Quartervent

Quartervent (pronounced kwawr-ter-vent)

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

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

1959 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1974 Lincoln Continental Town Car with mini vents.

In the 1970s Lincoln introduced the novelty of “mini-vents” which raised and lowered separately from the main side-glass.  Smoking was at the time socially acceptable (in some circles it must have appeared obligatory) and there was a lot of it about so engineers devoting time to finding a better way for those wanting to “flick ash out the window” while running the A-C wasn’t surprising.  Those visualizing a “flick” in process might be surprised such a thing existed because if in a modern vehicle, its shape honed in wind-tunnels and computer simulations, what would likely happen would be “blowback”.  That’s because the shape is aerodynamically efficient (with a “buffer zone” very close to the surface) and disrupting that by lowering a window shifts the inside pressure from positive to negative, ask thus being “sucked-in”.  However, on something like a 1974 Lincoln Continental (which conceptually can be imagined as one brick sitting atop two), the buffer zone can (depending on speed) extend as as much as 3 feet (close to a metre) from the body.  The meant ash was flicked into the “buffer zone” and it didn’t end up back in the cabin.  The vents didn’t last (another casualty of the quest for lower drag) but as late as 1985 they appeared as a US$72 extra and were known in the industry as the “smoker's option”.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cinque

Cinque (pronounced singk)

(1) In certain games (those using cards, dice, dominoes etc), a card, die, or domino with five spots or pips.

(2) As cinquefoil (1) a potentilla (flower), (2) in heraldry, a stylized flower or leaf with five lobes and (3) in topology, a particular knot of five crossings.

(3) As cinquecentist, (1) an Italian of the sixteenth century, especially a poet or an artist, (2) a student or imitator of the art or literature of that period and (3) the style of art or architecture of that period.

(4) In fine art, as cinquecento, the works of the sixteenth-century (ie the 1500s).

(5) In bladesmithing, as cinquedea, a long dagger (ie short sword) with an unusually heavy blade, developed in Renaissance-era northern Italy during the fifteenth century.  The name is from the Italian cinquedea (literally “five fingers”), a reference to the width of the tapered-blade at the hilt, the expanse of steel meaning they often were richly ornamented although, typically being only some 18 inches (460 mm) in length, they were still light enough in combat to be an effective weapon.

1350–1400: From the Middle English cink, from the Old French cinq (five), from the Vulgar Latin cinque, from the Latin quīnque (five).  The archaic spelling cinq was from the modern French cinq, whereas the standard spelling probably emerged either under the influence of the Italian cinque or was simply a misspelling of the French.  In typically English fashion, the pronunciation “sank” is based on a hypercorrect approximation of the French pronunciation, still heard sometimes among what use to be called “the better classes”.  The alternative forms were cinq (archaic), sinque (obsolete) and sink & sank (both misspellings) while the homophones are cinq, sink, sync & synch (and sank at the best parties).  Cinque is a noun; the noun plural is cinques.

Cinque outposts, attested since the 1640s was a term which referred to the five senses.  The noun cinquecento (written sometimes as cinque-cento) is used in (as noun & adjective) criticism & academic works when describing sixteenth century Italian art and literature.  It dates from 1760, from the Italian cinquecento (literally “500”) and was short for mil cinquecento (1500).  The use to describe "a group of five, five units treated as one," especially at cards or dice, dates from the late fourteenth century and in English was borrowed directly from the French cinq, a dissimilation from Latin quinque (five) which in Late Latin also picked up the familiar spelling cinque.  The ultimate root was the primitive Indo-European penkwe (five).

Cinquefoil housing stained glass (leadlight) window.

In architecture, a cinquefoil is a ornament constructed with five cuspidated divisions, the use dating from the late fifteenth century, from the Old French cinqfoil, the construct being cinq (five) + foil (leaf).  The basis for the French form was the quinquefolium, the construct being quinque (five) + folium (leaf), from the primitive Indo-European root bhel- (to thrive, bloom).  In Gothic tracery, there was a wide use of circular shapes featuring a lobe tangent to the inner side of a larger arc or arch, meeting other lobes in points called cusps projecting inwards from the arch and architects defined them by the number of foils used, indicated by the prefix: trefoil (3), quatrefoil (4), cinquefoil (5), multifoil etc.  Although used as stand-alone fixtures, bands of quatrefoils were much used for enrichment during the "Perpendicular Period" (the final phase of English Gothic architecture, dated usually between circa 1350–1550; it followed the "Decorated Style" and was characterized by strong vertical lines, large windows with intricate tracery, and elaborate fan vaulting) and, when placed with the axes set diagonally, quatrefoils were called cross-quarters.

