Pith

Pith (pronounced pith)

(1) In botany, the soft, spongy central cylinder of parenchymatous tissue in the stems of dicotyledonous plants such as the soft, albedo, fibrous tissue lining the inside of the rind in fruits such as orange and grapefruit (also called medulla or marrow although both are now rare).

(2) In zoology (by extension), the soft tissue inside a human or animal body or one of their organs; specifically, the spongy interior substance of a hair, a horn or the shaft of a feather (also called medulla).

(3) In pathology, the spinal cord or bone marrow (archaic).

(4) In the veterinary sciences, the soft tissue inside a spinal cord; the spinal marrow; also, the spinal cord itself (also called medulla).

(5) A synonym of diploe (the thin layer of soft, spongy, or cancellate tissue between the bone plates which constitute the skull) (obsolete).

(6) The soft tissue of the brain (so rare some dictionaries site it as having “never come into technical use” and now in this context extinct).

(7) The soft inner portion of a loaf of bread (a regionalism associated with Ireland, Southern England and the West Country).

(8) As pith hat or pith helmet, a type of headgear made from the fibre sholapith, worn by during the nineteenth century by European explorers and imperial administrators in Africa, Asia and the Middle East before being adopted by military officers, rapidly becoming a symbol of status or rank, latterly re-defined as a symbol of oppression, especially because of their association with the British Raj in the Indian sub-continent.

(9) In mathematics, the ordinal form of the number pi (3.14159…) (the pith root of pi is 1.439…).

(10) By analogy, the important or essential part; essence; core; heart (synonymous with crux, gist, heart and soul, inwardness, kernel, marrow, meat, medulla, nitty-gritty, nub, quintessence, soul, spirit, substance etc).

(11) By analogy, significant weight; substance; solidity (now rare).

(12) Figuratively, physical power, might, strength, force, or vigor; mettle (archaic).

(13) Figuratively, a quality of courage and endurance; backbone, mettle, spine.

(14) In the veterinary sciences, to sever or destroy the spinal cord of a vertebrate animal, usually by inserting a needle into the vertebral canal.

(15) To extract the pith from (something or (figurative) someone).

Pre 900: From the Middle English pith & pithe (soft interior; pith, pulp) from the Old English piþa or pitha from the Proto-Germanic piþô, cognate with the West Frisian piid (pulp, kernel), the Dutch peen (carrot) & pitt and the Low German peddik or pedik (pulp, core).  All were derived from the earlier piþō (oblique pittan), a doublet of pit (in the sense of “seed or stone inside a fruit”).  Both the Old English piþa (pith of plants) and the Germanic variations enjoyed the same meaning but the figurative sense (most important part(s) of something) existed only in the English form.  The pith helmet dates from 1889, replacing the earlier pith hat (first recorded in 1884), both so called because they were made from the dried pith of the Bengal spongewood.  The verb meaning from the veterinary sciences (to kill by cutting or piercing the spinal cord) was first documented in the technical literature in 1805 but in livestock management it was an ancient practice.  The Middle English verb pethen (to give courage or strength) was derived from the noun pith but did not make the transition to modern English.  Pith is a noun, verb & adjective and pithlike, pithy, pithing & pithed are verbs and pithful & pithless are adjectives; the noun plural is piths.

The Pith Helmet

Headwear from the Raj.

The pith helmet, known also as the sun helmet, safari helmet, topi, topee, or sola topee was a lightweight cloth-covered piece of headgear made of the pith of the sola or shola (Indian spongewood) plant, covered with white cotton and faced with cloth (usually white, cream, biege or green).  Topee (pith helmet) was from the Hindi टोपी (ṭopī) (hat) and the Urdu ٹوپی‎ (ṭōpī) (hat).  The form has some linguistic overlap, the long -e phonetic suffix (variously and inconsistently as -e, -ie, -ee) often appended to create slang forms, affectionate diminutives or to indicate something was a smaller version of an original.  In Indian English for example, a coatee was a hook upon which one hangs one's coat, something unrelated to the original use in English where a coatee was a coat with short flaps, a mid-eighteenth century Americanism, the formation modeled on goatee, a style of beard at the time especially popular south of the Mason-Dixon Line.  Among the colonists and colonial administrators, by the early twentieth century, the most popular word to use was the Hindu topi. 

