Zephyr (pronounced zef-uhr
(U) or zef-er (non-U))
(1) A
gentle, mild breeze, considered the most pleasant of winds.
(2) By extension, any
of various things of fine, light quality (fabric, yarn etc), most often applied
to wool.
(3) In the mythology of Antiquity, the
usual (Westernised) spelling of Ζεφυρος (Zéphuros or Zéphyros), the Greek and
Roman god of the west wind, son of Eos & Astraeus and brother of Boreas; the Roman name
was Zephyrus, Favonius.
(4) As a literary device, the west wind personified which should be used with an initial capital letter.
(5) In the mythology of Antiquity, as Zephyrette, a daughter of Aeolus; a tiny female spirit of the wind.
(6) A
model name used on cars of variable distinction produced by the Ford Motor Company (FoMoCo) and sold under the Ford, Mercury & Lincoln brands.
(7) A type of soft confectionery made by whipping fruit and berry purée (mostly apple purée) with sugar and egg whites, to which is added a gelling agent such as pectin, carrageenan, agar, or gelatine. Often called zefir, the use was a semantic loan from the Russian зефи́р (zefír).
Circa
1350: From the Middle English zeferus
& zephirus, from the Old English zefferus, from the Latin zephyrus, from the
Ancient Greek Ζέφυρος (Zéphuros or Zéphyros) (the west wind), probably from
the Greek root zophos (the west, the
dark region, darkness, gloom). The Latin
Zephyrus was the source also of zéphire
(French), zefiro (Spanish) and zeffiro (Italian). The feminine form zephyrette (capitalised and not) is rare and the
alternative spellings were zephir
& zefir, the latter (in the context of food) still current. The casual use in meteorology dates from
circa 1600 and the meaning has shifted from the classical (something warm, mild and occidental) to now be any gentle breeze or waft where the wish is to suggest a wind not strong and certainly not a gust, gale, cyclone, blast, typhoon or tempest. Zephyr is a noun & verb, zephyred is a verb & adjective, zephyring is a verb and zephyrous, zephyrlike & zephyrean are adjectives; the noun plural is zephyrs. The adverb zephyrously is non-standard.
Cupid and Psyche (1907)
by Edvard Munch (1863–1944).
In Greek mythology, Ζεφυρος (transliterated as Zéphuros
or Zéphyros) was the god of the west wind, one of the four seasonal Anemoi (wind-gods),
the others being his brothers Notus (god of the south wind), Eurus (god of the
east wind) and Boreas (god of the east wind). The Greek myths offer many variations of the life
of Zephyrus, the offspring of Astraeus & Eos in some versions and of Gaia
in other stories while there were many wives, depending on the story in which
he was featured. Despite that, he’s also
sometimes referred to as the “god of the gay”, based on the famous tale of Zephyrus
& Hyakinthos (Hyacinthus or Hyacinth).
Hyacinth was a Spartan youth, an alluring prince renowned for his beauty
and athleticism and he caught the eye of both of both Zephyrus and Apollo (the god
of sun and light) and the two competed fiercely for the boy’s affections. It was Apollo whose charms proved more
attractive which left Zephyrus devastated and in despair. One day, Zephyrus chanced upon the sight of Apollo
and Hyacinth in a meadow, throwing a discus and, blind with anger, sent a great
gust of wind at the happy couple, causing the discus to strike Hyacinth
forcefully in the head, inflicting a mortal injury. Stricken with grief, as Hyacinth lay dying in
his arms, Apollo transformed the blood trickling to the soil into the hyacinth
(larkspur), flower which would forever bloom in memory of his lost, beautiful
boy. Enraged, Apollo sought vengeance but Zephyrus was protected by Eros, the god
of love, on what seems the rather technical legal point of the intervention of
Zephyrus being an act of love. There was
however a price to be paid for this protection, Zephyrus now pledged to serve
Eros for eternity and the indebted god of the west wind soon received his first
task. There are other tales of how Cupid and Psyche came to marry but in this one, with uncharacteristic clumsiness, Cupid
accidently shot himself with one of his own arrows of love while gazing upon
the nymph Psyche and it was Zephyrus who kidnapped her, delivering his abducted
prize to Cupid to be his bride.