Porsche "phone-dial" wheels, clockwise from top left: 1981 911SC, 1988 924S, 1987 944S & 1985 928S.  With a myriad of variations, the cinquefoil motif was a style for wheels used by a number of manufacturers, the best known of which were the ones with which Porsche equipped the 911, 924, 944 & 928 where they were known as the “phone-dial”, a reference which may puzzle those younger than a certain age.  Because these have five rather than ten holes, they really should have picked up the nickname "cinquefoil" rather than "phone-dial" but the former was presumably too abstract or obscure so the more accessible latter prevailed.  All Porsche’s phone dial wheels looked similar and for non-expert eyes it really was necessary to have the variants side-by-side to notice the subtle differences.  The factory for example fitted 15” wheels to the early 928s if equipped with an automatic transmission and 16” units if a manual but the larger wheels were available (option code I401) for the former while the smaller could be ordered even on a manual, the attraction being the smoother ride provided by the taller tyre’s sidewall.  Fortunately for restorers and collectors, the part-number is stamped on the inside of each wheel (eg the 7” x 16” fitted typically to a 1979 928 with a five-speed manual transmission is part # 928 361 916 00) and the compatibility list widely is available.  Being this is a Porsche thing, there are specialists who have memorized all the permutations and thus have no need to resort to looking up the papers; such folk are great fun at dinner parties.

Fiat 500 (2023), watercolor on paper by Monika Jones.  While the artist hasn't provided notes, it's tempting to imagine the inspiration was something like “Lindsay Lohan in white dress during summer in Rome, leaning on Fiat 500, painted in the tradition of Impressionism.”

A classic of the La Dolce Vita era, the rear-engined Fiat 500 was in continuous production between 1957-1975 and was the successor to the pre-war Fiat 500 Topolino, an even more diminutive machine which proved its versatility in roles ranging from race tracks to inner-city streets to operating as support vehicles used by the Italian Army in the invasion of Abyssinia (1935).  Almost 3.9 million of the post-war 500s (dubbed the Nuova Cinquecento (New 500)) were produced and as well as the two-door saloon (almost all fitted with a folding sunroof) there were three-door station wagons (the Giardiniera) & panel vans.  Although not all wore the 500 badge, in the home market, universally Italians called them the Cinquecentro.  There was also the unusual 500 Jolly, a cut down version built by Carrozzeria Ghia which featured wicker seats and a removable fabric roof in the style of the surrey tops once used on horse-drawn carriages.  The Jolly was intended as “beach car”, some carried on the yachts of the rich and although Ghia built only 650 originals, many 500s have since been converted to “Jolly Spec”, one of coach-building’s less-demanding tasks.  Being an Italian car, there were of course high-performance versions, the wildest of which was the Steyr-Puch 650 TR2 (1965-1969) which ran so hot it was necessary to prop open the engine cover while it was in use.  The Nuova 500’s successors never achieved the same success but such was the appeal of the original that in 2007 a retro-themed 500 was released although, al la Volkswagen’s “new Beetles” (1997-2019), the configuration was switched to a water-cooled front-engine with FWD (front-wheel-drive).

1985 Ferrari Testarossa “monospecchio-monodado”.

The early Testarossas were fitted with centre-lock magnesium-alloy wheels, chosen for their lightness.  Responding to feedback from the dealer network, as a running-change during 1988, these were substituted for units with a conventional five-bolt design.  The centre-lock wheels were called monodado (one nut) while the five lug-types were the cinquedado (five nut) and because of the time-line, while all the monospecchio cars are also monodado, only some of the monodaddi are monospecchi.  Monospecchi (literally "one mirror") is an unofficial designation for the early cars fitted with a single external mirror, mounted unusually high on the A-pillar, the location the product of Ferrari's interpretation of the EU's (European Union) rearward visibility regulations.  The Eurocrats later clarified things and Testarossas subsequently were fitted with two mirrors in the usual position at the base of the A-pillar. 

Plastic wheelcover for the Ford (Australia) Fairmont XE (1982-1984, left), a circa 1949 British GPO standard telephone in Bakelite (centre) (globally, the most produced handset in this style was the Model 302, which, with a thermoplastic case, was manufactured in the US by Western Electric between 1937-1955 and plastic wheelcover for the Ford (Australia) Fairmont XF (1984-1988, right).  Telephones with larger dial mechanisms usually didn't use all the available space for the finger-holes.

