of the modernist look.  With a raked windscreen and integrated fenders, it certainly looked slippery and tests in modern wind tunnels have confirmed it indeed had a lower CD (drag coefficient) than the Airflows which looked something like unfinished prototypes; the public never warmed to the Airflows, however accomplished the engineering was acknowledged to be.  By contrast, the Zephyrs managed to cloak the functional efficiency in sleek lines with pleasing art deco touches; subsequently, New York’s MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) acknowledged it as “the first successfully streamlined car in America”.  So much did the style and small V12 capture the headlines it was hardly remarked upon that with a unitary body, the Zephyr was the first Ford-made passenger vehicle with an all-steel roof, the method of construction delivering the required strength at a lighter weight, something which enabled the use of an engine of relatively modest displacement.

The American Home Front 1941-1942 (2006) by Alistair Cooke (1908-2004),  The cover illustration was of him filling up the Zephyr's V12, Pasadena, California, 1942.

In 1942, just after the US had entered the war (thereby legitimizing the term “World War II” (1939-1945)) the expatriate (the apocope “expat” not in general use until the 1950s when Graham Greene's (1904-1991) novel The Quiet American (1955) appears to have given it a boost) UK-born US journalist Alistair Cooke began a trip taking from Washington DC and back, via Virginia, Florida, Texas, California, Washington state and 26 other states, purchasing for the project a 1936 Lincoln Zephyr V12, his other vital accessories five re-tread tyres (with the Japanese occupation of Malaya, rubber was in short supply and tyres hard to find), a gas (petrol) ration coupon book and credentials from his employer, the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation).  It was a journalist’s project to “discover” how the onset of war had changed the lives of non-combatant Americans “on the home front” and his observations would provide him a resource for reporting for years to come.  Taking photographs on his travels, he’d always planned to use the material for a book but, as a working journalist during the biggest event in history, it was always something done “on the side” and by the time he’d completed a final draft it was 1945 and with the war nearly over, he abandoned the project, assuming the moment for publication had passed.  It wasn’t until two years after his death that The American Home Front 1941-1942 (2006) was released, the boxed manuscript having been unearthed in the back of a closet, under a pile of his old papers.

Cooke had a journalist’s eye and the text was interesting as a collection of unedited observations of the nation’s culture, written in the language of the time.  In the introduction Cooke stated: “I wanted to see what the war had done to the people, to the towns I might go through, to some jobs and crops, to stretches of landscape I loved and had seen at peace; and to let the significance fall where it might.”  During his journey, he interviewed many of the “ordinary Americans” then traditionally neglected by history (except when dealt with en masse), not avoiding contentious issues such as anti-Semitism and racism but also painted word-pictures of the country through which he was passing, never neglecting to describe the natural environment, most of it unfamiliar to an Englishman who’d spent most of his time in the US in cities on the east and west coasts.  As a footnote, although the Zephyr’s V12 engine has always been notorious for the deficiencies in its cooling system, at no time during the journey did Cooke note the car overheating so either the radiator and plumbing did the job or he thought the occasional boil-over so unremarkable he made no remark. 

1969 Ford (UK) Zephyr Zodiac Mark IV.

Lincoln ceased to use the Zephyr name after 1942, subsequent V12 cars advertised simply as Lincolns, distinguished in name only by the coachwork.  The Zephyr badge was in 1950 revived by Ford of England for their line of mainstream family cars, augmented after 1953 by an up-market version called the Zodiac, noted for its bling.  The first three generations (1950-1966) were well-regarded (the Mark III (1962-1966) in most ways a superior car to the contemporary US Ford Falcon) and enjoyed success in both the home and export markets but the Mark IV (1966-1972), despite a tantalizingly advanced specification and offering a lot of interior space and external metal for the money, proved so ghastly the name was retired when the range was replaced with something (the Mark 1 Granada (1972-1977) which was on paper less ambitious but was, on the road, much superior.  Not having suffered the tainted Mark IV Zephyrs, Ford felt it safe to recycle the Zephyr name in the US, firstly on the bland Mercury clone (1978-1983) of the (US) Ford Fairmont and finally, for two seasons (2005-2006), on an undistinguished Lincoln which with some haste was re-branded "MKZ".  On either side of the Atlantic, there have been no Zephyrs since.

 

1962 Ford Galaxie 500/XL Sunliner Convertible 390 (left), 1967 Ford Zodiac Executive (centre) and 1974 Leyland P76 V8 Executive (right). 

The Mark IV Zodiac's wheel covers (the design concept known as "starburst") had first been seen in the US on the 1962 Ford Galaxie and for Detroit's colonial outposts the use of components, years after they'd been discontinued in the US, was common.  In Australia, for the Fairlane and LTD, Ford at various times used the wheel covers introduced on the 1969 & 1970 Thunderbird (replacing the former with something flatter after owners reported vulnerability to damage from curbsides so either Australians were less competent at parking or the guttering designs used by cities was different) and some were still being fitted as late as 1982.  At least that was within the corporate family.  in 1973, Leyland Australia clearly so liked what ended up on the Zodiac they pinched the idea for the ill-fated P76 (1973-1976).  God punishes those who violate his seventh commandment but in fairness to Leyland (even in retrospect they need all the help they can get), the "starburst" motif had long been popular for wheelcovers, hubcaps (there is a difference) and aluminum wheels.

