Velvet

Velvet (pronounced vel-vit)

(1) A fabric fashioned from silk with a thick, soft pile formed of loops of the warp thread either cut at the outer end or left uncut.

(2) In modern use, a fabric emulating in texture and appearance the silk original and made from nylon, acetate, rayon etc, sometimes having a cotton backing.

(3) Something likened to the fabric velvet, an allusion to appearance, softness or texture,

(4) The soft, deciduous covering of a growing antler.

(5) In informal use (often as “in velvet” or “in the velvet”), a very pleasant, luxurious, desirable situation.

(6) In slang, money gained through gambling; winnings (mostly US, now less common).

(7) In financial trading, clear gain or profit, especially when more than anticipated; a windfall profit.

(8) In mixology, as “Black Velvet”, a cocktail of champagne & stout (also made with dark, heavy beers).

(9) A female chinchilla; a sow.

(10) An item of clothing made from velvet (in modern use also of similar synthetics).

(11) In drug slang, the drug dextromethorphan.

(12) To cover something with velvet; to cover something with something of a covering of a similar texture.

(13) In cooking, to coat raw meat in starch, then in oil, preparatory to frying.

(14) To remove the velvet from a deer's antlers.

1275–1325: From the Middle English velvet, velwet, veluet, welwet, velvette, felwet veluet & veluwet, from the Old Occitan veluet, from the Old French veluotte, from the Medieval Latin villutittus or villūtus (literally shaggy cloth), from the classical Latin villus (nap of cloth, shaggy hair, tuft of hair), from velu (hairy) and cognate with French velours.  The Latin villus is though probably a dialectal variant of vellus (fleece), from the primitive Indo-European wel-no-, a suffixed form of uelh- (to strike).  Velvet is a noun, verb & adjective, velvetlike & velvety are adjectives, velveting & velveted are verbs & adjective; the noun plural is velvets.

The noun velveteen was coined in 1776 to describe one of first the imitation (made with cotton rather than silk) velvets commercially to be marketed at scale; the suffix –een was a special use of the diminutive suffix (borrowed from the Irish –in (used also –ine) which was used to form the diminutives of nouns in Hiberno-English).  In commercial use, it referred to products which were imitations of something rather than smaller.  The adjective velvety emerged in the early eighteenth century, later augmented by velvetiness.  In idiomatic use, the “velvet glove” implies someone or something is being treated with gentleness or caution.  When used as “iron fist in a velvet glove”, it suggests strength or determination (and the implication of threat) behind a gentle appearance or demeanor.  “Velvet” in general is often applied wherever the need exists to covey the idea of “to soften; to mitigate” and is the word used when a cat retracts its claws.  The adjective “velvety” can be used of anything smooth and the choice between it and forms like “buttery”, “silky”, “creamy” et al is just a matter of the image one wishes to summon.  The particular instance “Velvet Revolution” (Sametová revoluce in Czech) refers to the peaceful transition of power in what was then Czechoslovakia, occurring from in late 1989 in the wake of the fall of Berlin Wall.  Despite being partially in the Balkans, the transition from communism to democracy was achieved almost wholly without outbreaks of violence (in the Balkans it rare for much of note to happen without violence).

Ten years after: Lindsay Lohan in black velvet, London, January 2013 (left) and in pink velour tracksuit, Dubai, January 2023 (right).

The fabrics velvet and velour can look similar but they differ in composition.  Velvet historically was made with silk thread and was characterized by a dense pile, created by the rendering of evenly distributed loops on the surface.  There are now velvets made from cotton, polyester or other blends and its construction lends it a smooth, plush texture appearance, something often finished with a sheen or luster.  A popular modern variation is “crushed velvet”, achieved by twisting the fabric while wet which produces a crumpled and crushed look although the effect can be realized also by pressing the pile of fabric in a different direction.  It’s unusual in that object with most fabric is to avoid a “crumpled” look but crushed velvet is admired because of the way it shimmers as the light plays upon the variations in the texture.  The crushing process doesn’t alter the silky feel because of the dense pile and the fineness of the fibers.  Velour typically is made from knit fabrics such as cotton or polyester and is best known for its stretchiness which makes its suitable for many purposes including sportswear and upholstery.  Except in some specialized types, the pile is less dense than velvet (a consequence of the knitted construction) and while it can be made with a slight shine, usually the appearance tends to be matte.  Velour is used for casula clothing, tracksuits & sweatshirts and it’s hard-wearing properties mean it’s often used for upholstery and before the techniques emerged to permit vinyl to be close to indistinguishable from leather, it was often used by car manufacturers as a more luxurious to vinyl.  The noun velour (historically also as velure & velours) dates from 1706 and was from the French velours (velvet), from the Old French velor, an alteration of velos (velvet) from the same Latin sources as “velvet”.