Chloris and Zephyr (1875)
by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905), Musee des Beau-Arts of the Musées
Mulhouse Sud Alsace.
Zephyros was in classical art most often depicted as a
handsome, winged youth and a large number of surviving Greek vases are painted
with unlabeled figures of a winged god embracing a youth and these are usually
identified as Zephyros and Hyakinthos although, some historians detecting
detail differences list a number of them as being of Eros (the god of Love)
with a symbolic youth. Although sometimes
rendered as a winged god clothed in a green robe and crowned with a wreath of
flowers, in Greco-Roman mosaics, Zephyros appears usually in the guise of
spring personified, carrying a basket of unripened fruit. In some stories, he is reported to be the
husband of Iris, the goddess of the rainbow and Hera’s messenger and in others,
Podarge the harpy (also known as Celano) is mentioned as the wife of Zephyrus
but in most of the myths he was married to Chloris. Chloris by most accounts was an Oceanid nymph
and in the tradition of Boreas & Orithyia and Cupid and Psyche, Zephyrus
made Chloris his wife by abduction, making her the goddess of flowers, for she
was the Greek equivalent of Flora and, living with her husband, enjoyed a life
of perpetual spring.
Standardized wind: The Beaufort wind force scale
With strategically placed palms, Lindsay Lohan resists a zephyr's efforts to induce a wardrobe malfunction, MTV Movie Awards, Los Angeles, 2008 (left) which may be C&Ced (compared & contrasted) with the stronger breeze (probably 3-4 on the Beaufort Scale) disrupting the modern art installation that is Donald Trump's (b 1946; US president 2017-2021 and since 2025) hair (right).
Beaufort Wind Scale, circa 1865.
The Beaufort wind force scale was devised because the British Admiralty was accumulating much data about prevailing weather conditions at spots around the planet where the Royal Navy sailed and it was noticed there was some variation in way different observers would describe the wind conditions. In the age of sail, wind strength frequency and direction was critical to commerce and warfare and indeed survival so the navy needed to information to be as accurate an consistent as possible but in the pre-electronic age the data came from human observation, even mechanical devices not usually in use. What Royal Navy Captain (later Rear Admiral) Sir Francis Beaufort 1774–1857) early in nineteenth century noticed was that a sailor brought up in a blustery place like the Scottish highlands was apt to understate the strength of winds while those from calmer places were more impressed by even a moderate breeze, little more than what a hardy Scots sold salt would call a zephyr. Accordingly, he developed a scale which was refined until formally adopted by the Admiralty during the 1930s after he’d been appointed Hydrographer of the Navy. The initial draft reflected the functional purpose, the lowest rating describing the sort of gentle zephyr which was just enough to enable a ship's captain slowly to manoeuvre while the highest was of the gale-force winds which would shred the sails. As sails gave way to steam, the scale was further refined by referencing the effect of wind upon the sea rather than sails and it was adopted also by those working in shore-based meteorological stations. In recent years, categories up to 17 have been added to describe the phenomena described variously as hurricanes, typhoons & cyclones.
The National Biscuit Company's Zephyrettes, circa 1915.
In the mythology of Antiquity, Zephyrette was a daughter of Aeolus and a tiny female spirit of the wind. That the nymph's name was early in the twentieth century appropriated by the National Biscuit Company (1898–1971, Nabisco (1971–1985) & RJR Nabisco (1985–1999) and now a subsidiary of Mondelēz International) to describe a light, crisp cracker, recommended to be used for hors d'oeuvres might outrage feminists studying denotation and connotation in structural linguistics and the more they delve, the greater will be the outrage. Mostly, the word "zephyr" now is used by novelists and poets because while indicative of the force of a wind, it's not defined and is thus not a formal measure so what's a zephyr in one poem might be something more or less in another. In other texts, such inconsistencies might be a problem but for the few thousand souls on the planet who still read poetry, it's all part of the charm.
