Mile

Mile (pronounced mahyl)

(1) A unit of a unit of distance on land, derived from the 1593 English statute mile (equal to 8 furlongs) and still in use in some English-speaking countries.  In 1959, in a treaty established by a number of Anglophone nations (and subsequently ratified by most), it was defined as distance equal to 5,280 feet (1,760 yards; 1.609.344 metres).

(2) Any of many customary units of length derived from the Roman mile (mille passus) of 8 stades (5,000 Roman feet).

(3) Any of a variety of other units of distance or length, used at different times in different countries.

(4) In athletics and horse racing (as “the mile”), a race run over that distance.

(5) In idiomatic use (in both the singular and plural), a notable distance or margin.

(6) As “air miles”, a unit in an airline’s frequent flyer program.

Pre 1000: From the Middle English myle & mile, from the Old English mīl, from the Proto-West Germanic mīliju, from the Latin mīlia & mīllia (plural of mīle & mīlle (mile)) which translates literally as “thousand” but was a commonly used short-form of mīlle passus (a thousand paces), thus the derived mīlia passuum (thousands of steps), duo milia passuum (two thousand paces (ie “two miles’) etc).  The origin of the Latin word is unknown and was the source also of the French mille, the Italian miglio and the Spanish milla whereas the Scandinavian forms (the Old Norse mila etc) came from English.  The West Germanic word was the source also of the Middle Dutch mile, the Dutch mijl, the Old High German mila and the German Meile.  The spelling of the German forms came about because the Latin milia (a neuter plural) was mistakenly thought a feminine singular.  Mile & mileage are nouns and miles is an adverb; the noun plural is miles.

Fuel economy for the 2017 Dodge Viper GTC, estimated according the the method mandated by the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency).  The 14 mpg (12 city; 19 highway) isn't as thirsty as it may sound because a US gallon (3.785412 litres) is smaller than an imperial gallon (4.546092 litres).  The inclusion of a “gallons per 100 miles” number is unique to the US.  How many Viper owners achieved this level of economy isn't known because if one is at the controls of an 8.4 litre (513 cubic inch) V10 generating 645 horsepower (HP), the temptation exists to drive in a manner Greta Thunberg (b 2003 and not a Viper owner) would not approve.  The Viper GTC was fitted with a speedometer graduated to 220 mph (355 km/h).

The noun mileage (which appeared also as milage and although the “mute e” rule would suggest this was correct it never caught on) was in use by at least 1754 in the sense of “allowance or compensation for travel or conveyance reckoned by the mile” and that was so politicians in the North American colonies could calculate how much they could claim for travel undertaken in the course of their word.  To this day, “travel allowances” remain the “entitlements” most valued by politicians looking to “rort the system”.  From the mid 1830s, the idea of mileage as “a fixed rate per mile” came into use in railroad system charging.  The meaning “a total number of miles” (of a way made, used, or traversed) was from the 1860s while the figurative use (usefulness, derived benefit) emerged at much the same time.  The long familiar mpg (miles per gallon) was a measure of fuel economy (miles driven per gallon of fuel consumed) and came into use between 1910-1912.  When the metric system was introduced to jurisdictions previously using imperial measurement, instead of replacing mpg with kpl (kilometres per litre), the measure used was L/100 km (litres per 100 km).  According to engineers, L/100 km was preferable because it emphasised consumption and thus aligned with other measures expressed to consumers (such as electricity or emissions), the argument being the psychology of “the lower the number the better” would be standardized.  So, whereas the higher the MPG the lower was the fuel consumption whereas with L/100, greater efficiency was implied by a lower number.  In a practical sense, because Continental Europe adopted L/100 km long before widespread metrication in English-speaking countries, a convention had been established so it would not have been logical to create another expression; thus except in the US & UK, consumption follows the industry’s preferred “input per output” method.

The terms milepost and milestone were from the mid eighteenth century and described respectively (1) a post permanently set in the ground next to a roadway to mark the distance to or from a locality and (2) a stone permanently set in the ground and engraved for the same purpose.  The now obsolete adjective milliary (of or relating to a mile, or to distance by miles; denoting a mile or miles) dates from the 1640s and was from the Latin milliarius, from mille.  The blended noun kilomile (on the model of kilometre) was a unit of length equal to 1,000 miles and seems to have existed because it could be done; it has no known use.  In physics, the light-mile is the time taken for light to travel one mile (approximately five microseconds).  The light mile has never been part of the standard set of measures in physics and probably it also was calculated by someone because it could be done; it is of no known practical use although it may have some utility in comparative tables.

Gatefold cover of Miles of Aisles.

Miles of Aisles was the first live concert album released by Canadian-American singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell (b 1943).  Released in 1974 on the Asylum label, it was a double album in the usual gatefold sleeve, the recordings from a number of concerts which were part of her tour promoting the recently released Court and Spark (1974) album.  The performances on Miles of Aisles came variously from three venues in Los Angeles: the Universal Amphitheatre, the Los Angeles Music Center and the Berkeley Community Theater.  The album’s cover art was a photograph of the Pine Knob Music Theater in Clarkston, Michigan.The “Chinese mile” was the li, a traditional Chinese unit of distance equal to 1500 Chinese feet or 150 zhangs; sensibly, under the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), the li was standardized as a half-kilometre (500 metres).  The “Scandinavian mile” began in 1649 as the “Swedish mile” and was set at a distance of 10,688.54 metres before in 1889 being defined as 10 kilometres.  The “Irish mile” was equal to 2240 yards (2048.256 metres; 1.272727 miles).  The “Italian Mile” (sometimes left untranslated as miglio (miglia the plural)) was a calque of the Italian miglio (mile), with the qualifier appended to distinguish it from other miles.  Although the best remembered from the peninsular (assisted by an appearance in the diaries of Galileo Galilei (1564–1642)), the miglio was one of many such regionalisms including the Genovese and Roman miles.  Italy’s shift from traditional “Italian miles” to the metric system happened gradually and unevenly over the nineteenth century, the process beginning in the period 1806-1814 as a consequence of the Kingdom of Italy being a client state of Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821; leader of the French Republic 1799-1804 & Emperor of the French from 1804-1814 & 1815)).  That however proved abortive because after Napoleon’s fall in 1814, many Italian states reverted to their traditional local units (miles, braccia, libbre etc) and not until after Italian unification in 1861 was the metric system officially adopted throughout the kingdom, becoming the legally mandated system of weights and measures.  In a act of administrative efficiency which might astonish observers of the modern Italian state, a definitive law of enforcement was passed in 1862 and, by the 1870s, successfully metrics had become the standard for administration, trade, and education.