Symbols of the Raj, the pith helmet and the G&T (gin & tonic).  G&T was a great contribution to civilized life.

Most associated with the military and civil services of the European powers during the colonial period of the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth century, pith helmets routinely were issued to or chosen by those going to hot climates.  As a general principle, the army used dark colours and civilians light (even white) helmets but under modern conditions, the military found them not suitable for the battlefield; the British Army withdrawing them from active use in 1948 although they continue to be worn on some ceremonial occasions (the famous plumed helmets are now seen less often).  Widely popular now only in Vietnam where it’s a remnant of French influence, its niche now is in the nostalgia-fashion industry although, as a symbol of white colonialism, use can be controversial.

The Emperor and his viceroy in topis: George V (1865–1936; King of the United Kingdom & Emperor of India 1910-1936) with Lord Hardinge (1858–1944; Viceroy of India 1910-1916), Government House, Calcutta, 1911.

Of fashions under the Raj, the fictional depictions on screen in which white linen suits often predominate can be misleading; pith helmets, especially during the cooler months, were paired with any daywear.  Until December 1911, Calcutta (now Kolkata) was the capital of British India but since the nineteenth century it had emerged as a hotbed of nationalist movements opposed to British rule, the response of Lord Curzon (1859–1925; Viceroy of India 1899-1905 & UK foreign secretary 1919-1924) being the partition of Bengal which made things worse, a massive upsurge in political and religious activity ensuing.  Had that manifested as letters to the editor or even "passive resistance" the British might have been sanguine but what happened was a boycott of British products and institutions and a spike in the assassinations of Calcutta-based officials.  The British rescinded Curzon's act of partition and relocated the colonial government to New Delhi, designating the city the new capital.

Over millennia, there have been many empires and the Raj and other European colonial ventures were just unusually large examples of a long tradition.  While no two empires exactly were alike, nobody has better distilled their (almost always) unstated rationale than George Orwell (1903-1950) who settled on: "theft" [of other peoples' lands, resources, treasure, women etc] and in the history of the Raj, there are a number of inflection points which, in retrospect, came to be seen as markers on the road to "end of empire".  The viceroy's retreat to New Delhi was one such moment and in the 35 years left to the Raj there were others so while the cumulative effects of the two World Wars (1914-1918 & 1939-1945) certainly rendered control of India (and much of the rest of the empire) financially unsustainable for the British, they were merely the Raj's death knell; what would come to be called the "winds of change" had for some time been blowing.

Sir Philip Mitchell (1890–1964) in plumed pith helmet while Governor of Kenya, with African tribal elders, awaiting the arrival of an aircraft during the 1952 royal tour, RAF Eastleigh Aerodrome (Now Moi Air Base), Nairobi, Kenya, February 1952.  

It was during this tour George VI (1895–1952; King of the United Kingdom 1936-1952) would die and his eldest daughter would be recalled from Kenya to London as Elizabeth II (1926-2022; Queen of the UK and other places, 1952-2022).  George VI had been the last Emperor of India, the imperial style a bauble dreamed up in 1876 by Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881, later First Earl of Beaconsfield; UK prime-minister Feb-Dec 1868 & 1874-1880), ostensibly as a means of cementing rule in India and emphasising the British Empire was a notch or two above the others in the geopolitical pecking order but also as a way of flattering Queen Victoria (1819–1901; Queen of the UK 1837-1901), a form of "monarch management" at which old Disraeli was most adept; his technique with royalty he described as "laying it on with a trowel".  Serving earlier as Governor of Uganda (1935–1940) and Governor of Fiji (1942–1944), Sir Philip Mitchell was a classic peripatetic administrator of the type for decades sent here and there by the Colonial Office and plumed pith helmets were one of the symbols of viceroys, governors-general and governors, those with a military background tending to wear them more assuredly.