For good & bad: FoMoCo's Zephyrs
Lincoln
Zephyr V12, 267 cubic inches (4.4 litre). It was the last of the American V12s.
In the inter-war era, the finest of
the big American cars, the Cadillacs, Lincolns, Packards and Duesenbergs, offered
craftsmanship the equal of anything made in Europe and engineering which was
often more innovative. The 1930s however
were difficult times and by mid-decade, sales of the big K-Series Lincolns, the
KA (385 cubic inch (6.3 litre) V8) and KB (448 cubic inch (6.3 litre) V12) were
falling. Ford responded by designing a smaller,
lighter Lincoln range to bridge the gap between the most expensive Ford and the
lower-priced K-Series Lincolns, the intention originally to power it with an
enlarged version of the familiar Ford V8 but family scion Edsel Ford
(1893–1943; president of the Ford Motor Company (FoMoCo), 1919-1943), decided instead to
develop a V12, wanting both a point of differentiation and a link to K-Series
which had gained for Lincoln a formidable reputation for power and durability. Develop may however be the wrong word, the
new engine really a reconfiguration of the familiar Ford V8, the advantage in that
approach being it was cheaper than an entirely new engine, the drawback the
compromises and flaws of the existing unit were carries over and in some aspects,
due to the larger size and greater internal friction, exaggerated.
Lincoln
Zephyr V12, 292 cubic inches (4.8 litre).
The V12 however was not just V8 with
four additional pistons, the block cast with a vee-angle of 75o
rather than the eight’s 90o, a compromise between compactness and the
space required for a central intake manifold and the unusual porting arrangement
for the exhaust gases. The ideal
configuration for a V12 is 60o and without staggered throws on the
crankshaft, the 75o angle yielded uneven firing impulses, although,
being a relatively slow and low-revving unit, the engine was felt acceptably
smooth. The cylinder banks used the
traditional staggered arrangement, permitting the con-rods to ride side-by-side
on the crank and retained the Ford V-8’s 3.75 inch (90.7 mm) stroke but used a small
bore of just 2.75 inches (69.75 mm), then the smallest of any American car then
in production, yielding a displacement of 267 cubic inches (4.4 litres), a
lower capacity than many of the straight-eights and V8s then on the market.
Because the exhaust system was routed through the block to four ports on each side of the engine, cooling was from the beginning the problem it had been on the Ford V8 but on a larger scale. Although the cooling system had an apparently impressive six (US) gallon (22.7 litre) capacity, it quickly became clear this could, under certain conditions, be marginal and the radiator grill was soon extended to increase airflow. Nor was lubrication initially satisfactory, the original oil pump found to be unable to maintain pressure when wear developed on the curfaces of the many bearings; it was replaced with one that could move an additional gallon (3.79 litre) a minute. Most problems were resolved during the first year of production and the market responded to the cylinder count, competitive price and styling; after struggling to sell not even 4000 of the big KAs in 1935, Lincoln produced nearly 18,000 Zephyrs in 1936, sales growing to over 25,000 the following year. Production between 1942-1946 would be interrupted by the war but by the time the last was built in 1948, by which time it had been enlarged to 292 cubic inches (4.8 litre (there was in 1946, briefly, a 306 cubic inch (5.0 litre) version) over 200,000 had been made, making it the most successful of the American V12s. It was an impressive number, more than matching the 161,583 Jaguar built over a quarter of a century (1971-1997) and only Daimler-Benz has made more, their count including both those used in Mercedes-Benz cars and the the DB-60x inverted V12 aero-engines famous for their wartime service with the Luftwaffe and the Mercedes-Benz T80, built for an assault in 1940 on the LSR (Land Speed Record). Unfortunately, other assaults staged by the Third Reich (1939-1945) meant the run never happened but the T80 is on permanent exhibition in the factory's museum in Stuttgart so viewers can ponder Herr Professor Ferdinand Porsche's (1875–1951) pre-war slide-rule calculations of a speed of 650 km/h (404 mph) (not the 750 km/h (466 mph) sometimes cited).