However, this was Italy and among parts of the population, the “Italian mile” remained in informal use well into the twentieth century and although the miglio generally was around 1.85 km (1.15 miles), there were many regional variants including (1) the Florentine (Tuscany) Miglio Fiorentino (1.74 km (1.08 miles)) used in Galileo’s era, (2) the Venetian Miglio Veneto (almost identical to the Florentine, (3) the Roman Miglio Romano (1.48 km (.92 miles) which was essentially the old “Roman mile”, (4) the Neapolitan Miglio Napoletano (1.852 km (1.15 miles) which was the Mediterranean state’s contribution to the development of the nautical mile and (5) the Milanese Miglio Milanese which, at 1.85 km (1.495 miles) was close to the English nautical mile.  What also remained was the nostalgic, romantic attraction of the old words and although in 1927 when the Mille Miglia (Thousand Miles) road race was established, Italy had for decades fully “been metric”, the name was used to evoke the idea of a long tradition of endurance.  The memorable phrase “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” is the opening line in the novel The Go-Between (1953) by the English writer L. P. Hartley (1895–1972) and to illustrate his point there is the old Mille Miglia, still in living memory.

The Mille Miglia was a round trip from Rome to Brescia and back and by the mid 1950s the cars had become very fast (speeds of 180 mph (290 km/h) were recorded and the 1955 race was won by a Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR (W196S) with an average speed close to 100 mph (160 km/h)).  At the time, that was dangerous enough even on a purpose-built circuit but the Mille Miglia was an event run on public roads which, while closed for the occasion, were poorly supervised and crowd control was in many places non-existent, people forming along the roadside to ensure the best view, literally inches from cars travelling at high speed.  Over thirty years, the race had claimed the lives of 30 souls but the eleven in 1957 would be the last because within days, the Italian government banned all motor racing on Italian public roads although since 1977 an event of the same name over much the same course has been run for historic vehicles which competed in the event in period (or were accepted and registered).  Now very much a social occasion for the rich, it's not a high-speed event.  The original event had been one of the classic events on the calendar in an era in which top-line drivers counted on attending a couple of funerals a year (possibly their own) and it’s the 1955 race to which a particular aura still lingers.

300 SLR (Moss & Jenkinson), Mille Migla, 1955.

Won by Stirling Moss (1929-2020) and Denis Jenkinson (1920-1996), their Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR technically complied with the sports car regulations but it was really the factory's formula one machine (W196R) with a bigger engine and a streamlined body with seats for two.  It wasn't exactly a "grand prix car with headlights" as some claimed but wasn't that far off; officially the W196S (Sports) in the factory register, for marketing purposes it was dubbed (and badged) as the 300 SLR to add lustre to the 300SL Gullwing coupé then on sale.  The race was completed in 10 hours, 7 minutes and 48 seconds, a average speed of 157.650 km/h (97.96 mph) (the course was never exactly 1000 miles and that year was 1,597 km (992 miles) and at times, the 300 SLR touched almost 180 mph which enabled Moss to cover the last 340 km (211 miles) at an average speed of 265.7 km/h (165.1) mph.  The record set in 1955 will stand for all time because such a race will never happen again, the Italy which then existed now truly a “foreign country” in which things were done differently

Falstaff (Campanadas a medianoche (Chimes at Midnight, 1966) in the original Spanish) was a film written and directed by Orson Welles (1915–1985) who starred as the eponymous character.  Falstaff is a classic “miles gloriosus” and Welles considered him Shakespeare's finest creation; scholars will debate that but of all of the all, there was probably no role more suited to Welles the larger.

In literary use, the term “miles gloriosus” originated in a comedy by Plaurus (254-184 BC).  The miles gloriosus was a braggart soldier who, although a coward on the battlefield, boasts of heroic deeds in combat; he was the prototype of a stock character comic drama, the one whose true character is either notorious or discovered and is thus in the cast to be made a fool of by other players.  In English drama he first appeared eponymously in the five act play Ralph Roister Doister (circa 1552 although not published until 1567) by the English cleric & schoolmaster Nicholas Udall (1504-1556).  The play was something of a landmark in literature because it was one of the first works written in English which could be classed as a “comedy” in the accepted meaning of the word.  As a text it was of interest to the proto-structuralists because it blended the conventions of Greek & Roman comedies with the traditions of the English mediaeval theatre but the great innovation was the appearance of recognizably “middle class” characters as protagonists rather than the “supporting cast role” of doctors & lawyers who had played “second fiddle” to the mostly royal or aristocratic players.  That the “growth market” in theatre audiences came from this newly burgeoning class may at least in part accounted for the literary novelty and its development clearly is identifiable in some of the works of William Shakespeare (1564–1616).  Bobadill in Ben Jonson's (circa 1572-1637) Every Man in His Humour (1598) and Captain Brazen in George Farquhar's (1677-1707) The Recruiting Officer (1706) were exemplars of the playwrights’ depictions of a braggart but just in case people didn’t get it, in his epic-length fantastical allegory The Faerie Queene (1590), the English poet Edmund Spenser (circa 1552-1599) called his creation Braggadochio.  The epitome of the breed was Shakespeare's Falstaff.  Sir John Falstaff was useful to Shakespeare who had him appear in Henry IV, Part 1 (circa 1596), Henry IV, Part 2 (circa 1598) and The Merry Wives of Windsor (1602).  He was also granted a posthumous reference in Henry V (circa 1599), in which it's reported he has died off-stage.