Lord Lytton (Edward Robert Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1831–1891, Viceroy of India 1876-1880).  As well as pith helmets, under the Raj, there was much dressing up.

By the time World War II ended, few doubted Indian independence would soon be granted; it was a matter just of working out the timing and the mechanism(s).  Intriguingly, even then the pith helmet was understood as something emblematic of colonial oppression and they had become unfashionable, their relegation to a soon to be needed suitcase sometimes a wise precaution, the archives of the India Office (1858-1947) in London including reports of officials wearing them being abused in the streets and even assaulted.  The sociological significance of the pith helmet was discussed in The Wrong Topi: Personal Narratives, Ritual, and the Sun Helmet as a Symbol (1984) by academic folklorists Frank de Caro (1943–2020) and Rosan Jordan (1939–2025) one anecdote illustrating how things had changed.  The language skills of Indian-born General Hastings “Pug” Ismay (1887–1965) and other officers in the British Army who had served in India proved useful during the evacuation from France as they were able to communicate in Hindi over open radio channels without fear of eavesdropping Germans knowing what was being said.  Ismay had left India in 1936 to take up an appointment with the CID (Committee of Imperial Defence) but when he returned in 1947 to become chief of staff to Lord Louis Mountbatten (1900–1979; last viceroy and first governor-general of India 1947-1948) he found it a changed place:

“Ismay was met at New Delhi airport by his old friend, Field Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck (1884–1981), then commander-in-chief of the Indian Army.  As Ismay stepped down from the plane, he was horrified to see what Auchinleck was wearing on his head: a beret.  Deeply shaken, the only words Ismay could stammer were: ‘My God, Claude!  Where your topi?’  When Ismay, years earlier, had last been in India, the topi had been more than a mere hat.  It had been a veritable icon.  During its heyday from the late nineteenth century to the late 1930s, no European would have thought of being abroad in the noonday sun without a topi squarely planted upon his head, and to have neglected to put one on would have been deemed both improper and unsafe.  All of that had changed by the time of Ismay's return, but the story testifies to the respect that was once accorded to this obligatory headgear.”

Sir Arthur Porritt (1900-1994; Governor-General of New Zealand, 1967-1972), Government House, Wellington, New Zealand, November 1970.

Although New Zealand was not a place of oppressive heat and harsh sunshine, there too, there was a time when governors-general appeared in plumed pith helmets.  A wartime military surgeon, Sir Arthur was a kind of transitional figure as the British Empire became a "Commonwealth of Nations", being New Zealand-born but resident in the UK, he was the country's first first locally born governor-general as all subsequent appointees have been.  In another sign of changing times, Sir Arthur was the last governor-general to wear the full civil uniform and, upon retirement, was raised to the peerage, in 1973 taking his seat in the House of Lords as Baron Porritt of Wanganui and Hampstead.

The exchange between Ismay and Auchinleck was a but footnote in the history of the Raj but seldom has such a brief, insignificant incident so well encapsulated a change so profound and it struck many including the historian Leonard Mosley (1913–1992) who discussed the implications in The Last Days of the British Raj (1961).  Interestingly in Lord Ismay’s own memoirs (1960) the old soldier focused on more the practical aspects of imperial fashion: “Having been brought up in the belief that anyone who failed to wear a pith helmet while the Indian sun was still in the sky was a lunatic, I blurted out, ‘Have you gone mad, Claude?  Where is your topee?’  He replied that, on the contrary, we had all been mad for a hundred years or more to wear such an un-comfortable and unnecessary form of head-gear.”  The shift in sentiment did though appear in a passage in The Jewel in the Crown (1966), the first part of the Raj Quartet (1966-1975) by Paul Scott (1920-1978), set in India during the last years of the Raj.  In the book, there’s a post-war scene in which an officer shocks his more politically aware colleagues by continuing to be attended by a young India manservant, the man blissfully unaware India has moved on while he has not.