Starburst sea anemone (left), Kelsey-Hayes cast aluminum wheel for 1967 C2 Chevrolet Corvette (centre), the five-stud (option code N89) version unique to the 1967 range, replacing the knock off version (option code P48, 1963-1966) which had to be retired when US regulators passed rules restricting the use of the centre-lock, knock-off hubs.  To conceal the five studs, there was a "centre cap" (ie a hubcap in the classic sense) in the style of the wheel and these colloquially are known as "starbursts" (right).  The Corvette's wheels were manufactured by Western Wheel Corporation (a division of Kelsey-Hayes).

As a noun & verb, “starburst” widely has been used in slang and commerce but its origin is owed to astronomers of the 1830s and in the field it’s been used variously to describe (1) a violent explosion, or the pattern (likened to the shape of a star) supposed to be made by such an explosion and (2) a region of space or period of time (distinct concepts for this purpose) with an untypically or unexpectedly high rate of star formation.  In SF (science fiction), starbursts can be more exotic still and have described machines from light-speed propulsion engines to truly horrid doomsday weapons.  In typography, a starburst is a symbol similar in shape to an asterisk, but with either or both additional or extended rays and it’s used for a brand of fruit-flavored confectionery, the name implying the taste “explodes” in the mouth as one chews or sucks.  In corporate use, starburst is slang for the breaking up of a company (or unit of a company) into a number of distinct operations and in software it was in the early 1980s used as the brand name of an application suite (based around the Wordstar word-processor) which was (along with Electric Office) one of the first “office suites”, the model Microsoft would later adopt for its “Office” product which bundled, Word, Excel, the dreaded PowerPoint and such.  It was the name of a British made-portable surface-to-air missile (MANPADS) produced in the late twentieth century, in botany it’s a tropical flowering plant (Clerodendrum quadriloculare), the term applied also to a species of sea anemone in the family Actiniidae and, in human anatomy, certain cell types (based on their appearance).  In photography, the “starburst effect” refers to the diffraction spikes which radiate from sources of bright light.

 

2006 Lincoln Zephyr.

 

Available only in 2005-2006 before it was “refreshed” and renamed MKZ (2007-2012), the Lincoln Zephyr picked up its styling cues from a concept car displayed at the 2004 New York International Auto Show although with the lines tempered for production-line reality.  In a sign of the times, it replaced the rear wheel drive (RWD), V6 & V8 powered LS sedan (2000-2006, with one model sharing showrooms with the Zephyr for its final year) which had been well-reviewed in press reports but never succeeded as a challenger to the BMW 5-Series and Mercedes-Benz E-Class.  The twenty-first century Zephyr wasn’t a “bad” car in the sense the word is attached to the English Mark IV Zephyr & Zodiac but it was bland and built on the Mazda CD3 front wheel drive (FWD) platform which provided the underpinnings for also the Mazda 6, Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan; despite Lincoln’s efforts, had it not had the badges, most would have assumed the Zephyr was a fancy Ford or a Mercury, so closely did it resemble both.  Struggling to find some point of differentiation, journalists always mentioned the wood trim in the interior was “real timber”, quoting with approval from the document in the press-pack: “Ebony or maple wood inserts”.  Even that wasn't enough to persuade many it was worth some US$30,000, a US$6000-odd premium over the substantially similar Mercury Milan Premier V6.  It did though undercut by US$4000 what a basic V6 LS has cost the year before so the price of entry to Lincoln ownership became less but that also brought the usual marketing conundrum: “Lowering the price increases sales but tarnishes the perception of the brand as a prestige product”.

 

2012 Lincoln MKZ.

There was also the name.  The original Lincoln Zephyr had existed only between 1935-1942 and, except a as niche among collectors, had long ago faded from public consciousness, the same phenomenon which made the choice of “Maybach” by Mercedes-Benz so curious; Toyota’s decision to create “Lexus” was a much better idea and perhaps an indication Japanese MBAs were better informed than German MBAs.  For 2007 the Zephyr was renamed MKX and even that “naming strategy” (now an MBA fixation) may not within the corporation been well-communicated because initial suggestions for pronunciation included “Mark 10” & “Mark X”, picking up on the (actually quite muddled) history of Lincoln's “Mark” cars which, off & on, existed between 1956-1998 (although the label was in 2006-2007 revived for a pick-up truck(!)).  Neither caught on and before long, like everyone else, company executives were saying “em-kay-zee”.  The “Mark” moniker would have been tempting because, as the “Zephyr affair” demonstrated, despite a history stretching back to 1917, the only Lincoln brand names with any traction in the public imagination are “Continental” and “Mark something”.  When MKZ production ended in 2012, the demise wasn’t so much unlamented as unnoticed.