1939
Lincoln-Zephyr Three Window Coupe (Model Code H-72, 2500 of which were made out
of the Zephyr’s 1939 production count of 21,000). It was listed as a six-seater but the configuration
was untypical of the era, the front seat a bench with split backrests, allowing
access to the rear where, unusually, there were two sideways-facing stools. In conjunction with the sloping roofline, it
was less than ideal for adults and although the term “3+2” was never used, that’s
probably the best description. The H-72
Three Window Coupe listed at US$1,320, the cheapest of the six variants
in the 1939 Zephyr range.
It may
sound strange that in a country still recovering from the Great Depression Ford
would introduce a V12 but the famous “Flathead” Ford V8
was released in 1932 when economic conditions were at their worst; people still
bought cars. The V12 was also different
in that although a configuration today thought of as exotic or restricted to “top
of the line” models, for Lincoln the Zephyr was a lower-priced, mid-size luxury
car to bridge a gap in the corporate line-up. Nor was the V12 a “cost no object” project, the
design using the Flathead’s principle elements and while inaccurate at the
engineering level to suggest it was the “Ford V8 with four cylinders added” the
concept was exactly that and if the schematics are placed side-by-side, the
familial relationship is obvious. Introduced
in November 1935 (as a 1936 model), the styling of the Lincoln Zephyr attracted
more favourable comment than Chrysler’s Airflows (1934-1937), an earlier
venture into advanced aerodynamics (then known as “streamlining”) and the name had been chosen to emphasize the wind-cheating qualities of the modernist look. With a raked windscreen and integrated
fenders, it certainly looked slippery and tests in modern wind tunnels have
confirmed it indeed had a lower CD (drag coefficient) than the Airflows which
looked something like unfinished prototypes; the public never warmed to the Airflows,
however accomplished the engineering was acknowledged to be.
By contrast, the Zephyrs managed to cloak the functional efficiency in
sleek lines with pleasing art deco touches; subsequently, New York’s MOMA (Museum
of Modern Art) acknowledged it as “the first successfully streamlined car in
America”. So much did the style and small
V12 capture the headlines it was hardly remarked upon that with a unitary
body, the Zephyr was the first Ford-made passenger vehicle with an all-steel
roof, the method of construction delivering the required strength at a lighter weight, something which enabled the use of an engine of relatively modest
displacement.
The American Home Front 1941-1942 (2006) by Alistair Cooke (1908-2004), The cover illustration was of him filling up the Zephyr's V12, Pasadena, California, 1942.
In 1942,
just after the US had entered the war (thereby legitimizing the term “World War
II” (1939-1945)) the expatriate (the apocope “expat” not in general use until
the 1950s when Graham Greene's (1904-1991) novel The Quiet American (1955) appears to have given it a boost) UK-born
US journalist Alistair Cooke began a trip taking from Washington DC and
back, via Virginia, Florida, Texas, California, Washington state and 26 other states,
purchasing for the project a 1936 Lincoln Zephyr V12, his other vital
accessories five re-tread tyres (with the Japanese occupation of Malaya, rubber
was in short supply and tyres hard to find), a gas (petrol) ration coupon book
and credentials from his employer, the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation). It was a journalist’s project to “discover” how
the onset of war had changed the lives of non-combatant Americans “on the home front” and his observations
would provide him a resource for reporting for years to come. Taking photographs on his travels, he’d
always planned to use the material for a book but, as a working journalist during
the biggest event in history, it was always something done “on the side” and by
the time he’d completed a final draft it was 1945 and with the war nearly over,
he abandoned the project, assuming the moment for publication had passed. It wasn’t until two years after his death that
The American Home Front 1941-1942 (2006)
was released, the boxed manuscript having been unearthed in the back of a
closet, under a pile of his old papers.