US and European visions of luxury: 1974 Cadillac Fleetwood Talisman in velour (top left), 1977 Chrysler New Yorker Brougham in leather (top right), 1978 Mercedes-Benz 450 SEL 6.9 in velour (bottom left) & 1979 Mercedes-Benz 450 SEL 6.9 in leather (bottom right).  Whether in velour or leather, the European approach in the era was more restrained. 

In car interiors, the golden age of velour began in the US in the early 1970s and lasted almost two decades, the increasingly plush interiors characterized by tufting and lurid colors.  Chrysler in the era made a selling point of their “rich, Corinthian leather” but the extravagant velour interiors were both more distinctive and emblematic of the era, the material stretching sometimes from floor to roof (the cars were often labeled “Broughams”).  The dismissive phrase used of the 1970s was “the decade style forgot” and that applied to clothes and interior decorating but the interior designs Detroit used on their cars shouldn’t be forgotten and while the polyester-rich cabins (at the time too, on the more expensive models one’s feet literally could sink into the deep pile carpet) were never the fire-risk comedians claimed, many other criticisms were justified.  Cotton-based velour had for decades been used by the manufacturers but the advent of mass-produced, polyester velour came at a time when “authenticity” didn’t enjoy the lure of today and the space age lent the attractiveness of modernity to plastics and faux wood, faux leather and faux velvet were suddenly an acceptable way to “tart up” the otherwise ordinary.  At the top end of the market, although the real things were still sometimes used, even in that segment soft, pillowy, tufted velour was a popular choice.

1989 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham D'Elegance in velour (left) and a "low-rider" in velour (right).  The Cadillac is trimmed in a color which in slang came to be known as "bordello red".  Because of changing tastes, manufacturers no longer build cars with interiors which resemble a caricature of a mid-priced brothel but the tradition has been maintained (and developed) by the "low-rider" community, a sub-culture with specific tastes. 

At the time, the interiors were thought by buyers to convey “money” and the designers took to velour because the nature of the material allowed so many techniques cheaply to be deployed.  Compared with achieving a similar look in leather, the cost was low, the material cost (both velour and the passing underneath or behind) close to marginal and the designers slapped on pleats, distinctive (and deliberately obvious) stitching, extra stuffing, the stuff covering seats, door panels, and headliners, augmented with details like recessed buttons, leather grab-handles and the off chrome accent (often anodized plastic).  By the 1980s, velour had descended to the lower-priced product lines and this was at a time when the upper end of the market increasingly was turning to cars from European manufacturers, notably Mercedes-Benz and BMW, both of which equipped almost all their flagships destined for the US market with leather and real wood.

The Velvet Underground with Nico (Christa Päffgen; 1938–1988) while part of Andy Warhol’s (1928-1987) multimedia road-show The Exploding Plastic Inevitable (1966-1967 and known briefly as “The Erupting Plastic Inevitable” or The Exploding Plastic Invisible).  Unusually, the acronym EPI never caught on.

The (posthumously) influential US rock band The Velvet Underground gained their name from a book with that title, published in 1963, the year before their original formation although it wouldn’t be until 1965 the band settled on the name.  The book was by journalist Michael Leigh (1901-1963) and it detailed the variety of “aberrant sexual practices” in the country and is notable as one of the first non-academic texts to explore what was classified as paraphilia (the sexual attraction to inanimate objects, now usually called Objectum Sexuality (OS) or objectum romanticism (OR) (both often clipped to "objectum")).  Leigh took a journalistic approach to the topic which focused on what was done, by whom and the ways and means by which those with “aberrant sexual interests” achieved and maintained contact.  The author little disguised his distaste for much about what he wrote.  The rock band’s most notable output came in four albums (The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967), White Light/White Heat (1968), The Velvet Underground (1969) & Loaded (1970)) which enjoyed neither critical approval nor commercial success but by the late 1970s, in the wake of punk and the new wave, their work was acknowledged as seminal and their influence has been more enduring than many which were for most of the late twentieth century more highly regarded.

Carpet

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Silk

Silk (pronounced silk)

(1) The soft, lustrous fibre obtained as a filament from the cocoon of the silkworm.

(2) Thread or cloth made from this fibre.

(3) In law, a slang term to describe a Queen's or King's Counsel and the silk gown they wear in court (UK & Commonwealth).

(4) In arachnology, very fine fibre produced by a spider to build its web, nest, or cocoon

(5) In agriculture, the tuft of long fine styles on an ear of maize (corn).

(6) In computing (as SiLK), Skype’s 2009 audio codec.

(7) In sport, a slang term for the working uniforms of both pugilists and jockeys.

(8) In fashion, a clipping of "silk stockings".