Although in Hindi topi meant simply “hat”, by the end of the eighteenth century it had been re-purposed as a synecdoche, Europeans in India habitually referred to by the native inhabitants as “topi-wallahs” (ie wearers of hats rather than turbans).  From there, the term became more specialized and by the mid-1800s, almost exclusively it had become associated with a particular type of hat, the sun helmet which, with its relatively high crown and a wider brim, became so emblematic of European colonialism it was used in advertising and illustrations for many purposes.  Not only that but in India it became for the colonial administrators and many settlers a kind of uniform and a form of cultural assertion, one recounting: “The topi was a fetish; it was a tribal symbol. If you did not wear a topi you were not merely silly, you were a cad. You were a traitor.  You had gone native.”

Lindsay Lohan in pith helmet with riding crop, rendered as a line drawing by Vovsoft.

That attitude illustrates the role of the pith helmet in a way a structural functionalist would understand and may have more efficacy that Lord Ismay’s view of it as an essential tool of sun protection.  Even in the earlier days of the old East India Company, the staff physicians had argued sunstroke was the result of a rise in general body temperature and not necessarily from direct exposure to the sun, some even arguing the head was not especially susceptible to heat; they noted Indian adult males got along quite well with a different type of head protection and Indian women and children generally wore little or none.  While the pith helmet was not exclusive to India, it had not widely been adopted in other hot parts of the British Empire (such as outback Australia, the Americas or parts of Africa) and historians have speculated the real importance was psychological, a reassuring symbol of continuity.  Certainly, recent research has shown hats with wider brims provide much better protection from the sun but there was a ritualism associated with the things, diaries of travellers noting how passengers on ships routinely would put on their pith helmet after passing through the Suez Canal on their way to India and barely taking it off until entering the Mediterranean on the voyage home.  In short, it was a badge of Anglo-Indian identity.

In other words, it was an assertion of Britishness or “whiteness” in that it was a type of headgear worn by Europeans and very seldom by Indians.  Tellingly, those of mixed European and Indian ancestry, wore topis with even more enthusiasm than the English themselves; with the zeal of the convert as it were.  Jokes about Eurasians wearing pith helmets at inappropriate times (such as with pyjamas, in the bath or during moments of intimacy) became legion.  One often neglected aspect of the pith helmet shifting during the last days of the Raj from a symbol of authority to one of shame was that the nature of the British presence in India changed dramatically during the war as a consequence of the sub-continent’s strategic significance to the Far East Theatre.  During the conflict, a huge number arrived from the UK (military and civilian) and they often were of a different social class than those who had for a century made up the Anglo-Indian community, the overwhelming majority of them of type who would in pre-war conditions never have contemplated even a visit.  Putting a pith helmet on them did not a topi-wallah make and the old establishment knew the end was nigh, the demise of the hat not a cause but a harbinger of a change which had begun long before “the stroke of the midnight hour”.

Topi-wallah Melania Trump (b 1970; FLOTUS 2017-2021 and since 2025) in pith helmet, on safari, Kenya, October, 2018.

In common with the more stylish FLOTUSes, Melania Trump’s choice of clothing pften has been analysed in search of political meaning, a deconstruction her husband escaped except for the commentary about the length he chose to allow his ties to hang and those observations were more personal than political.  Mrs Trump, doubtless well aware of the media's interest, wore a pith helmet while on safari near Nairobi, Kenya, attracting from the left criticism for donning a symbol of white colonial rule while from the right, approvingly it was observed a pith helmet had never looked so good.