Probably some are annoyed at the “five-hole” wheel design coming to be known as the “phone-dial” because of course the classic rotary-dial mechanism had ten holes, one for each numeral.  Ford Australia actually stuck to the classics when designing a plastic wheel-cover for the XE Fairmont (then the next rung up in the Falcon's pecking order) because it featured the correct ten holes and it was re-allocated as a “hand-me-down” for the Falcon when the XF was introduced, the Fairmont now getting an eight-hole unit.  None of these seem ever to have been dubbed “phone-dials”, probably because plastic wheel–covers have never been a fetish like the older metal versions or aluminium wheels (often as “rims” in modern usage, a practice which also annoys some).  The XE hubcap may be thought a decemfoil (10 leaf) and the XF unit a octofoil (8 leaf).

1971 Ford (South Africa) XY Fairmont GT with the GS Pack wheel covers.

The South African Fairmont GTs were never fitted with the "five slot" wheels used in Australia, getting instead the chromed wheel cover which in Australia was part of the "GS Pack", a collection of "dress-up" options designed to provide much of the look of a GT without the additional costs to purchase or insure one.  The GS Pack wheel covers were first seen in Australia on the 1967 XR Falcon GT and came from the Mercury parts bin in the US where they'd appeared on the 1966 Mercury Comet Cyclone GT; they were designed to look like a chromed, naked wheel, the idea a tribute to the Californian hot rod community in which the motif originated.

1971 Ford (Australia) XY Falcon GT with “five slot” wheels.

Although scholars of Latin probably haven’t given much thought to the wheels Ford used in the 1960s & 1970s, their guidance would be helpful because the correct Latin form for “slot” depends on context, the words being (1) Fissura: “crack, split or narrow opening”, (2) Rima: “narrow gap or slit”, (3) Foramen: “opening, hole or perforation” and (4) Scissura “cleft or division”.  So a XY GT’s wheel would be a cinquefissura, cinquerima, cinqueforamen or cinquescissura.  The scholars would have to rule but cinquerima seems best, tied in nicely with the modern (albeit contested) use of “rim” to mean wheel.      

In production over six generations between 1965-2008 the Fairmont was a "blinged-up" version of the Australian Ford Falcon (1960-2016), a car based on the US compact (1960-1969) Ford of the same name (the one-off 1970 US Falcon an entry level model in the intermediate Torinio (formerly Fairlane) range).  Ford in the US would also use the Fairmont name for a compact (1978-1983) but the most quirky use was that between 1969-1971, Ford South Africa sold a car substantially similar to the Australian Falcon GT but badged it "Fairmont GT".  Assembled (with some local components) in South Africa from CKD (completely knocked down) packs imported from Australia, the Fairmont name was chosen because US Falcons (assembled from Canadian CKD packs) had been sold in South Africa between 1960-1963 but had gained such a bad reputation (Ford Australia had to do much rectification work after encountering the same fragility) the nameplate was decreed tainted.  In the technical sense, "Fairmont GT" would have been a more accurate name in Australia too because the Falcon GT was trimmed to the same specification (ie bling) as the Fairmont; the choice of "Falcon GT" was just a desire by the marketing team to create a "halo" machine for the mainstream range, something which succeeded to an degree which probably surprised even those ever-optimistic types.  Ford South Africa never offered a Fairmont GTHO to match the Falcon GTHOs produced in Australia to homologate certain combinations of parts for competition.

Lamborghini has used the phone-dial since the first incarnation appeared on the Silhouette in 1976 and it likes it still, left to right: Huranan, Gallardo, Countach, Diablo and Silhouette.  With five "holes", these are true cinquefoils and thoughtlessly, like Porsche, Lamborghini seems never to have provided a "trigger warning" urging caution on the trypophobic (those suffering from trypophobia (an obsessive or irrational fear of patterns or clusters of small holes)).