Circa 1300: From the Old English seoloc & sioloc (silk, silken cloth), from the Latin sericum (plural serica) (silken garments, silks) which translates literally as "Seric stuff," neuter of sericus, from the Ancient Greek sērikón (silken), derived from an oriental people of Asia from whom the Greeks got silks.  Western cultivation began 552 AD when Byzantium spies disguised as monks smuggled silkworms and mulberry leaves out of China, an early example of industrial espionage and the theft by the west of intellectual property from China; these things have a long tradition.  The Old English deoloc & sioloc were cognate with the Old Norse silki but the mode of transmission from the Ancient Greek sērikón is uncertain.  Greek picked up the word from Chinese, as a derivative of sêres, probably as a derivative of the Chinese si (silk) although some scholars cite both the Manchurian sirghe and the Mongolian sirkek as a possible root but this is speculative.  It’s found also in Old Norse as silki but not elsewhere in Germanic.  The more common Germanic form is represented by the Middle English say, from Old French seie; the Spanish seda, the Italian seta, the Dutch zijde and the German seide are from the Medieval Latin seta (silk), perhaps elliptical for seta (serica) or else a particular use of seta in the sense of "bristle or hair".

Silk was used as an adjective from the mid-fourteenth century.  The reference to the "hair" of corn is from 1660s American English while the figurative use of silk-stocking is from the 1590s.  It was once used as a pejorative adjective meaning "wealthy", attested from 1798 as a reference to silk stockings, especially when worn by men as extravagant, reprehensible and suggestive of effete habits.  Silk-screen was first used in 1930; in English, the ancient “Silk Road” was first so-called in 1931, a use revived in the twenty-first century as a place on the dark web which was a clearing house for those selling narcotics, other unlawful stuff and (allegedly) contract killing, the latter never verified.  Silk is a noun & verb, silky is a noun & adjective, silkiness is a noun and silken is a verb & adjective; the noun plural is silks.

Silks

Lindsay Lohan in Catherine Malandrino silk pin-tuck dress with bubble skirt (2008).

In the early years of the common law, the barristers known as serjeants-at law enjoyed precedence in court.  That remained until 1596, when Francis Bacon (1561–1626) prevailed upon Elizabeth I (1533–1603; Queen of England & Ireland 1558-1603) to create him Queen's Counsel Extraordinary (QC), a new office which granted him precedence over the Serjeants although that legal hierarchy wasn’t confirmed for some years.  Initially an appointment by virtue of the royal prerogative, it was formalised by the issue of letters patent in 1604 but the numbers of KCs & QCs remained exclusively small until the nineteenth century.  The office of KC ensured the obsolescence of the once senior serjeants-at-law by (gradually) superseding them.  The attorney-general and solicitor-general had similarly supplanted the serjeants as leaders of the bar in Tudor times but, interestingly, were not technically senior until 1623 (except for the two senior King's Serjeants) and 1813 respectively.  In the Commonwealth, whenever a King replaces a Queen, the QCs become KCs (or the other way around as the case may be.  QCs & KCs wear silk gowns when appearing in court and their appointment is known informally as "taking silk"; individually, they are often referred to as "silks".

Japanese silkworm farmers.

Silk was of great cultural significance in Japan and among the military and the aristocracy, were one to be presented with a dagger wrapped in silk, it was a suggestion from one's peers that, having committed some social or other transgression, it would be the honorable thing were one to commit an act of 切腹 (Seppuku (literally "cutting [the] belly"), the ritualistic method of suicide by disembowelment and and better known in the West as hara-kiri (腹切り(literally "abdomen or belly cutting")).  It had a long tradition but apparently was never as widespread as is often depicted by Hollywood, always anxious to believe the orientalists. 

By the 1920s, the backbone of Japanese agriculture was rice, “the king of grains” and, in aggregate terms, the nation’s industry was the most productive in the world despite a great volume of the harvest coming from the efforts of peasants who worked tiny rural plots which Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) on a visit noted they tended with “comb and toothpick”.  The other crop on which they relied was the one regarded as the “God-sent merchandize” of raw silk, the silkworm styled “the honourable little gentleman”.  In the good years of the late 1920s, this meant stability but the Wall Street crash of 1929 which was the trigger (though not wholly the causative event) of the long slump of the 1930s affected Japan more immediately and more severely than just about anywhere; having few natural resources, the country was reliant on international trade and thus exposed as few others to movements in commodity prices.  In 1930, the rice harvest fetched a third less than the year before and the collapse in the silk trade was even more dramatic because the rayon produced in vast quantities by the US petro-chemical concerns flooded the market, undercutting the work of the the honourable little gentleman and the hard-working peasants who tended to him so assiduously.  The resulting immiseration of much of the anyway poor rural population of Japan was one of the factors which enabled certain military factions essentially to stage a (not quite bloodless) takeover of the Japanese state and in 1931 begin the aggressive overseas expansion which some fifteen years later would end in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 

Hardtop, Hard Top & Hard-top

Hardtop & Hard Top or Hard-Top ( pronounced hahrd-top)

(1) In automotive design, as hardtop, a design in which no centre post (B-pillar) is used between the front and rear windows.

(2) As "hard top" or "hard top", a rigid, removable or retractable roof used on convertible cars (as distinct from the historically more common folding, soft-top).

(3) Mid twentieth-century US slang for an indoor cinema with a roof (as opposed to a drive-in).