The “last mile” is a concept in urban planning, transport logistics and telecommunications.  In urban planning, it refers to the final leg of an individual’s journey (traditionally Monday-Friday) from their residence to their place of word in a city’s CBD (central business district).  In modern cities, it’s a matter of great significance because while it is possible for a great number of people to park their cars at train stations or other transport interchanges a mile or more from the CBD, it would be impossible to accommodate all these vehicles in the CBD.  In transport logistics, it describes the final stage of delivery of goods, etc, from a distribution centre to the consumer, often involving greater effort or expense.  In telecommunications, it’s a conceptual term assigned to those components of the infrastructure carrying communication signals from the main system to the end user's business or home, often involving greater expense to install and maintain, and lower transmission speeds.  The terms “final mile”, “last kilometre” etc are synonymous.  The companion term “first mile” is from transport logistics and refers to the initial stage of delivery of goods etc, from the seller or producer to a distribution centre, often involving greater effort or expense.  A “middle mile” is a piece of jargon from the IT industry and refers to the segment of a telecommunications network linking an operator's core network to the local network plant.  Real nerds like to explain it as something like the “middleware layer” between software and hardware but the analogy is weak.

A “nautical mile” is a unit of length corresponding approximately to one minute of arc of latitude along any meridian.  By international agreement it is exactly 1,852 metres (approximately 6,076 feet or 1.151 of a statute mile; the abbreviations variously used are NM, M, nmi & nm (the latter conflicting with nanometre symbol although confusion is unlikely).  The term “sea mile” is now rarely used but in its odd appearance it’s either (1) a synonym for “nautical mile” or (2) (usually as “sea miles”) a reference to the age of a ship or experience of a sailor.  The original “sea mile” was a now obsolete Scandinavian unit of distance (about 4 nautical miles), a calque of the Danish sømil, the Norwegian Bokmål sjømil and the Swedish sjömil, the construct being the Danish sø (sea, nautical, maritime) + mil (the Danish mile or league).  The geographical mile (a unit of length corresponding to exactly one minute of arc (1/60 of a degree) along the Earth's equator (about 1855.4 meters, 2029.1 yards, or roughly 8/7 international miles) was also used as (an inexact) synonym of “nautical mile”.

Eight Miles High, the Byrds (CBS EP (Extended Play).

Many critics list Eight Miles High (1966) by The Byrds as the first true psychedelic rock song and the band's claim it had nothing to do with drug use was about as creditable as the Beatles asserting their song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (1967) was not a thinly veiled reference to was not an allusion to LSD (the hallucinogenic drug lysergic acid diethylamide, better known as “acid”).  The lyrics from Eight Miles High genuinely were inspired by the band's flight to London in 1965 but “eight” was chosen because it best suited the music, even though commercial airliners didn't fly at quite that altitude.  At the time, the typical flight paths for the New York-London route involved a ceiling somewhat lower: Boeing 707, 33,000-37,000 feet (6.25-7.00 miles); Douglas DC-8, 32,000-39,000 feet (6.06-7.39 miles); Vickers VC10, 33,000-40,000 feet (6.25-7.58 miles).  In the context of artistic licence, eight was “close enough for rock 'n' roll”.  The song by the Byrds was not an allusion to the “mile-high club”, an institution one (informally) becomes a member of by having sex while aboard an aircraft in flight.  Although now most associated with those who contrive to do the act(s) on a commercial flight, “membership” has been claimed by those who managed the feat in both private and military aviation and the first known reference to the concept dates from 1785, early in the age of the hot-air balloon although the threshold then was set to a more modest 1,000 feet (0.1893939 of a mile).

The “international mile” is the same as the “land mile” & “modern mile” (ie the internationally agreed definition of 1.609344 kilometres) and the rarely used terms were coined simply to remove ambiguity in legal or other documents because over the centuries “mile” had in different places described distances greatly differing in length.  The mysterious “US survey mile” (1609.347 metres) is slightly longer than the now almost universal “international mile” and that’s a product of it being 5,280 US “survey feet” (0.30480061 metres) in length, the latter also slightly longer than the familiar 12 inch (304.8 mm) “international foot”).  To make things really murky, in the US, in formal use, a “statute mile” refers to a “survey mile” despite the lengths being slightly different.  Because the variation is less than ⅛ inch (3.2 mm), for most purposes this is something of no significance but over very long distances, it can matter if things like boundaries or target vectors are being documented, thus the need for precision in certain aspects of mapping.  Being a federal system with a long tradition of “states rights”, even when in 1983 the revised North American Datum (NAD83) was compiled and published by the NGS (National Geodetic Survey, a part of the NOAA (National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration under the Department of Commerce)), the states retained the right to determine which (if any) definitions of distance they would use.  So, despite all State Plane Coordinate Systems being expressed in metric measurements, eight of the 50 states opted out of the metre-based system, seven using “US survey feet” and one “international feet”.

A “sporting” pursuit which merges the traditions of athletic track & field competition with the drunken antics of university students, the “Beer Mile” is conducted usually on a standard 400 m (¼ mile) track as a 1 mile (1.6 km) contest of both running & drinking speed.  Each of the four laps begins with the competitor drinking one can (12 fl oz (US) (355 ml)) of beer, followed by a full lap, the process repeated three times.  The rules have been defined by the governing body which also publishes the results, including the aggregates of miles covered and beers drunk.  Now a sporting institution, it has encouraged imitators and there are a number of variations, each with its own rules.  The holder of this most prestigious world record is Canadian Corey Bellemore (b 1994), a five-time champion, who, at the Beer Mile World Classic in Portugal in July 2025, broke his own world record, re-setting setting the mark to 4:27.1.  That may be compared with the absolute world record for the mile, held by Morocco’s Hicham El Guerrouj (b 1974) who in 1999 ran the distance in 3:43.13, his additional pace made possible by not being delayed by having to down four beers.

The respectable face of the University of Otago's Medical School, Dunedin, New Zealand.