Despite being often called a "hubcap", what appeared on the South African Fairmont GTs really was a "wheel cover".  The origin of the hubcap was, fairly obviously, “a cap for hub”, something which dates from the age of horse-drawn carts.  Although they would later become something decorative, hubcaps began as a purely function fitting designed to ensure the hub mechanism was protected from dirt and moisture because removing a wheel when the hub was caked in mud with bolts “rusted on” could be a challenge.  In the twentieth century the practice was carried over to the automobile, initially without much change but as wheels evolved from the wooden-spoked to solid steel (and even in the 1920s some experimented with aluminium), the hubcaps became larger because the securing bolts were more widely spaced.  This meant they became a place to advertise so manufacturers added their name and before long, especially in the US, the humble hubcap evolved into the “wheel-cover”, enveloping the whole circle and they became a styling feature, designs ranging from the elegant to the garishly ornate and some were expensive: in 1984 a set of replacement “wire” wheel covers for a second generation Cadillac Seville (the so-called “bustle-back”, 1980-1985) listed at US$995.00 if ordered as a Cadillac part-number and then that was a lot of money.  By the late 1980s, most wheel covers were plastic pressings, other than in places like the isolated environments behind the Iron Curtain.

Beltless: Lindsay Lohan in 2004 using touch-dial wall-phone, note the hooking of the thumbs in the belt loops.

Remarkably, although touch-dial (ie buttons) handsets appeared in the consumer market as early as 1963 and soon became the standard issue, in 2024 it’s possible still to buy new, rotary-dial phones although only the user experience remains similar; internally the connections are effected with optical technology, the “sound & feel” emulated.  There’s also a market for updating the old Bakelite & Thermoplastic units (now typically between 70-90 years old) with internals compatible with modern telephony so clearly there’s some nostalgia for the retro-look, if not the exact experience.  Even after the touch-dial buttons became ubiquitous the old terminology persisted among users (and in the manufacturers' documents); when making calls users continued to "dial the number".  The same sort of linguistic legacy exists today because ending a call is still the act of "hanging up" and that dates from the very early days of telephony when the ear-piece was a large conical attachment on a cord and at a call's conclusion, it was "hung up" on a arm, the weight of the receiver lowering the arm which physically separated two copper connectors, terminating the link between the callers.  

Ms Justine Haupt with custom rotary-dial cell phone in turquoise.

Ms Justine Haupt (b 1987), an astronomy instrumentation engineer at New York’s Brookhaven National Laboratory went a step further (backwards, or perhaps sideways, some might suggest) and built a rotary-dial cell phone from scratch because of her aversion to what she describes as “smartphone culture and texting”, something to which many will relate.  In what proved a three year project, Ms Haupt used a rotary-dial mechanism from a Trimline telephone (introduced in 1965 and produced by Western Electric, the manufacturing unit of the Bell System), mounted on a case 4 x 3 x 1 inches (100 x 75 x 25 mm) in size with a noticeably protuberant aerial; it used an AT&T prepaid sim card and had a battery-life of some 24-30 hours.  Conforming to the designer’s choices of functionality, it includes two speed-dial buttons, an e-paper display and permits neither texting nor internet access.  

Designer colors: Available in black, white, turquoise, beige and the wonderful Atomic Hotline Red.

“Atomic Hotline Red” is an allusion to the Moscow-Washington DC “hotline” installed in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis (October 1962). In truth, despite frequently appearing in popular culture, there never was a “red phone” and the US connection terminated not on the POTUS’s desk in the Oval Office but in the Pentagon (now HQ of the Department of War) in Arlington County, Virginia.  The first implementation in 1963 used a version of Telex while it was an analogue facsimile service (ie fax machines) between 1986-2008.  Since 2008 the data has travelled over a secure digital link, decrypted into text at each end.

Although she intended the device as a one-off for her own use, Ms Haupt was surprised at the interest generated and in 2022 began selling a kit (US$170) with which others could build their own, all parts included except the rotary-dial mechanism which would need to be sourced from junk shops and such.  Unlike the larger mechanism on the traditional desk or wall-mounted telephone, the holes in the Trimline’s smaller rotary-dial used the whole circle so the ten-hole layout is symmetrical and thus the same as the XE Fairmont’s wheelcover, something doubtlessly wholly coincidental.  Unfortunately, Ms Haupt encountered many difficulties (bringing to market a device which connects to public telephony networks involves processes of greater complexity than selling mittens and such) but the project remains afoot.

The rough-fruited cinquefoil or sulphur cinquefoil (Potentilla recta).

In botany, the potentila is a genus containing some three-hundred species of annual, biennial and perennial herbaceous flowering plants in the rose (rosaceae) family.  Since the 1540s it’s been referred to as the cinquefoil (also “five fingers” or “silverweeds”), all distinguished by their compound leaves of five leaflets.