1947-1949: A compound of US origin, hard + top.  Hard was from the Middle English hard, from the Old English heard, from the Proto-West Germanic hard(ī), from the Proto-Germanic harduz, from the primitive Indo-European kort-ús, from kret- (strong, powerful).  It was cognate with the German hart, the Swedish hård, the Ancient Greek κρατύς (kratús), the Sanskrit क्रतु (krátu) and the Avestan xratu.  Top was from the Middle English top & toppe, from the Old English top (top, highest part; summit; crest; tassel, tuft; (spinning) top, ball; a tuft or ball at the highest point of anything), from the Proto-Germanic tuppaz (braid, pigtail, end), from the primitive Indo-European dumb- (tail, rod, staff, penis).  It was cognate with the Scots tap (top), the North Frisian top, tap & tup (top), the Saterland Frisian Top (top), the West Frisian top (top), the Dutch top (top, summit, peak), the Low German Topp (top), the German Zopf (braid, pigtail, plait, top), the Swedish topp (top, peak, summit, tip) and the Icelandic toppur (top).

1970 Imperial LeBaron four-door hardtop.

Although the origins of the body-style can be traced to the early twentieth century, the hardtop, a two or four-door car without a central (B-pillar) post, became a recognizable model type in the late 1940s and, although never the biggest seller, was popular in the United States until the mid 1970s when down-sizing and safety legislation led to their extinction, the last being the full sized Chrysler lines of 1978.  European manufacturers too were drawn to the style and produced many coupes but only Mercedes-Benz and Facel Vega made four-door hardtops in any number, the former long maintaining several lines of hardtop coupés.

1965 Lincoln Continental four-door sedan (with centre (B) pillar).

The convention of use is that the fixed roofed vehicles without the centre (B)-pillars are called a hardtop whereas a removable or retractable roof for a convertible is either a hard top or, somewhat less commonly a hard-top.  The folding fabric roof is either a soft top or soft-top, both common forms; the word softtop probably doesn't exist although it has been used by manufacturers of this and that to describe various "tops" made of stuff not wholly solid.  In the mid-1990s, the decades-old idea of the folding metal roof was revived as an alternative to fabric.  The engineering was sound but some manufacturers have reverted to fabric, the advantages of solid materials outweighed by the drawbacks of weight, cost and complexity.  A solid, folding top is usually called a retractable roof or folding hardtop.

1957 Ford Fairlane Skyliner.

Designers had toyed with the idea of the solid retractable roof early in the twentieth century, and patents were applied for in the 1920s but the applications were allowed to lapse and it wouldn't be until 1932 one was granted in France, the first commercial release by Peugeot in 1934.  Other limited-production cars followed but it wasn't until 1957 one was sold in any volume, Ford's Fairlane Skyliner, using a system Ford developed for the Continental Mark II (but never used) was an expensive top-of-the range model for two years.  It was expensive for a reason: the complexity of the electric system which raised and lowered the roof.  A marvel of what was still substantially the pre-electronic age, it used an array of motors, relays and switches, all connected with literally hundreds of feet of electrical cables in nine different colors.  Despite that, the system was reliable and could, if need be, be fixed by any competent auto-electrician who had the wiring schematic.  In its two-year run, nearly fifty-thousand were built.  The possibilities of nomenclature are interesting too.  With the hard top in place, the Skyliner becomes also a hardtop because there's no B pillar so it's a "hardtop" with a "hard top", something only word-nerds note. 

2005 Mercedes-Benz AMG SLK55.

After 1960, the concept was neglected, re-visited only by a handful of low-volume specialists or small production runs for the Japanese domestic market.  The car which more than any other turned the retractable roof into a mainstream product was the 1996 Mercedes-Benz SLK which began as a show car, the favorable response encouraging production.  Successful, over three generations, it was in the lineup for almost twenty-five years.

Roof-mounted hardtop hoist: Mercedes-Benz 560 SL (R107).

The Fairlane Skyliner's top was notable for another reason: size and weight.  On small roadsters, even when made from steel, taking off and putting on a hard top could usually be done by someone of reasonable strength, the task made easier still if the thing instead was made from aluminum or fibreglass.  If large and heavy, it became impossible for one and difficult even for two; some of even the smaller hard tops (such as the Triumph Stag and the R107 Mercedes SL roadster) were famous heavyweights.  Many owners used trolley or ceiling-mounted hoists, some even electric but not all had the space, either for the hardware or the detached roof.

1962 Pontiac Catalina with Riveria Series 300 hard top.

No manufacturer attempted a removable hard top on the scale of the big Skyliner but at least one aftermarket supplier thought there might be demand for something large and detachable.  Riveria Inc, based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, offered them between 1963-1964 for the big (then called full or standard-size) General Motors (GM) convertibles.  Such was GM’s production-line standardization, the entire range of models, spread over five divisions and three years could be covered by just three variations of hard top.  Made from fibreglass with an external texture which emulated leather, weight was a reasonable 80 lb (30 kg) but the sheer size rendered them unmanageable for many and not all had storage for such a bulky item, the growth of the American automobile meaning garages accommodative only a few years early were now cramped.    