Some variations of the beer mile simply increase the volume or strength of the beer consumed but in Australia & New Zealand, some were dubbed “Chunder Mile” (chunder being circa 1950s antipodean slang for vomiting and of disputed origin) on the not unreasonable basis that vomiting becomes increasingly more likely and frequent the more alcohol is consumed.  For some however, even this wasn’t sufficiently debauched and there were events which demanded a (cold) meat pie be enjoyed with a jug of (un-chilled) beer (a jug typically 1140 ml (38.5 fl oz (US)) at the start of each of the four laps.  Predictably, these events were most associated with orientation weeks at universities, a number still conducted as late as the 1970s and the best documented seems to have been those at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand.  Even by the standards of a country producing abundant supplies of strong beer and weed, the students at Otago were notorious for retreating from civilized ways although, it was at the time the site of the country’s medical school, thereby providing students with practical experience of both symptoms and treatments for the inevitable consequences.  Whether the event was invented in Dunedin isn’t known but, given the nature of males aged 17-25 probably hasn’t much changed over the millennia, it wouldn’t be surprising to learn similar competitions, localized to suit culinary tastes, have been contested by the drunken youth of many places in centuries past.  As it was, even in Dunedin, times were changing and in 1972, the Chunder Mile was banned “…because of the dangers of asphyxiation and ruptured esophaguses.”  Undetred, the students found other amusements.

In idiomatic use, to say “a mile wide and an inch deep” suggests someone or something covering a wide array of topics but on only a very shallow level (thus analogous with “jack of all trades and master of none”.  Despite the negative connotations, the “mile wide, inch deep” model can in many fields be useful.  In informal use, a “neg mile” is a unit of “saved travel” (ie an expression of a distance not having to be travelled).  A “mile-a-minute” means literally “60 mph” but was an expression used generally to mean “fast”, dating on a time where such a pace really was fast and although the World’s LSR (land speed record) was in 1899 set at 65.79 mph (105.88 km/h) and cars capable of the speed were in volume production by the 1920s, until the development of freeway systems (which, at scale, really began only in the 1950s), a sustained 60 mph wasn’t an everyday reality for most.  Indeed, in 1957 the admittedly hardly state-of-the-art British railway system was described as offering “mile-a-minute” journeys and then, in most cases, point-to-point, it would have been the quickest method.

Lindsay Lohan and Herbie: promotional poster for Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005).  In the film, Herbie went faster than a “mile-a-minute”.

Although Herr Professor Ferdinand Porsche (1875–1951) wouldn’t have used the expression “mile-a-minute” when explaining to Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) the dynamics of his KdF-Wagen, one of his claims was its ability to cruise “all day at 100 km/h” (ie a mile-a-minute) and that was true, the car unusual in being able to cruise at what was about its maximum speed.  That wouldn’t much have mattered were it not for the existence of the vast network of Autobahns Hitler was having constructed for a variety of reasons (job creation, military logistics, propaganda etc) but all those long roads and the KdF-Wagen were a perfect match.  The KdF-wagen (Kdf car) was notionally the product of the Gemeinschaft Kraft durch Freude (KdF, “Strength Through Joy”), the state-controlled organization which was under the auspices of the Deutsche Arbeitsfront (German Labor Front) which replaced the independent labor unions.  The car was soon renamed the Volkswagen Type 1 (people’s car) and it became better known in the post-war years as the “Beetle”, 21,529,464 of which left assembly lines between 1938-2003.  In the spirit of the KdF, in 1938 a scheme was announced whereby Germans could buy a Type 1 for 990 RM (Reichsmark) on the basis of depositing 5 RM per week.  The 990 RM was a number unrelated to economic reality and just an example of the regime’s propaganda but as things turned out, during the Third Reich (1933-1945) not one Type 1 was delivered to a civilian customer with the factory’s entire output allocated to the military or the Nazi Party.  It wasn’t until the early 1960s there were settlements in the last of the cases brought by those Germans who dutifully had for years continued to make their 5 RM deposits.

Since the 1580s the word had been used generically to mean “a great distance” and it’s used also as an intensifier, sometimes rather loosely and an expression like “the new beer tastes miles better than the old” is along the lines of a well understood phrase like “heaps of water”.  Although in idiomatic use, “mile” tends to imply something large, if an actual distance is being referenced, context matters because something said to have “missed by a mile” might literally have “missed by an inch”.  Related to that is the expression “a miss is a good as a mile” which means if one misses the target, often it matters not whether one missed by a fraction of an inch or a thousand miles..  If it’s said “give them an inch and they’ll take a mile” that means if someone is granted some slight right or concession, they will exploit that to take more.  In Middle English the word also was a unit of time, reckoned usually to mean “about 20 minutes”, reflecting how long it would take the typical, fit male to walk the distance.

A Chrysler Hemi-powered front-engined rail on California's Carlsbad Raceway's quarter-mile drag strip, 1964.  Operating between 1964-2004, the track was located six miles (10 km) inland from the Pacific Ocean in Carlsbad, on Palomar Airport Road and at what is now Melrose Avenue.

The “quarter-mile” is literally one quarter of a statute mile (and thus (measurement of 440 yards; 1,320 feet; 402.336).  The emergence in the post-war United States of the sport of drag racing was a product of (1) dotted around the country there were a large number of tarmac airstrips which had become surplus with the end of World War II (1939-1945), (2) a large number of young men returned from service in the armed forces with sufficient disposable income to race cars and (3) a stocks of cars suitable to be “hotted-up” for use in acceleration tests.  The quarter-mile became the sport’s “standard distance” because of a mixture of cultural precedent and technical determinism (of the machines and the surfaces).  In the 1930s, even before “hot rodding” became a thing in the post-war years, young men were “street racing”, competing against each either from “light-to-light” or on semi-rural roads straight enough to be (1) suitable for purpose and (2) offering enough visibility to allow competitors to escape upon sighting a police car.  Many were informally measured (“tree-to-tree” for example) but some were better organized (air-strips even then used) and the quarter-mile was ideal because in the era a typical “well-set up” car could attain speed high enough to demonstrate its power and acceleration yet still be within the limits of safety imposed by most straight sections of road.  When the NHRA (National Hot Rod Association) was founded in 1951 to provide an organizational structure to street racing (and “get it off the streets” where it was becoming controversial), there was no debate about the default distance: a ¼ mile it was because that’s what just about everybody had been doing.

AC Shelby American Cobra 289 CSX2357 with parachute deployed at the end of test ¼ mile (400 m) run.  In drag racing circles, this is called “dumping the laundry”.