Presumably, even if unaware she was courting controversy (which is unlikely), the White House would have spelled out the implications so the pith helmet must have been worn to be provocative and the reaction wouldn’t have been unexpected because a few weeks earlier, while visiting a migrant child detention centre, she choose a Zara jacket (US$39) emblazoned across the back with the words “I REALLY DON'T CARE, DO U?”  Clearly a garment for a photo-opportunity, it was worn not while in the presence of the children but only when entering the aircraft and helicopter used for the trip.  The press of course sought comment which elicited from the White House the expected contradictory responses which from day one has typified the media-management of the Trump administration.

Melania Trump in Zara jacket from the spring/summer 2016 collection, 2018.

The feeling among the press was that whatever the origins of the approach, the “confected confusion” was a deliberate strategy, unlike what prevailed under the previous administration of Joe Biden (b 1942; US president 2021-2025) which was merely “confused”.  Regarding the Zara jacket, the POTUS said the message was there for the “fake news media” while the FLOTAS’s communications chief insisted it was “just a jacket” and there was “no hidden message”.  Mrs Trump herself later (sort of) clarified things, telling ABC News the jacket “…was a kind of message, yes”, adding it was obvious she “…didn't wear the jacket for the children” and it was donned only “…to go on the plane and off the plane.... It was for the people and for the left-wing media who are criticizing me.  I want to show them I don't care.  You could criticize whatever you want to say.  But it will not stop me to do what I feel is right.”  Mrs Trump went on to reiterate her own critique of the media for being “obsessed” with what she wears, noting it was only the jacket which attracted attention rather than any matters to do with child detention or immigration more broadly: “I would prefer they would focus on what I do and on my initiatives than what I wear.”  It might seem curious a former model would express surprise at interest being taken in the clothes a woman wears but, well aware nothing can be done about that, she has proved more adept at weaponizing messages than most White House staff have managed.

Club

Club (pronounced kluhb)

(1) A heavy stick, usually thicker at one end than at the other, suitable for use as a weapon; a cudgel.

(2) A group of persons organized for a social, literary, athletic, political, or other purpose.

(3) The building or rooms occupied by such a group.

(4) An organization that offers its subscribers certain benefits, as discounts, bonuses, or interest, in return for regular purchases or payments.

(5) In sport, a stick or bat used to drive a ball in various games, as golf.

(6) A nightclub, especially one in which people dance to popular music, drink, and socialize.

(7) A black trefoil-shaped figure on a playing card.

(8) To beat with or as with a club.

(9) To gather or form into a club-like mass.

(10) To contribute as one's share toward a joint expense; make up by joint contribution (often followed by up or together).

(11) To defray by proportional shares.

(12) To combine or join together, as for a common purpose.

(13) In nautical, use, to drift in a current with an anchor, usually rigged with a spring, dragging or dangling to reduce speed.

(14) In casual military use, in the maneuvering of troops, blunders in command whereby troops get into a position from which they cannot extricate themselves by ordinary tactics.

(15) In zoological anatomy, a body part near the tail of some dinosaurs and mammals.

(16) In mathematical logic and set theory, a subset of a limit ordinal which is closed under the order topology, and is unbounded relative to the limit ordinal.

(17) In axiomatic set theory, a set of combinatorial principles that are a weaker version of the corresponding diamond principle.

(18) A birth defect where one or both feet are rotated inwards and downward.  Dr Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945; Nazi propaganda minister 1933-1945) was born with the condition although in early self-propaganda he did attempt to suggest it was a battlefield injury from World War I (1914-1918); Goebbels never served in the military.  

1175-1225: From the Middle English clubbe, derived from the Old Norse klubba (club or cudgel) akin to clump, from Old English clympre (lump of metal) related to the Middle High German klumpe (group of trees).  The Proto-Germanic klumbon was also related to clump.  Old English words for this were sagol and cycgel.  The Danish klőver and Dutch klaver (a club at cards) is literally "a clover."  Ultimate root is the classical Latin globus or glomus (forming into a globe or ball), a later influence the Middle Low German kolve (bulb) and German Kolben (butt, bulb, club).  The sense of a "bat used in games" is from mid-fifteenth century; the club suit in the deck of cards is from the 1560s although the pattern adopted on English cards is the French trefoil.  The social club emerged in the 1660s, apparently an organic evolution from the verbal sense "gather in a club-like mass", first noted in the 1620s, then, as a noun, the "association of people", dating from the 1640s.  The Club Sandwich was probably first offered in 1899, the unrelated club soda in 1877, originally as the proprietary name Club Soda.  Club, clubbishness & clubbing are nouns & verbs, clubber is a noun, clubbed is a verb & adjective, clubby & clubbish are adjectives and clubbily is an adverb; the noun plural is clubs.