1962 Chevrolet Impala Super Sport with Riveria Series 100 hard top.

Riveria offered their basic (100 series) hardtop in black or white, a more elaborately textured model (200 series) finished in gold or silver while the top of the range (300 series) used the same finishes but with simulated “landau” irons.  No modification was required to the car, the roof attaching to the standard convertible clamps, the soft top remaining retracted.  Prices started at US$295 and the company seems to have attempted to interest GM dealers in offering the hard tops as a dealer-fitter accessory but corporate interest must have been as muted as buyer response, Riveria ceasing operations in 1964.

1961 Lincoln Continental four-door hardtop (pre-production or prototype).

One of the anomalies in the history of the four-door hardtops was that Lincoln, in its classic 1960s Continental, offered a two-door hardtop, a four-door pillared sedan and, by then uniquely, a four-door convertible but, no four-door hardtop.  That seemed curious because the structural engineering required to produce a four door hardtop already existed in the convertible coachwork and both Ford & Mercury had several in their ranges, as did all other comparable manufacturers.  A four-door hard top was planned, the factory’s records indicate a handful were built (which were either prototypes or pre-productions vehicles) and photographs survive, as does the odd reference to the model in some later service bulletins but there’s no evidence any ever reached public hands.  Collectors chase rarities like this but they’ve not been seen in sixty years so it’s presumed they were scrapped once the decision was taken not to enter production.

1966 Lincoln Continental two-door hardtop.

The consensus among Lincoln gurus is the rationale for decision being wholly because of cost.  While the Edsel failure of the late 1950s is well storied, it’s often forgotten that nor were the Lincolns of that era a success and, with the Ford Motor Company suddenly being run by the MBA-type “wizz kids”, the Lincoln brand too was considered for the axe.  It did come close to that, Lincoln given one last chance at redemption, using what was actually a prototype Ford Thunderbird; that was the car which emerged as the memorable 1961 Lincoln.  But there was no certainty of success so it seems the decision was taken to restrict the range to the pillared sedan and the four-door convertible, a breakdown on the production costs of the prototype four-door hardtops proving they would be much more expensive to produce, the added inputs both of labour and materials dooming the project.  To attract attention, Lincoln anyway had something beyond the merely exclusive, they had the unique four-door convertible.

1967 Lincoln Continental four-door convertible.

It did work, sales volumes after a slow start in 1961 growing to a level Lincoln had not enjoyed in years, comfortably out-selling Imperial even if never a challenge to Cadillac.  Never a big seller, achieving not even four-thousand units in its best year, the four-door convertible was discontinued after 1967, the two-door hardtop introduced the year before out-selling it by five to one.  The market had spoken; it would be the last convertible Lincoln ever produced.

Deconstructing the oxymoronic  "pillared hardtop"

1970 Ford LTD four-door hardtop (left) and Ford's press release announcing the 1974 "pillared hardtop", September 1973. 

So it would seem settled a hard-top is a convertible’s removable roof made with rigid materials like metal or fibreglass while a hardtop is a car with no central pillar between the forward and rear side glass.  That would be fine except that in the 1970s, Ford decided there were also “pillared hardtops”, introducing the description on a four-door range built on their full-sized (a breed now extinct) corporate platform shared between 1968-1978 by Ford and Mercury.  The rationale for the name was that to differentiate between the conventional sedan which used frames around the side windows and the pillared hardtops which used the frameless assemblies familiar from their use in the traditional hardtops.  When the pillared hardtops were released, as part of the effort to comply with pending rollover standards, the two door hardtop switched to being a coupé with thick B-pillars, behind which sat a tall “opera window”, another of those motifs the US manufacturers for years found irresistible.

1976 Cadillac Eldorado convertible, at the time, “the last American convertible”.  The aluminium wheels were a rarely ordered factory option.  On paper, combining a 500 cubic inch (8.2 litre) V8 with front wheel drive (FWD) sounds daft but even in the early, more powerful, versions GM managed remarkably well to tame the characteristics inherent in such a configuration.  The styling of the original FWD Eldorado (1967) was one of the US industry's finest (as long as buyers resisted ordering the disfiguring vinyl roof) which no subsequent version matched, descending first to the baroque before in the 1980s becoming an absurd caricature.