The Confederation of Cinque Ports was a group of coastal towns in Kent, Sussex and Essex, the name from the Old French which means literally “five harbors”.  The five were Hastings, Sandwich, Dover, Romney, and Hythe, all on the western shore of the English Channel, where the crossing to the continent is narrowest.  Because of (1) their importance in cross-channel trade and (2) being in the region ,most vulnerable to invasion, they were granted special privileges and concessions by the Crown in exchange for providing certain services essential for maritime defense, dating from the years prior to the formation of the Royal Navy in the fifteenth century.  The name was first used in the late twelfth century in Anglo-Latin and the late thirteenth in English.

An early version of a PPP (public-private partnership), with no permanent navy to defend it from sea-borne aggression, the crown contracted with the confederation to provide what was essentially a naval reserve to be mobilized when needed. Earlier, Edward the Confessor (circa 1003–1066; King of England 1042-1066) had contracted the five most important strategically vital Channel ports of that era to provide ships and men “for the service of the monarch” and although this was used most frequently as a “cross-Channel ferry service” and was not exclusively at the disposal of the government.  Under the Norman kings, the institution assumed the purpose of providing the communications and logistical connections essential to keeping together the two halves of the realm but after the loss of Normandy in 1205, their ships and ports suddenly became England’s first line of defense against the French.  The earliest charter still extant dates from 1278 but a royal charter of 1155 charged the ports with the corporate duty to maintain in readiness fifty-seven ships, each to be available each year for fifteen days in the service of the king, each port fulfilling a proportion of the whole duty.  In return the ports and towns received a number of tax breaks and privileges including: An exemption from tax and tolls, limited autonomy, the permission to levy tolls, certain law enforcement and judicial rights, possession of lost goods that remain unclaimed after a year and of flotsam (floating wreckage and such) & jetsam (goods thrown overboard).  Even at the time this was thought to be a good deal and the leeway afforded to the Cinque Ports and the substantial absence of supervision from London led inevitability to smuggling and corruption although in this the Cinque Ports were hardly unique.

The Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports was something like a viceroy and the office still exists today but is now purely ceremonial and, although technically relict, remains a sinecure and an honorary title, regarded as one of the higher honors bestowed by the Sovereign and a sign of special approval by the establishment which includes the entitlement to the second oldest coat of arms of England.  The prestige it confers on the holder is derived from (1) it being the gift of the sovereign, (2) it being England’s most ancient military honor and (3), the illustrious standing of at least some of the previous hundred and fifty-eight holders of the office.  It is a lifetime appointment.

William Lygon (1872-1938), seventh Earl Beauchamp, in uniform as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports.

The office of lord warden has not been without the whiff of scandal.  William Lygon, who in 1891 succeeded his father as the seventh Earl Beauchamp, was at twenty-seven appointed governor of New South Wales, a place to which he would later return, happily and otherwise.  In 1913, Lord Beauchamp, well-connected in society and the ruling Liberal Party’s leader in the House of Lords, was appointed Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports and, fond of pomp, ceremony and dressing-up, he enjoyed the undemanding role.  However, in 1930, he embarked on a round-the-world tour which included a two-month stint in Sydney, where he stayed, accompanied by a young valet who lived with him as his lover.  This, along with other antics, did not go unnoticed, and the Australian Star newspaper duly reported:

“The most striking feature of the vice-regal ménage is the youthfulness of its members … rosy cheeked footmen, clad in liveries of fawn, heavily ornamented in silver and red brocade, with many lanyards of the same hanging in festoons from their broad shoulders, [who] stood in the doorway, and bowed as we passed in … Lord Beauchamp deserves great credit for his taste in footmen.”

The report found its way to London when Beauchamp’s brother-in-law, the second Duke of Westminster (1879–1953), hired detectives to gather evidence, hoping to destroy him and damage the Liberal Party, the Tory duke hating both.  Evidence proved abundant and not hard to find so in 1931 Westminster publicly denounced Beauchamp as a homosexual to the king (George V 1865–1936; King of the United Kingdom & Emperor of India 1910-1936), who was appalled and responded that he “…thought men like that always shot themselves.”  Westminster insisted a warrant be issued for Beauchamp’s arrest and that forced him into exile.