On her Only Fans page, Tash Peterson shows her club membership.

Something of a local legend in the world of vegan activism, Tash Peterson (b circa 1995) is an animal rights activist based in Perth, Australia.  Not part of the the militant extreme of the movement which engages in actual physical attacks on the personnel, plant & equipment of the industries associated with animal slaughter, Ms Peterson's form of direct action is the set-piece event, staged to produce images and video with cross-platform (Instagram, TikTok etc) appeal, the footage she posts on social media freely available for re-distribution by the legacy media, her Instagram feed providing a sample of her work in various contexts.  The accessories used include blood (reputedly from slaughterhouses) and very fetching figure-fitting costumes styled to resemble various animals including cows, her favored locations including the meat section of supermarkets, cafés and restaurants serving animal flesh, processing facilities associated with the slaughter industry and any events celebrating the carnivorous.  Ms Peterson's other club membership is that of the vegansexuals (vegans who choose to have sex or pursue sexual relationships only with other vegans).  Vegansexuals differ from vegesexuals in that while vegetarians exclude from their diet meat, poultry, and fish, many do consume dairy, eggs and honey, all products Ms Peterson says involve animal cruelty or exploitation and according to her, "plant-powered penises last longer".  Based presumably on her empirical findings, that knowledge is a helpful contribution to civilization. 

The Club Sandwich

Most historians of food suggest the club sandwich (in the sense of an item able to be ordered) first appeared on a menu in 1899 at the Union Club of New York City.  It was however made with two toasted slices of bread with a layer of turkey or chicken and ham between them, served warm, not the three slices with which it’s now associated; at that point the "club" was merely self referential of the institution at which it was served.  Others suggest it originated in 1894 at an exclusive gambling club in New York’s Saratoga Springs; the former is more accepted because there’s documentary evidence while the latter claim is based on references in secondary sources.  It’s a mere etymological point; as a recipe, what’s now thought of as a club sandwich had doubtless been eaten for decades or centuries before the words Club Sandwich appeared on a menu.  The notion that club is actually an acronym for "chicken and lettuce under bacon" appears to be a modern pop-culture invention, derived from a British TV sitcom, Peter Kay’s (b 1973) Car Share (episode 5: Unscripted, 7 May 2018) in what’s claimed to be an un-scripted take, although, on television, very little is really ad-lib and within the industry, "reality" has a specific, technical meaning.  On the show, the discussion was about the difference between a BLT (bacon, lettuce & tomato) and a club sandwich.  On the internet the factoid went viral but was fake news.

Seemingly sceptical: Lindsay Lohan contemplates club.

Ingredients

12 slices wholegrain or rye bread

12 rashers rindless, shortcut, peach-fed bacon

Extra-virgin olive oil

2 free-range eggs

½ cup whole egg mayonnaise

12 cos lettuce leaves

320g sliced lean turkey breast

4 ripe Paul Robeson heirloom tomatoes, sliced

A little freshly-chopped tarragon

Ground smoked sea salt & freshly cracked black peppercorns

Instructions

(1) Preheat a grill tray on medium.  Place half the bread under grill and cook until lightly toasted.  Repeat with remaining bread.

(2) Lightly brush both sides of bacon with oil.  Place under grill and cook for 2-4 minutes each side according to taste.  Once removed, place on a paper towel, turning over after one minute.

(3) Fry eggs, preferably leaving yokes soft and runny.  Fold tarragon into mayonnaise according to taste.   