Cooke had a
journalist’s eye and the text was interesting as a collection of unedited observations
of the nation’s culture, written in the language of the time. In the introduction Cooke stated: “I wanted to see
what the war had done to the people, to the towns I might go through, to some
jobs and crops, to stretches of landscape I loved and had seen at peace; and to
let the significance fall where it might.” During his journey, he interviewed many of
the “ordinary Americans” then traditionally neglected by history (except when
dealt with en masse), not avoiding contentious issues such as anti-Semitism and racism but also painted
word-pictures of the country through which he was passing, never neglecting to
describe the natural environment, most of it unfamiliar to an Englishman who’d
spent most of his time in the US in cities on the east and west coasts. As a footnote, although the Zephyr’s V12 engine
has always been notorious for the deficiencies in its cooling system, at no
time during the journey did Cooke note the car overheating so either the
radiator and plumbing did the job or he thought the occasional boil-over so
unremarkable he made no remark.
1969 Ford (UK) Zephyr Zodiac Mark IV.
Lincoln ceased to use the Zephyr name after 1942, subsequent V12 cars advertised simply as Lincolns, distinguished in name only by the coachwork. The Zephyr badge was in 1950 revived by Ford of England for their line of mainstream family cars, augmented after 1953 by an up-market version called the Zodiac, noted for its bling. The first three generations (1950-1966) were well-regarded (the Mark III (1962-1966) in most ways a superior car to the contemporary US Ford Falcon) and enjoyed success in both the home and export markets but the Mark IV (1966-1972), despite a tantalizingly advanced specification and offering a lot of interior space and external metal for the money, proved so ghastly the name was retired when the range was replaced with something (the Mark 1 Granada (1972-1977) which was on paper less ambitious but was, on the road, much superior. Not having suffered the tainted Mark IV Zephyrs, Ford felt it safe to recycle the Zephyr name in the US, firstly on the bland Mercury clone (1978-1983) of the (US) Ford Fairmont and finally, for two seasons (2005-2006), on an undistinguished Lincoln which with some haste was re-branded "MKZ". On either side of the Atlantic, there have been no Zephyrs since.
1962 Ford
Galaxie 500/XL Sunliner Convertible 390 (left), 1967 Ford Zodiac Executive
(centre) and 1974 Leyland P76 V8 Executive (right).
The Mark IV Zodiac's wheel
covers (the design concept known as "starburst") had first been seen in the US on the 1962 Ford Galaxie and for Detroit's
colonial outposts the use of components, years after they'd been discontinued
in the US, was common. In Australia, for
the Fairlane and LTD, Ford at various times used the wheel covers introduced on
the 1969 & 1970 Thunderbird (replacing the former with something flatter
after owners reported vulnerability to damage from curbsides so either
Australians were less competent at parking or the guttering designs used by
cities was different) and some were still being fitted as late as 1982. At least that was within the corporate
family. in 1973, Leyland Australia clearly so
liked what ended up on the Zodiac they pinched the idea for the ill-fated P76
(1973-1976). God punishes those who violate his seventh commandment but in fairness to Leyland (even in retrospect they need all the help they can get), the "starburst" motif had long been popular for wheelcovers, hubcaps (there is a difference) and aluminum wheels.
Starburst
sea anemone (left), Kelsey-Hayes cast aluminum wheel for 1967 C2 Chevrolet Corvette
(centre), the five-stud (option code N89) version unique to the 1967 range,
replacing the knock off version (option code P48, 1963-1966) which had to be
retired when US regulators passed rules restricting the use of the centre-lock,
knock-off hubs. To conceal the five
studs, there was a "centre cap" (ie a hubcap in the classic sense) in
the style of the wheel and these colloquially are known as
"starbursts" (right). The
Corvette's wheels were manufactured by Western Wheel Corporation (a division of
Kelsey-Hayes).