When ceasing production of the true four-door hardtops, Ford also dropped the convertible from the full-sized line, the industry orthodoxy at the time that a regulation outlawing the style was imminent, and such was the importance of the US market that expectation that accounted also for Mercedes-Benz not including a cabriolet when the S-Class (W116) was released in 1972, leaving the SL (R107; 1971-1989) roadster as the company’s only open car and it wasn’t until 1990 a four-seat cabriolet returned with the debut of the A124.  Any suggestion of outlawing convertibles ended with the election in 1980 of Ronald Reagan (1911-2004, US president 1981-1989).  A former governor of California with fond memories of drop-top motoring and a world-view that government should intervene in markets as little as possible, under his administration, convertibles returned (including Cadillacs) to US showrooms.  In the even then litigious US, that prompted a class action from disgruntled collectors who had stored 1976 Cadillac Eldorados with the expectation of them increasing sharply in value, the suit filed alleging a “breach of promise” on the basis of Cadillac advertising the things as “the last American convertible”.  Historically, breach of promise actions were most associated with women seeking redress against cads who promised marriage and then refused to fulfil the pledge (an action still technically available in some US states) but the courts quickly dismissed the claims of the Cadillac hoarders as “groundless”.  Legal opinion at the time was that the suit might have had a chance had the words been "the last Cadillac convertible" and even then it would have had to withstand (1) the precedents which underpinned the notion of what in contract law was called "mere puffery" and (2) the then still prevalent sentiment that "what was good for General Motors was good for America", something which critics noted was still a detectable feeling among US judges.

1966 Lincoln Continental Sedan (left) and 1974 Buick Century Luxus Colonnade Hardtop Sedan (right).  Luxus was from the Latin luxus (extravagance) and appeared in several Germanic languages where it conveyed the idea of "luxury".   

It was actually only the ostensibly oxymoronic nomenclature which was novel, Ford’s Lincoln Continentals combining side windows with frames which lowered into the doors and a B pillar; Lincoln called these a sedan, then the familiar appellation in the US for all four-door models with a centre pillar.  Curiously, in the 1960s another descriptive layer appeared (though usually not used by the manufacturers): “post”.  Thus where a range included two-door hardtops with no pillar a coupés with one, there was among some to adopt “coupé” and “post coupé” as a means of differentiation and this spread, the term “post sedan” also still seen today in the collector markets.  Other manufacturers in the 1970s also used the combination of frameless side glass and a B-pillar but Ford’s adoption of “pillar hardtop was unique; All such models in General Motors’ (GM) “Colonnade” lines were originally described variously as “colonnade hardtop sedans” (Buick) or “colonnade hardtops” (Chevrolet, Oldsmobile & Pontiac) and the nickname was borrowed from architecture where colonnade refers to “a series of regularly spaced columns supporting an entablature and often one side of a roof”.  For whatever reasons, the advertising copy changed over the years, Buick shifting to “hardtop sedan”, Chevrolet & Oldsmobile to “sedan” and Pontiac “colonnade hardtop sedan”.  Pontiac was the last to cling to the use of “colonnade”; by the late 1970s the novelty has passed and the consumer is usually attracted by something “new”.  Because the GM range of sedans had for uprights (A, B & C-pillars plus a divided rear glass), the allusion was to these as “columns”.  Ford though, was a little tricky.  Their B-pillars were designed in such as way that the thick portion was recessed and dark, the silver centrepiece thin and more obvious, so with the windows raised, the cars could be mistaken for a classic hardtop.  It was a cheap trick but it was also clever, in etymological terms a “fake hardtop” but before long, there was a bit of a vogue for “fake soft-tops” which seems indisputably worse.

1975 Imperial LeBaron (left) and 1978 Chrysler New Yorker.  The big Chryslers were the last of the four-door hardtops to be produced in the US.

The Americans didn’t actually invent the pillarless hardtop style but in the post-war years they adopted it with gusto.  The other geo-centre of hardtops was the JDM (Japanese Domestic Market) which refers to vehicles produced (almost) exclusively for sale within Japan and rarely seen beyond except in diplomatic use, as private imports, or as part of the odd batch exported to special markets.  As an ecosystem, it exerts a special fascination for those who study the Japanese industry.  The range of high performance versions and variations in coachwork available in the JDM was wide and for those with a fondness for Japanese cars, the subject of much envy.  By the late 1970s, the handful of US four-door hardtops still on sale were hangovers from designs which dated from the late 1960s, behemoths anyway doomed by rising gas prices and tightening emission controls; with the coming of 1979 (coincidently the year of the “second oil shock”) all were gone.  In the JDM however, the interest remained and endured into the 1990s.

1965 Chevrolet Corvair Corsa (two-door hardtop, left) and 1969 Mazda Luce Coupé (right).

The first Japanese cars to use the hardtop configuration were two-door coupés, the Toyota Corona the first in 1965 and Nissan and Mitsubishi soon followed.  One interesting thing during the era was the elegant Izuzu 117 Coupé (1968-1980), styled by the Italian Giorgetto Giugiaro (b 1938) which, with its slender B-pillar, anticipated Ford’s stylistic trick although there’s nothing to suggest this was ever part of the design brief.  Another of Giugiaro’s creations was the rare Mazda Luce Coupé (1968), a true hardtop which has the quirk of being Mazda’s only rotary-powered car to be configured with FWD.  Giugiaro’s lines were hardly original because essentially they duplicated (though few suggest "improved") those of the lovely second generation Chevrolet Corvair (1965-1969) and does illustrate what an outstanding compact the Corvair could have been if fitted with a conventional (front-engine / rear wheel drive (RWD)) drive-train.