The object in drag racing was, from a standing start, to beat one’s competitor (classically drag races were conducted on two parallel lanes) by reaching the end of the quarter mile is less time and the winner was the one with the lowest ET (elapsed time); it didn’t matter if one’s opponent was travelling faster when crossing the line; it was all decided by the ET.  The TS (terminal speed) was of interest and sometimes an indication gearing was too high (ie a differential ratio numerically too low) meaning initial acceleration was suffering.  The sport produced sometimes shockingly single-purpose machines which did little very well except the quarter mile sprint, the ability to turn corners something of an abstraction and while good brakes were required, the fastest cars needed to be fitted with parachutes because if relying on conventional brakes, there was often not enough space to slow down before encountering a fence, tree or other solid object; even runways were only so long.  So drag racing was a balancing act between performance and safety and as it evolved into a multi-classification sport with categories ranging from genuine, stock-standard road cars to purpose built “rails” which looked like no car which had ever before existed.  Speeds began to rise and while in the 1930s 100 mph (160 km/h) at the end of the quarter mile was rarely attained, within decades, going beyond 300 mph (480 km/h) became common so for the fastest classes in top-flight competition the distance was reduced to 1000 feet (304.8 metres, 0.19 miles) and ⅛ mile (201 metres, 660 feet) racing has also formed a niche.

Tiger

Tiger (pronounced tahy-ger)

(1) A large, carnivorous, tawny-colored and black-striped feline, Panthera tigris, of Asia, ranging in several subspecies from India and the Malay Peninsula to Siberia.

(2) In non-technical use, the cougar, jaguar, thylacine, or other animal resembling the tiger (in wide use in southern Africa of leopards).

(3) A person of some fierceness, noted for courage or a ferocious, bloodthirsty and audacious person.

(4) In heraldry, a representation of a large mythological cat, used on a coat of arms, often with the spelling tyger or tygre (to distinguish the mythological beast from the natural tiger (also blazoned Bengal tiger), also used in heraldry).

(5) A pneumatic box or pan used in refining sugar.

(6) Any of several strong, voracious fishes, as a sand shark.

(7) Any of numerous animals with stripes similar to a tiger's.

(8) A servant in livery who rides with his master or mistress, especially a page or groom (archaic).

(9) In entomology & historic aviation, a clipping of tiger moth (in the family Arctiidae), tiger beetle or tiger butterfly (in tribe Danaini, especially subtribe Danaina).

(10) Any of the three Australian species of black-and-yellow striped dragonflies of the genus Ictinogomphus.

(11) In US, slang, someone noted for their athleticism or endurance during sexual intercourse.

(12) In southern African slang, a ten-rand note.

(13) As TIGR (pronounced as for “tiger”), the abbreviation for Treasury Investment Growth Receipts: a bond denominated in dollars and linked to US treasury bonds, the yield on which is taxed in the UK as income when it is cashed or redeemed.

Pre 1000: From the Middle English tygre & tigre, from the Old English tīgras (plural) and the Anglo-Norman tigre (plural), from the Latin tīgris, from the Ancient Greek τίγρις (tígris), from an Iranian source akin to the Old Persian tigra- (sharp, pointed) and related to the Avestan tighri & tigri (arrow) and tiγra (pointed), the reference being to the big cats “springing” on to their prey but the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) notes no application of either word (or any derivative) to the tiger is known in Zend.  It was used of “tiger-like” people since the early sixteenth century and that could be complementary or pejorative although the female form (tigress) seems only to have been used in zoology since the 1610s and was never applied to women.  The tiger's-eye (yellowish-brown quartz) was first documented in 1886.  The word “liger”, like the creature it described, was a forced mating of lion and tiger.  As a modifier, tiger is widely used including the forms: American tiger, Amur tiger, Asian Tiger, Mexican tiger, Siberian tiger, tiger barb, tiger beetle, tiger bench, tiger-lily, tiger lily, tiger's eye, tiger shark & tiger's milk.  A female tiger is a tigeress.  The alternative spellings tigre & tyger are both obsolete.  Tiger & tigerishness are nouns, tigerly, tigerish & tigerlike are adjectives and tigerishly is an adverb; the noun plural is tigers.

Lindsay Lohan (b 1986) atop tiger in Kult Magazine (Italy), January 2012, photograph by Vijat Mohindra (b 1985), makeup by Joyce Bonelli (b 1981).

In idiomatic use, a country said to have a “tiger economy” (rapid and sustained economic growth), especially if disproportionate to population or other conventional measures.  “Tiger parent” (and especially “tiger mother”) refers to a strict parenting style demanding academic excellence and obedience from children; it’s associated especially with East Asian societies.  The “tiger cheer” dates from 1845 and originated in Princeton University, based on the institution’s mascot and involved the cheerleaders calling out "Tiger" at the end of a cheer accompanied by a jump or outstretched arms.  Beyond Princeton, a “tiger cheer” is any “shriek or howl at the end of a cheer”.  The phrase "paper tiger" was apparently first used by comrade Chairman Mao Zedong (1893–1976; chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) 1949-1976) when discussing his thoughts about the imperialist powers.  A calque of the Chinese 紙老虎／纸老虎 (zhǐlǎohǔ), it referred to an ostensibly fierce or powerful person, country or organisation without the ability to back up their words; imposing but ineffectual.  Phrases in the same vein include "sheep in wolf's clothing" and "a bark worse than their bite".  To be said to “have a tiger by the tail” suggests one has found one’s self in a situation (1) that has turned out to be much more difficult to control than one had expected and (2) difficult to extricate one’s self from, the idea being that while holding the tiger’s tail, things are not good but if one lets go, things will likely become much worse.

Men in frock coats: The “Big Four” at the Paris Peace Conference (1919-1920), outside the Foreign Ministry headquarters, Quai d'Orsay, Paris.  Left to right: David Lloyd George (1863–1945; UK prime-minister 1916-1922), Vittorio Orlando (1860–1952; Italian prime minister 1917-1919), Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929; French prime minister 1906-1909 & 1917-1920) and Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924; US president 1913-1921).

Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929; Prime Minister of France 1906-1909 & 1917-1920) was a physician who turned to politics via journalism, a not unfamiliar trajectory for many; at a time of national crisis, he undertook his second term as premier, providing the country’s politics with the stiffness needed to endure what was by then World War I (1914-1918); he was nick-named le tigre (the tiger) in honor of his ferociously combative political demeanour.  In February 1919, while travelling from his apartment a meeting associated with the Paris Peace Conference (1919-1920), he was shot several times, his assailant an anarchist carpenter & joiner, Émile Cottin (1896-1937) and two decades on, another leader would learn carpenters can be assassins.  Le tigre was lucky, the bullets missing his vital organs although one which passed through the ribcage ending up lodged close to his heart; too close to that vital organ to risk surgery, there it remained until his death (from unrelated causes) ten years later.  Cottin’s death sentence was later commuted to a ten year sentence and he would die in battle, serving with the anarchist Durruti Column during the early days of the Spanish Civil War.  The Tiger’s response to his survival was to observe: “We have just won the most terrible war in history, yet here is a Frenchman who misses his target six out of seven times at point-blank range.  Of course this fellow must be punished for the careless use of a dangerous weapon and for poor marksmanship. I suggest that he be locked up for eight years, with intensive training in a shooting gallery.”  In the circumstances, deploring the state of French marksmanship displayed a certain sangfroid.

The Sunbeam Tigers

Sunbeam Tiger, LSR run, Southport Beach, March 1926.

There have been three Sunbeam Tigers, the first illustrious, the second fondly remembered and the last so anti-climatic it’s all but forgotten.  The first was a dedicated racing car, built between 1923-1925 and, those being times when there was less specialization, it was used both in circuit racing and, most famously, in setting the world Land Speed Record (LSR).  Although aerodynamic by the standards of the time (the techniques of streamlining learned in World War I (1914-1918) military aviation applied), there was little innovation in the platform except for the engine, the nature of which ensured the Tiger’s place in history.  For Grand Prix events conducted for cars with a maximum displacement of 2.0 litres (122 cubic inches), Sunbeam had earlier built a two litre straight-six, the limitations imposed by the relatively small size being offset by the use of the then still novel double overhead camshafts (DOHC) which allowed both more efficient combustion chambers and much higher engine speeds, thereby increasing power.  It was a robust, reliable power-plant and when contemplating an attempt on the LSR, instead of developing anything new or using the then popular expedient of installing a big & powerful but heavy and low-revving aero engine, the engineers paired two of the blocks and heads on a single crankcase, creating a 75° 3,976 cm³ (243 cubic inch) V12.  When supercharged, power outputs as high as 312 hp (233 kW) were registered.

Sunbeam Tiger in 1990.

Deteriorating weather conditions meant there wasn’t time even to paint the bodywork before the Tiger was rushed to the banked circuit at Brooklands for testing in September 1925 where performance exceeded expectations.  Over the winter, further refinements were made including a coat of most un-British bright red paint and it was in this color (and thus nick-named “Ladybird”) it was in March 1926 taken to the flat, hard sands of Southport Beach where duly it raised the LSR mark to 152.33 mph (245.15 km/h).  That was broken within a year but the Tiger still holds the record as the smallest displacement ICE (internal combustion engine) ever to hold the LSR and a century on, it’s a distinction likely to be retained forever.  After the run on the beach, it returned to the circuits.  A sister car was built and named Tigress; fitted with one of the big Napier Lion W12 aero engines, it still competes in historic competition but the Tiger is now a museum piece although, after 65 years, it did have a final fling when in 1990 it made one last run and this time set a mark of 159 mph (256 km/h).

Sunbeam Alpine (1959-1668) with the original tail fins: 1961 (left) and 1963 (right).  When in late 1958 the design was approved by the Rootes board, tail fins were fashionable but the moment passed and with the release of the Series IV in 1964, they were pruned.

Although successful in competition and the manufacturer of some much admired road cars, financial stability for Sunbeam was marginal for most of the 1920s and the Great Depression of the early 1930s proved its nemesis, the bankrupt company in 1934 purchased by the Rootes Group which was attracted by Sunbeam’s production facilities and their well-regarded line of HD (heavy duty) chassis for bus & truck operators.  Rootes over the years used the Sunbeam name in a desultory way, the vehicles little more than “badge engineered” versions of their Hillman, Singer, Humber & Talbot lines but one aberration was the Sunbeam Alpine, a small sports car (1959-1968).  Rootes had used the Alpine name before, adopted to take advantage of the success enjoyed in the 1953 Alpine Rally but the new roadster was very different.  Although the platform was taken (unpromisingly) from a small van (noted for its robustness and reliability but little else) with the rest of the structure a mash up of components from the Rootes parts bin, as a package it worked very well and the body was modern and attractive, owing more to small Italian sports cars than the often rather agricultural British competition from MG and Triumph.  The rakish fins drew the eye (not always uncritically) but they were very much of their time, taller even than those on the Daimler SP250 released the same year.  The Alpine was also pleasingly civilized with a heater which actually worked, a soft-top which didn’t leak (at least not as often or to the same extent as some others), external door handles and wind-up windows, none of those attributes guaranteed to exist on most of the local competition.  It was also commendably quiet, conversations possible and the radio able to be listened to even at cruising speed, then something then novel in little British roadsters.

1966 Sunbeam Tiger Mark IA.

With an engine capacity initially of 1.5 litres (91 cubic inch), the Alpine was never fast although that was hardly the point and Rootes advertising included some for what was then known as the “ladies market”.  Slightly larger engines would improve things but the performance deficit was better addressed when in 1964, a version of the Alpine called the Tiger was released, this time with Ford’s then new 260 cubic inch (4.2 litre) “thinwall” Windsor V8, about to become well known from its use in both the Ford Mustang and Shelby’s Cobra, the latter based on a much-modified AC Ace.  The Windsor V8 was called a “thinwall” because genuinely it was small and light (by V8 standards) but even so it only just fitted in the Alpine’s engine bay and so tight was the fit a small hatch was installed in the firewall (under the dashboard) so a hand could reach in to change one otherwise inaccessible spark plug.  That notwithstanding, the package worked and all those who wrote test reports seemed to enjoy the Tiger, noting the effortless performance, fine brakes and (within limits) predictable handling, all in something conveniently sized.  However, even in those more tolerant times, more than one journalist observed that although the Ford V8 used was in the mildest state of tune Ford offered (the ones Carroll Shelby (1923–2012) put in the Cobra producing over 100-odd HP (75 kW) more), it was clear the classis was close to the limit of what could be deemed sensible for road use.