Lady Beauchamp seems to have shown some confusion upon being informed of her husband’s conduct.  Although he had enjoyed many liaisons in their (admittedly large) residences (his partners including servants, socialites & local fishermen) and his proclivities were an open secret known to many in society, his wife remained oblivious and expressed some confusion about what homosexuality was.  Leading a sheltered existence, Lady Beauchamp had never been told about the mechanics of “the detestable and abominable vice of buggery” and was baffled, thinking her husband was being accused of being a bugler.  Actually, that evocative phrase from the statute of 1533 no longer existed in English law so someone must have gone into the details with her because the charge would have been “Gross Indecency contrary to Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885”.  The change had been created by the so-called Labouchere Amendment and it solved the practical problem created by the specificity of the words of the sixteenth century.  For the state, the problem was the old law had been too exact in that if the prosecution could not beyond reasonable doubt prove anal sex had happened between at least two “male persons”, a conviction couldn’t be secured.  Thus the attraction of the phrase “Gross Indecency” which covered the whole vista of “unnatural caresses” and it was under the new law Irish writer Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) was tried and convicted, receiving a sentence of two years.  So it cast a wider net but was less harsh in that as late as 1861 a conviction could attract the death penalty although this was thought so onerous a punishment for what was often a consensual act that prosecutions became rare.  Despite the reforms in England, in some parts of the old British Empire, terminology like “the abominable crime of buggery” remained on the statute books until late in the twentieth century.

Once things were became clear in Lady Beauchamp's mind, she petitioned for divorce, the papers describing the respondent as: “A man of perverted sexual practices, [who] has committed acts of gross indecency with male servants and other male persons and has been guilty of sodomy … throughout the married life … the respondent habitually committed acts of gross indecency with certain of his male servants.”  Tipped-off (then as now, the establishment had a "gay network"), his lordship promptly decamped, first to Germany which then would have seemed a prudent choice because, although homosexual acts between men had been illegal since the unification of Germany in 1871, under the Weimar Republic (1918-1933), enforcement was rare and a gay culture flourished blatantly in the larger German cities, the Berlin scene famous even then, the writer Christopher Isherwood (1904–1986) describing things memorably although it wasn't until his diaries were later published one fully could "read between the lines".  After the Nazis gained power in 1933, things changed and Beauchamp contemplated satisfying George V’s assumption but was dissuaded, instead spending his time between Paris, Venice, Sydney and San Francisco, four cities with a tolerant sub-culture and certainly places where wealthy gay men usually could bribe their way out of any legal unpleasantness.

Sir Robert Menzies in uniform as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports.

Sir Robert Menzies (1894–1978; prime-minister of Australia 1939-1941 & 1949-1966) was one of the more improbable appointments as lord warden.  In the office (1965-1978), he replaced Sir Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) on whom the hardly onerous duties had been imposed in 1941.  The old soldier Churchill had spent a lifetime appearing in a variety of military uniforms (his RAF (Royal Air Force) Air Commodore's outfit adorned with "pilot's wings" (aviator badge), "awarded" by the RAF on the basis of flying lessons (concluded after a non-fatal crash) he'd undertaken at the Royal Naval Flying School at Eastchurch on the Isle of Sheppey while serving as First Lord of the Admiralty (1911-1915)) and wore it well but the very civilian Menzies looked something like one of the characters from a Gilbert & Sullivan (Sir William Gilbert (1836–1911) & Sir Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900) comic opera.  That he was made lord warden rather than being granted a peerage was thought by some emblematic of the changing relationship between the UK and Australia.

After the death of George V, the warrant for Beauchamp’s arrest was lifted and, in July 1937, he returned to England.  What did come as a surprise to many was that soon after his arrival, invitations were issued for a Beauchamp ball, ostensibly a coming-of-age celebration for Richard Lygon (1916-1970; the youngest son) but universally regarded as an attempt at a social resurrection.  In a sign of the times, much of London society did attend although there were those who declined and made it known why.  Still, it seems to have appeared a most respectable and even successful event, Henry "Chips" Channon (1897-1958) noting in his diary it was a bit dull, the “only amusing moment when Lord Beauchamp escorted… a negress cabaret singer into supper.  People were cynically amused but I was not surprised, knowing of his secret activities in Harlem.  It is never a long step from homosexuality to black ladies.”  Lord Beauchamp didn’t long enjoy his return to society, dying within a year of the ball but the vicissitudes of his life were helpful to Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966) when writing Brideshead Revisited (1945), the character of Lord Marchmain based on Beauchamp himself while the ill-fated Sebastian Flyte was inspired by Beauchamp’s son Hugh (1904-1936) who shared and (with some enthusiasm) pursued some of his father’s interests.  Despite it all, an appointment as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports is for life and Lord Beauchamp remained in office until his death.