1973 Nissan Cedric four-door Hardtop 2000 Custom Deluxe (KF230, left) and 1974 Toyota Crown Royal Saloon four-door Pillared Hardtop (2600 Series, right).

By 1972, Nissan released a version of the Laurel which was their first four-door although it was only the volume manufacturers for which the economics of scale of such things were attractive, the smaller players such as Honda and Subaru dabbling only with two-door models.  Toyota was the most smitten and by the late 1970s, there were hardtops in all the passenger car lines except the smallest and the exclusive Century, the company finding that for a relatively small investment, an increase in profit margins of over 10% was possible.  Toyota in 1974 also followed Ford’s example in using a “pillared hardtop” style for the up-market Crown, the exclusivity enhanced by a roofline lowered by 25 mm (1 inch); these days it’s be called a “four door coupé” (and etymologically that is correct despite the objections of many) and Rover had actually planned their 3.5 (P5B; 1967-1973) to include a four-door coupé featuring both pillarless construction and the lowered roof; as it was the former proved too difficult within the budget so only the chop-top survived.  In the JDM, the last true four-door hardtops were built in the early 1990s but Subaru continued to offer the “pillared hardtop” style until 2010 and the extinction of the breed was most attributable to the shifting market preference for sports utility vehicles (SUV) and such.  In Australia, Mitsubishi between between 1996-2005 used frameless side-windows and a slim B-pillar on their Magna so it fitted the definition of a “pillar hardtop” although the term was never used in marketing, the term “hardtop” something Australians associated only with two-door coupés (Ford and Chrysler had actually the term as a model name in the 1960s & 1970s).  When the Magna was replaced by the doomed and dreary 380 (2005-2008), Mitsubishi reverted to window frames and chunky pillars.

Standard and Spezial coachwork on the Mercedes-Benz 300d (W189, 1957-1962).  The "standard" four-door hardtop was available throughout the run while the four-door Cabriolet D was offered (off and on) between 1958-1962 and the Spezials (landaulets, high-roofs et al), most of which were for state or diplomatic use, were made on a separate assembly line in 1960-1961.  The standard "greenhouse" (or glasshouse) cars are to the left, those with the high roof-line to the right.

Few European manufacturers attempted four-door hardtops and one of the handful was the 300d (W189, 1957-1962), a revised version of the W186 (300, 300b & 300c; 1951-1957) which came to be referred to as the "Adenauer" because several were used as state cars by Konrad Adenauer (1876–1967; chancellor of the FRG (West Germany) 1949-1963).  Although the coachwork never exactly embraced the lines of mid-century modernism, the integration of the lines of the 1950s with the pre-war motifs appealed to the target market (commerce, diplomacy and the old & rich) and on the platform the factory built various Spezials including long wheelbase "pullmans", landaulets, high-roof limousines and four-door cabriolets (Cabriolet D in the Daimler-Benz system).  The high roofline appeared sometimes on both the closed & open cars and even then, years before the assassination of John Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; US president 1961-1963), the greenhouse sometimes featured “bullet-proof” glass.  As well as Chancellor Adenauer, the 300d is remembered also as the Popemobile (although not then labelled as such) of John XXIII (1881-1963; pope 1958-1963).

Few European manufacturers attempted four-door hardtops.  One of the few was the Mercedes-Benz 300d (W189, 1957-1962), a revised version of the W186 (1951-1957) which came to be referred to as the "Adenauer" because several were used as state cars by Konrad Adenauer (1876–1967; chancellor of the FRG (Federal Republic of Germany (the old West Germany) 1949-1963).  Although the coachwork never embraced 1950s modernism, the W186 & W189 obviously an evolution of pre-war practices, much of the engineering was advanced and the factory used the chassis to produce spezials including long wheelbase "pullmans", landaulets, high-roof limousines and four-door cabriolets (Cabriolet D in the Daimler-Benz system).  The W189 is remembered too as the state car of the Holy See, used by popes in the days before fears of assassination.  Most however were the "standard", four-door hardtop.

Pillars, stunted pillars & "pillarless"

1959 Lancia Appia Series III

Actually, although an accepted part of engineering jargon, to speak of the classic four-door hardtops as “pillarless” is, in the narrow technical sense, misleading because almost all used a truncated B-pillar, ending at the belt-line where the greenhouse begins.  The stunted device was required to provide a secure anchor point for the rear door's hinges (or latches for both if suicide doors were used) and in the case of the latter, being of frameless construction, without the upright, the doors would be able to be locked in place only at the sill, the physics of which presents a challenge because even in vehicles with high torsional rigidity, there will be movement.  The true pillarless design was successfully executed by some but those manufacturers used doors with sturdy window frames, permitting latch points at both sill and roof, Lancia offering the configuration on a number of sedans including the Ardea (1939-1953), Aurelia (1950-1958) & Appia (1953-1963).  The approach demanded a more intricate locking mechanism but the engineering was simple and on the Lancias it worked and was reliable, buyers enjoying the ease of ingress & egress.  It's sad the company's later attachment to front wheel drive (FWD) ultimately doomed Lancia because in every other aspect of engineering, few others were as adept at producing such fine small-displacement vehicles.