Despite that, in the mid 1960s there was in the US quite an appetite for cars not wholly sensible for street use and late in 1966, a revised version was released, this time with a 289 cubic inch (4.7 litre) Windsor V8 and although there had been some attention to the underpinnings, it was now obvious that while still in the low-power state Ford used in station wagons and such, the 289's increased output exceeded the capability of the chassis.  For the journalists of course, that was highly entertaining and some were prepared to forgive, one cautioning only that the Tiger:

“…doesn’t take kindly to being flung around.  It’s a car with dignity as asks to be driven that way.  That doesn’t mean slowly, necessarily, but that there’s sufficient power on tap to embarrass the incautious.  But if you treat it right, respecting it for what it is, the Tiger can offer driving pleasure of a very high order.”

In the era, there were other over-powered machines which could behave worse and those able to read between the lines would know what they were getting but there may have been some who were surprised and tellingly, the Tigers were never advertised to the “ladies market” although one pink Tiger was in 1965 given as the traditional pink prize to Playboy’s PotY (Playmate of the Year).  Presumably she enjoyed it and, now painted "resale" red, the car still exists.

Jo Collins (b 1945), 1965 PotY with her 1965 Sunbeam Tiger Mark I.  All Tigers received the pruned fins, the once raked elliptical taillights assuming a vertical aspect.

The US was a receptive market for the little hot rod and one featured in the Get Smart TV series, although it’s said for technical reasons (the V8 version not having space in the engine compartment for some of the props), a re-badged Alpine was used for some scenes, the same swap effected for the 2008 film adaptation, a V8 exhaust burble dubbed where appropriate, a trick not uncommon in film-making.  Seeking a greater presence in Europe, Chrysler had first taken a stake in the Rootes Group in 1964 and assumed full control in 1967.  Although the Tiger was a low-volume line, it was profitable and Chrysler's original intention had been to to continue production of the Tiger (by 1967 powered by the 289) but with Chrysler’s 273 cubic inch (4.4 litre) LA V8 substituted.  Unfortunately, while 4.7 Ford litres filled it to the brim, 4.4 Chrysler litres overflowed; the Windsor truly was compact.  Allowing it to remain in production until the stock of already purchased Ford engines had been exhausted, Chrysler instead changed the advertising from emphasizing the “…mighty Ford V8 power plant” to the vaguely ambiguous “…an American V-8 power train”.  Still a popular car in the collector community, so easily modified are the V8s that few survive in their original form and many have been fitted with larger Windsors, the 302 (4.9 litre) the most popular and some have persuaded even the tall-deck 351 (5.8) to fit though not without modifications.

Sunbeam Tigers: 1965 model with “Powered by Ford 260” badge (left), 1967 model with “Sunbeam V8” badge (centre) and 1965 French market model with “Alpine 260” badge (right).

It wasn’t unknown for the major US manufacturers to use components from competitors, something which happened usually either because of a technology deficit or to do with licencing.  However, they much preferred it if what was used was hidden from view (like a transmission) so Chrysler’s reticence about advertising what had (through M&A (mergers & acquisitions)) activity become one of their cars being fitted with Ford V8 was understandable.  Not only was the advertising material swiftly changed but so were the badges: “Powered by Ford 260” giving way to “Sunbeam V8” for the rest of the Tiger’s life.  Unrelated to that however was the curious case of Tigers sold in South Africa or some European markets where they were designated variously as “Alpine 260”, “Alpine 289” or “Alpine V8”.

On the silver screen.

Sunbeam Alpine 260 opposite Simca Aronde and behind Renault 16 in the Italian film Come rubare la corona d'Inghilterra (1967) by Sergio Grieco (1917–1982).  The title translates literally as “How to Steal the Crown of England” but in the English-speaking world it’s better known as Argoman the Fantastic Superman.  The film garnered mixed reviews.

The reason the “Tiger” name never made it to the largest European markets was because Panhard in France was then selling a Tigre and Messerschmitt in the FRG (Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany; the old West Germany) 1949-1990), offered a Tiger.  Apparently on advice from Rootes’ French distributers (Société des Automobiles Simca), it was decided just to use the Alpine name and the car thus was advertised in France, Germany Austria & Switzerland variously as the “Alpine 260” or “Alpine V8”, the latter making marketing sense in countries not used to cubic inches as a measure although the imperial measure may have been used to emphasize the US connection, Detroit's V8s deservedly enjoying a reputation for smoothness, power and reliability.  However, in places such as Sweden and Monaco where there was no concern with violating trademark law, the “Tiger” name was used, as it was for vehicles ordered by US citizens for delivery in Europe.  Typically these were armed forces personnel able to buy through the military’s PX (Post Exchange) stores and they enjoyed the benefit at the end of their deployment of the car being shipped to the US at no cost.  Volumes into Europe were always low and the sketchy records (assembled by Tiger owners clubs) suggest as few as seven Mark II models were exported to Europe, three of which went to France and by then the operation known as "Rootes Motors Overseas Ltd" had for all purposes switched their advertising to “Sunbeam Alpine V8”.

On the silver screen, with back projection.

Cary Grant (1904–1986, left) with (pre-princess) Grace Kelly (1929–1982; Princess Consort of Monaco 1956-1982, right) behind the wheel of 1953 Mark I Sunbeam Alpine in To Catch a Thief (in 1955 there was an Alpine Mark III but no Mark II was released, “skipping numbers” something not uncommon in aircraft and software but rare in automobiles).  For cinematographers, among the advantages of “rear projection photography” was in driving scenes the driver wasn’t compelled to “keep their eyes on the road” however bad an example this may set for impressionable audiences.