As
a noun & verb, “starburst” widely has been used in slang and commerce but
its origin is owed to astronomers of the 1830s and in the field it’s been used
variously to describe (1) a violent explosion, or the pattern (likened to the
shape of a star) supposed to be made by such an explosion and (2) a region of
space or period of time (distinct concepts for this purpose) with an
untypically or unexpectedly high rate of star formation. In SF (science fiction), starbursts can be
more exotic still and have described machines from light-speed propulsion
engines to truly horrid doomsday weapons.
In typography, a starburst is a symbol similar in shape to an asterisk,
but with either or both additional or extended rays and it’s used for a brand
of fruit-flavored confectionery, the name implying the taste “explodes” in the
mouth as one chews or sucks. In
corporate use, starburst is slang for the breaking up of a company (or unit of
a company) into a number of distinct operations and in software it was in the
early 1980s used as the brand name of an application suite (based around the
Wordstar word-processor) which was (along with Electric Office) one of the
first “office suites”, the model Microsoft would later adopt for its “Office”
product which bundled, Word, Excel, the dreaded PowerPoint and such. It was the name of a British made-portable
surface-to-air missile (MANPADS) produced in the late twentieth century, in
botany it’s a tropical flowering plant (Clerodendrum quadriloculare), the term
applied also to a species of sea anemone in the family Actiniidae and, in
human anatomy, certain cell types (based on their appearance). In photography, the “starburst effect” refers
to the diffraction spikes which radiate from sources of bright light.
Available only in 2005-2006 before it was “refreshed” and renamed
MKZ (2007-2012), the Lincoln Zephyr picked up its styling cues from a concept
car displayed at the 2004 New York International Auto Show although with the
lines tempered for production-line reality.
In a sign of the times, it replaced the rear wheel drive (RWD), V6 &
V8 powered LS sedan (2000-2006, with one model sharing showrooms with the Zephyr for
its final year) which had been well-reviewed in press reports but never succeeded as
a challenger to the BMW 5-Series and Mercedes-Benz E-Class. The twenty-first century Zephyr wasn’t a “bad”
car in the sense the word is attached to the English Mark IV Zephyr &
Zodiac but it was bland and built on the Mazda CD3 front wheel drive (FWD) platform
which provided the underpinnings for also the Mazda 6, Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan; despite
Lincoln’s efforts, had it not had the badges, most would have assumed the Zephyr was a
fancy Ford or a Mercury, so closely did it resemble both. Struggling to
find some point of differentiation, journalists always mentioned the
wood trim in the interior was “real timber”, quoting with approval from the
document in the press-pack: “Ebony or maple wood inserts”. Even that wasn't enough to persuade
many it was worth some US$30,000, a US$6000-odd premium over the substantially similar
Mercury Milan Premier V6. It did though
undercut by US$4000 what a basic V6 LS has cost the year before so the price of
entry to Lincoln ownership became less but that also brought the usual
marketing conundrum: “Lowering the price increases sales but tarnishes the perception
of the brand as a prestige product”.
There was
also the name. The original Lincoln
Zephyr had existed only between 1935-1942 and, except a as niche among
collectors, had long ago faded from public consciousness, the same phenomenon
which made the choice of “Maybach” by Mercedes-Benz so curious; Toyota’s
decision to create “Lexus” was a much better idea and perhaps an indication Japanese MBAs were better informed than German MBAs. For 2007 the Zephyr was renamed MKX and even that “naming
strategy” (now an MBA fixation) may not within the corporation been well-communicated because initial suggestions for pronunciation included “Mark 10”
& “Mark X”, picking up on the (actually quite
muddled) history of Lincoln's “Mark” cars which, off & on, existed between 1956-1998 (although
the label was in 2006-2007 revived for a pick-up truck(!)). Neither caught on and before long, like everyone
else, company executives were saying “em-kay-zee”. The “Mark” moniker would have been tempting
because, as the “Zephyr affair” demonstrated, despite a history stretching back
to 1917, the only Lincoln brand names with any traction in the public
imagination are “Continental” and “Mark something”. When MKZ production ended in 2012, the demise
wasn’t so much unlamented as unnoticed.