1961 Facel Vega II (a two door hardtop with the unusual "feature" of the rear side-glass being hinged from the C-pillar).

Less successful with doors was the Facel Vega Excellence, built in two series between 1958-1964.  Facel Vega was a French company which was a pioneer in what proved for almost two decades the interesting and lucrative business of the trans-Atlantic hybrid, the combination of stylish European coachwork with cheap, refined, powerful and reliable American engine-transmission combinations.  Like most in the genre, the bulk of Facel Vega’s production was big (by European standards) coupés (and the odd cabriolet) and they enjoyed much success, the company doomed only when it augmented the range with the Facellia, a smaller car.  Conceptually, adding the smaller coupés & cabriolets was a good idea because it was obvious the gap in the market existed but the mistake was to pander to the feelings of politicians and use a French designed & built engine which proved not only fragile but so fundamentally flawed rectification was impossible.  By the time the car had been re-engineered to use the famously durable Volvo B18 engine, the combination of the cost of the warranty claims and reputational damage meant bankruptcy was impending and in 1964 the company ceased operation.  The surviving “big” Facel Vegas, powered by a variety of big-block Chrysler V8s, are now highly collectable and priced accordingly.

1960 Facel Vega Excellence EX1

Compared with that debacle, the problem besetting the Excellence was less serious but was embarrassing and, like the Facellia's unreliable engine, couldn’t be fixed.  The Excellence was a four-door sedan, a configuration also offered by a handful of other trans-Atlantic players (including Iso, DeTomaso & Monterverdi) and although volumes were low, because the platforms were elongations of those used on their coupés, production & development costs were modest so with high prices, profits were good.  Facel Vega however attempted what no others dared: combine eye-catching suicide doors, frameless side glass and coachwork which was truly pillarless, necessitating latching & locking mechanisms in the sills.  With the doors open, it was a dramatic scene of lush leather and highly polished burl walnut (which was actually painted metal) and the intricate lock mechanism was precisely machined and worked well… on a test bench.  Unfortunately, on the road, the pillarless centre section was inclined slightly to flex when subject to lateral forces (such as those imposed when turning corners) and this could release the locks, springing the doors open.  Owners reported this happening while turning corners and it should be remembered (1) lateral force increases as speed rises and (2) this was the pre-seatbelt era.  There appear to be no confirmed reports of unfortunate souls being ejected by centrifugal force through an suddenly open door (the author Albert Camus (1913–1960) was killed when the Facel Vega HK500 two-door coupé in which he was a passenger hit a tree, an accident unrelated to doors) but clearly the risk was there.  Revisions to the mechanism improved the security but the problem was never completely solved; despite that the factory did offer a revised second series Excellence in 1961, abandoning the dog-leg style windscreen and toning down the fins, both of which had become passé but in three years only a handful were sold.  By the time the factory was shuttered in 1964, total Excellence production stood at 148 EX1s (Series One; 1958-1961) & 8 EX2s (Series Two; 1961-1964).

The Mercedes-Benz R230 SL: Lindsay Lohan going topless (in an automotive sense) in 2005 SL 65 AMG with top lowered (left), 2006 SL 65 AMG with top erected (centre) & 2009 SL 65 AMG Black Series with fixed-roof.

At the time uniquely in the SL line, the R230 (2001-2011) was available with both a retractable hard top and with a fixed roof but no soft top was ever offered (the configuration continued in the R231 (2012-2020) while the R232 (since 2021) reverted to fabric).  Having no B pillar, most of the R230s were thus a hardtop with a hard top but the SL 65 AMG Black Series (2008–2011) used a fixed roof fabricated using a carbon fibre composite, something which contributed to the Black Series is weighing some 250 kilograms (550 lb) less than the standard SL 65 AMG.  Of the road-going SLs built since 1954, the Black Series R230 was one of only three models sold without a retractable roof of some kind, the others being the original 300 SL Gullwing (W198, 1954-1957) and the “California coupé” option offered between 1967-1971 for the W113 (1963-1971) roadster (and thus available only for the 250 SL (1966-1968) & 280 SL (1967-1971)).  The California coupé was simply an SL supplied with only the removable hard top and no soft top, a folding bench seat included which was really suitable only for small children.  The name California was chosen presumably because of the association of the place with sunshine and hence a place where one could be confident it was safe to go for a drive without the fear of unexpected rain.  Despite the name, the California coupé was available outside the US (a few even built in right-hand drive form) although the North American market absorbed most of the production.

1969 Chevrolet Corvette L88 convertible with soft top (or soft-top) erected.

1969 Chevrolet Corvette L88 convertible with hard top (or hard-top) attached.

1969 Chevrolet Corvette L88 convertible, with soft-top lowered (ie topless).