When first pondering the name to be used in Europe, within Rootes there may anyway have been awareness of the French manufacturer Peugeot in 1964 forcing Porsche to rename its new 901 to 911 (something which worked out OK) on the basis of the argument they had an “exclusive right in France” to sell cars with three numeral designation in France when the middle digit was a “0” (zero).  That seems dubious given Mercedes-Benz had for years been selling 200s & 300s and was about to release the 600 but the EEC (European Economic Community) wasn’t at the time governed by the “give way to the Germans” rule which would come to characterize the EU (European Union) so defer Porsche did.  Rootes was thus wise to avoid the inevitable C&D (cease and desist letter) which may have been anticipated.

1965 PotY Jo Collins with her pink Tiger.

Stranger however is that Tigers sold in France were called “Alpine 260” despite (1) the French manufacturer Alpine having first sold cars there in 1954 and (2) the “260” being a reference to the V8 displacement in cubic inches (cid), imperial measurements not used in wholly metric France (where a 4.2 (litre) badge might have been expected).  That Sunbeam were able to use the Alpine name  was accounted for by the previous version of the Alpine having been first sold in France in 1953, thus pre-dating the French venture Automobiles Alpine, the corporate identity of which wasn’t established until 1955.  The original Sunbeam Alpine did enjoy some success in competition but is now remembered mostly for the association with the actor (and later princess) Grace Kelly who appeared in a sapphire blue one in Sir Alfred Hitchcock’s (1899–1980) To Catch a Thief (1955).  For students of technology, the long scene of her driving (appearing to be filmed through the windscreen) is an example of the “rear projection technique” used before CGI (computer-generated imagery) became possible.  While much of the film was shot on-location in Europe, the Alpine was shipped to the US for some of her driving scenes because only in Hollywood were there the big studios outfitted with the back-projection equipment able to emulate 360^o settings.

1965 French market Sunbeam Alpine 260 with after-market 14" Minilite wheels.

So the Alpine name apparently could be used, despite the existence since 1954 of the sports cars produced by Dieppe-based Automobiles Alpine, presumably on the basis of the corporation’s prior use.  Whether the decision to append an imperial “260” rather than a more localized 4.2 was the British adding insult to injury isn’t known.  While that may sound improbably petty, that’s a quality not absent either in international relations or commerce and not only were London and Paris then squabbling over whether the Anglo-French SST (supersonic transport) airliner should be called “Concorde” or the anglicized “Concord”, in 1963 Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970; President of France 1959-1969) had vetoed the UK’s application for membership of the EEC (European Economic Community, the Zollverein which (for better and worse) eveolved into the modern-day EU (European Union).  For that last diplomatic setback, the British may have had themselves to blame because when in 1940 they offered de Gaulle sanctuary in London after the fall of France, the Foreign Office allocated him offices on Waterloo Place and overlooking Trafalgar Square.  A sensitive soul, Le Président never forgot, nor forgave a slight.

Carroll Shelby, Sunbeam publicity shot, 1964.

Between April 1964 and August 3763 Mark I Tigers were built.  The 2706 Mark IA models which followed between August 1965 and February 1966 were based on the Alpine Series V which had a number of detail changes (most obviously the doors, hood (bonnet) and truck (boot) lid having sharper corners and a vinyl rather than metal top boot for the folding soft-top); while these now universally are listed as “Mark IAs”, that was never an official factory designation.  The first Mark IIs weren’t built until December 1966 with production lasting only until June the next year when Sunbeam’s stocks of Ford V8s was exhausted and just 536 (although 633 is oft-quoted) were made.  Although there were details differences between the Mark IA and Mark II, the fundamental change was the use of the 289 cubic inch (4.7 litre) engine and all but a few dozen were exported to the US.

Tigerish: Lindsay Lohan imagined in cara gata (cat face) by Shijing Peng.  

Carrol Shelby invoiced Rootes US$10,000 to develop the original Tiger prototype and had expected to gain the contract for production on the same basis as his arrangement with AC to produce the Cobra (ie he'd receive engineless cars into which he'd insert the V8s) but the process instead went the other way and Sunbeam imported the engines, contracting final assembly to Jensen.  Shelby instead received a small commission for each Tiger sold and appeared in some of the early marketing material.  He understood that despite (on paper) being superficially similar, the Tiger was a very different machine to the Cobra and, aimed at different markets, the two were really not competitors.  Amusingly, Shelby's US10,000 fee was paid in a "back-channel deal", the funds coming from Rootes' US advertising budget rather than the engineering department's allocation.  That slight of hand was necessary because it was known to all the company's conservative chairman, Lord Rootes (1894–1964), would never have approved such a project.  He changed his mind after test-driving the prototype and ordered immediate production, living long enough to see it enjoy success.      

1972 Hillman Avenger Tiger.  The Avenger is now remembered mostly for the distinctive  "boomerang (or hockey stick)" tail-lamps, later used by Mazda for the RX-5 (1975-1981).  It's not believed the rear spoiler was tested in a wind-tunnel.

While not quite the sublime to the ridiculous, the third and final Tiger certainly lacked the luster of its predecessors and was actually marketed under the Hillman and not the Sunbeam badge, the old Rootes group now owned by Chrysler.  Based on the Hillman Avenger (1970-1981), a competent if unexciting family car, the Avenger Tiger was initially a one-off built for motor shows (they used to be a thing) but such was the reaction a production run was arranged and, based on the Avenger GT, it was a genuine improvement, fitted with dual Weber carburetors on a high-compression cylinder head with larger valves and improved porting.  The power increase was welcome but wasn’t so dramatic as to demand any modification of the GT’s suspension beyond a slight stiffening of the springs.  On the road, the well-sorted RWD (rear wheel drive) dynamics meant it was good to drive and the performance was a notch above the competition in the same price point although Chrysler never devoted the resources to develop it into a machine which could have been competitive with Ford’s Escort in racing and rallying.  The first run of 200-odd early in 1972 were all in “sundance yellow” with a black stripe (and in case that was too subtle, a “Tiger” decal adorned the rear quarter panels) but red was added as an option when an additional batch of 400 was made to meet demand.