(4) Spread 8 of the slices of toast with mayonnaise.  Arrange half of the lettuce, turkey and tomatoes over 4 slices.  Evenly distribute the fried eggs.

(5) Top with a second slice of toast with mayonnaise. Then, add remaining lettuce, bacon and tomato. Season well with salt and pepper. Top with remaining pieces of toast.

(6) Cut each sandwich in half or quarters according to preference, using toothpicks driven through centre to secure construction.

Variations

Chefs are a dictatorial lot and tend to insist a club sandwich must be a balanced construction with no predominant or overwhelming taste or texture; with chefs, the trick is to agree with everything they say and then make things to suit individual taste.  By varying the percentages of the ingredients, one can create things like a bacon club with extras and vegetarian creations are rendered by swapping bacon and turkey for aubergine and avocado.  A surprising number find tomato a mismatch, some add cheese or onion while many prefer butter to mayonnaise.  In commercial operations like cafés, tradition is to serve clubs with French fries but many now offer salads, often with a light vinaigrette dressing.  Served with soup, it’s a meal.

1946 Lincoln Club Coupe (body style 77).  When production of the V12 Lincoln Zephyr (1936-1942) resumed in 1946, the cars were sold simply as Lincolns with no model designation, differentiated by the style of coach-work (Sedan, Club Coupe & Convertible Coupe).  When production ended in 1948, it was the last of the American V12s.

The mysterious term “club coupe” emerged in the 1930s to distinguish the style from the “business coupe”, the latter a two door car with only a front seat, the rear compartment used to augment the space in the trunk (boot), the target market the numerous “travelling salesmen” who needed a vehicle with lots of secure storage for their wares.  What the term “club coupe” described was a two-door car with a rear passenger including a bench seat for two or three.  The use of the word “club” was an example of “aspirational branding”, a marketing flourish intended to suggest something more upscale than the utilitarian business coupe, the invocation that of the style and exclusivity of the “private club”.  Being a product of the marketing department, “club coupe” was never precisely defined and while the characteristics associated with the style were sometimes identifiable, never were they long consistent.

1951 Ford Custom Deluxe Club Coupe; long model names are nothing new.

The mid-century tendency was to use a body shorter than that of a sedan but retaining the convenience of a full-size back seat (unlike the single-seat business coupe) but as the “two door sedan” emerged as a descriptor things became fuzzy and by the time the two door hardtops appeared at scale in the 1950s, it wasn’t surprising “club coupe” fell from favour.  Ford in 1954 offered a club coupe but they were the next season renamed “Tudor sedan” (ie a two-door sedan) but made the use murkier still by calling the Customline Six two-door a "Tudor Sedan" and the new V8 Fairlane a “Club Sedan”; business coupes and club sedans lingering for years in the line-up but the club coupe vanished until 1966.  The 1960s revival was a use of the word to allude to the upmarket fittings once associated with the more luxurious club coupes of the pre-war years and like “landau”, “brougham” and such, was just another model designation, suggestive of some link to a happier past.

Promotional images used for 2015 Holden Commodore Clubsport R8 25^th Anniversary Edition.  Note the bogan-themed tyre marks; Holden knew their target-market.

The meaning denoted was different in 1990 when Holden added the V8 HSV (Holden Special Vehicles) Clubsport to the VN range as a “de-contented” entry-level model, along the lines of the original Plymouth Road Runner (1968-1970), the message being: fewer fittings meant lower cost, reduced weight and thus higher performance.  In this case the “club” element of the name denoted a vehicle suitable for amateur motor sport (ie “club-level” competition) in that the car could be road-registered and driven to racetracks where it could be used in standard form or with only slight, temporary modifications (tyres, brake-pads, exhaust systems etc). The Clubsport would remain in the line-up until the end of Holden production in 2017 although, for various reasons, equipment levels steadily increased.

Joyous German Porsche fanboys at a club meeting in 1957, held for them to meet Ferdinand Anton Ernst "Ferry" Porsche (1909–1998), a event they would have found a quasi-religious experience similar to that felt by Apple cultists permitted to be in the same room as Steve Jobs (1955–2011).

It was in the US in the 1930s that manufacturers began to dub cars “club this, that or the other” in a (vague) allusion to the up-market “private club”.  In Germany at the time, “club” was understood as “a stout stick with which one may strike another” and for some years cudgels had been the language of political discourse as the Communists and Nazis battled for control of the streets.  The Nazis clubs prevailed and under the Third Reich (1933-1945) private societies and associations became rare as the party and state attempted to assume totalitarian control, the party deluding itself into believing its crackdown on independence of thought had solved the “Freemason problem”, even creating a “Freemason Museum” on Berlin’s Prinz-Albrecht-Palais (conveniently close to Gestapo headquarters) to exhibit relics of the “vanished cult”.

Founding articles of the Westfälischer Porsche Club Hohensyburg.

After World War II (1939-1945) the private societies returned (including the scourge of Freemasonry) and on 26 May, 1952, seven fanboys (soon there were 13) of the Porsche sports cars (in production since 1948) formed the Westfälischer Porsche Club Hohensyburg; as Porsche Club Westfalen e.V. the club still exists and is based in Dortmund.  It was the world’s first “Porsche club” of which there are now hundreds in a reputed 86 countries with a membership roll believed to be close to a quarter-million and although there are factions devoted to other models, the core of the cult is a kind of “freemasonry of the 911”, a car with a lineage in which traces of the 1948 models remain detectable.  The club’s name also honored the Hohensyburg racecourse near Dortmund, which locals liked to call the “Westfalens Nürburgring” (Nürburgring of Westphalia).

2012 Porsche 911 Club Coupé in Familiengrün.

Although “fanboy” is understood to mean something like übertriebener Fan (excessively obsessive fan), blinder Anhänger (blind follower) or fanatischer Anhänger (fanatical follower), German has absorbed the English slang “fanboy” and uses it unmodified.  In 2012, Porsche celebrated the company’s 60^th anniversary and one component in the celebrations was a run of 13 911 Club Coupés, the unusual production volume a tribute to those 13 fanboys of 1952 who were the foundation members of world’s first “Porsche Club”.  Based on the 991 series (2011-2019) 911 (the concept in series production since 1964), the Club Coupé was bundled with the Sport Design package, X51 Powerkit, body-colored Sport Techno wheels, PCCB (Porsche Ceramic Composite Brakes which used a ceramic disc-rotor reinforced with carbon fibre), Club-themed door sills, and PASM (Porsche Active Suspension Management).

1969 Porsche 911S (chassis #: 911 0300014) in olive green metallic, once the personal car of Ferry Porsche.

Although the specification was standard, Ferry Porsche got a sort of “advance copy” of the new model because it was one of fourteen built (chassis #: 911 0300013 skipped for “superstitious reasons”) for internal use before the summer holidays so customers had to wait a while to enjoy the 180 HP extracted from the 2.2 litre (134 cubic inch) flat-six for the new 911S.  Others in the batch (01, 02 & 03) were allocated to the competition department for use in the 1969 Acropolis Rally which a 911S won.  What the 911 cultists adore is little details the factory added or omitted and of note are the missing front over-riders (an aesthetic choice by Ferry Porsche), a fuel-injection system from the 1966 906 (Carrera 6) and even a tow bar; the provenance of the latter two is uncertain but the tow-bar is a genuine factory part.  One marker of the uniqueness of the run in 2012 of the 13 Club Coupés was the color; although the factory listed the hue as Brewstergrün (Brewster Green), it was known internally as Familiengrün (Family Green), used for Wolfgang Porsche’s (b 1943) personal 911s.  Familiengrün is a concept rather than a chemical specification the influences over the years have included Oakgreenmetallic, Olivegreen and Emeraldgreenmetallic.