Functionalism

Functionalism (pronounced fuhngk-shuh-nl-iz-uhm)

(1) An early twentieth century movement which advocated design in engineering, architecture, furniture and objects as pure fulfilments of material requirements, the aesthetic effect derived from proportions and finish with decorative effects being excluded or greatly subordinated.  Essentially, the theory that the form of a thing should be determined by its use.

(2) In psychology, a doctrine which emphasizes the adaptive flexibility in mental or behavioral processes.  Essentially, a system of thought based on the premise that all mental processes derive from their usefulness to the organism in adapting to the environment.

(3) In sociology (and styled usually as structural functionalism) a theoretical construct of societies as systems of interdependent parts whose functions contribute to the stability and survival of the system.  The analysis suggests things continue to exist because they perform some useful function.

(4) In anthropology (as biological functionalism), a utilitarian theory which maintains individual survival is the provocation of actions and the importance of social rigidity is negligible.

1914:  A compound word, function + al +‎ ism.  Function was from the Middle French function from the Old French fonction, from the Classical Latin functionem (accusative of functiō) (performance, execution) from functus (perfect participle of fungor) (I perform, I execute, I discharge).  The -al suffix was from the Middle English -al, from the Latin adjectival suffix -ālis, ((the third-declension two-termination suffix (neuter -āle) used to form adjectives of relationship from nouns or numerals) or the French, Middle French and Old French –el & -al.  It was use to denote the sense "of or pertaining to", an adjectival suffix appended (most often to nouns) originally most frequently to words of Latin origin, but since used variously and also was used to form nouns, especially of verbal action.  The alternative form in English remains -ual (-all being obsolete).  The origin remains uncertain but the Latin is thought likely formed from the Etruscan genitive suffix.  The –ism suffix was from the Ancient Greek ισμός (ismós) & -isma noun suffixes, often directly, sometimes through the Latin –ismus & isma (from where English picked up ize) and sometimes through the French –isme or the German –ismus, all ultimately from the Ancient Greek (where it tended more specifically to express a finished act or thing done).  It appeared in loanwords from Greek, where it was used to form abstract nouns of action, state, condition or doctrine from verbs and on this model, was used as a productive suffix in the formation of nouns denoting action or practice, state or condition, principles, doctrines, a usage or characteristic, devotion or adherence (criticism; barbarism; Darwinism; despotism; plagiarism; realism; witticism etc).  First used in 1914 in the social sciences, it entered use in architectural criticism in 1930.  Functionalism was also a briefly fashionable school of thought in international relations in the early inter-war years and in any context, it’s often used with an initial capital letter.

Functionalist architecture: Bauhaus School building, Dessau (1925-1926).

Sociology: Three of the the discipline's usual suspects

Emile Durkheim (1858–1917) was a French sociologist who developed the theory of functionalism from data he collected while exploring links between social integration and suicide; his findings suggesting social institutions should be understood in terms of the contribution their existence makes to society.   In a nod to Hobbes (and even Marx and Freud), Durkheim described man as homo duplex in which all have dual natures, one selfish, the other concerned with shared moral values.

US sociologist Talcott Parsons (1902-1979) was the dominant theorist in American sociology during the mid-twentieth century whose most important work was The Social System (1951) in which he describes the most elaborate model yet constructed of the ways institutions in society contribute to social order. He was influential but later attracted criticism for his work being too derivative of earlier German models of the two dichotomous sociological types, gemeinschaft & gesellschaft (community and society).

Robert Merton (1910–2003) was an American sociologist, who work saw phrases from academic sociology (such as “self-fulfilling prophecy”) enter popular use.  He suggested in different societies, institutions, however functional may tend to act with some autonomy so that a change in a particular institution may have little or no effect on others.  He noted also that despite the implications of Durkheim’s work, not all social systems necessarily perform a positive function and that some institutions like family or religion aren’t part of all human societies.  Merton claimed his method of analysis meant functionalism could no longer be perceived as ideological.

Structural Functionalism

Structural functionalism was a dominant school of thought in sociology for much of the twentieth century.  It built models of a symbiotic society where the framework was its institutions and its bonding energy the functions they fulfilled, viewing human interaction as producing a complex system of parts, each with a specific function which contributed to the stability and functioning of the whole.  Sometimes appearing unimportant if viewed in isolation, the component parts were understood as interdependence building blocks of social institutions, their function in the structure their role in maintaining social order and stability.  The structural functionalist model asserts every society has certain structures (divided classically into organizations, institutions & norms) which fulfil important functions ensuring the operation of society.  In the language of the discipline, the functions can be manifest (intended and recognized) or latent (unintended and often unrecognized), social stability maximized when these structures and functions are in balance.

In sociology, functionalism is where it's found and it's found by neo-Marxists, Mean Girls (2004) fans and others.

In the way of academia, the remarkably simple theoretical model of structural functionalism attracted very clever sociologists who published papers by the thousand adding layers of nuanced complexity, mapping onto the ever-growing literature models every imaginable social dynamic, some of which (notably power structures, race conflict, social change, feminism and sexual politics) exposed the limitations of the approach.  For that reason, it came to be much criticized, not because the theory’s theoretical framework was fundamentally wrong but because some some contradictions in specific interactions exposed flaws which meant it could never be a global “theory of everything”.  Long unfashionable, its core assumptions continue to underlie (and even underpin according to some) a number of modern orthodoxies in sociology.

1939 Mercedes-Benz T80, Mercedes-Benz Museum, Stuttgart, Germany.

When building machines to set the world's lands speed record (LSR), nothing matters except functionalism, everything else discarded as extraneous.  Designed by Ferdinand Porsche (1875–1951), the Mercedes-Benz T80 was built between 1937-1939 to lay siege to LSR but with the outbreak of World War II (1939-1945), the attempt was never made.  It was a single-purpose machine designed to achieve maximum terminal velocity and for that reason, the T80 was an exercise in pure functionalism; not one nut or bolt was used other than for the purpose of ensuring its top speed would be as high as possible.  Cognizant of the existing record, the initial goal was 550 km/h (342 mph) but as others in the late 1930s raised the mark, so were Professor Porsche’s ambitions and when the final specification was set in 1939, the target was 650 km/h (404 mph) (not 750 km/h (466 mph) as is sometimes quoted).  Configured with six wheels, the T80 would have used a supercharged, fuel-injected, 44.5 litre (2716 cubic inch) Daimler-Benz DB 603 inverted V12 aero-engine, an enlarged version of the DB 601 which powered a number of Messerschmitts and other warplanes.  Intended for use in bombers, the T80’s engine was actually the third DB 603 prototype and tuned initially to generate some 2237 kW (3000 horsepower) on an exotic cocktail of methyl alcohol (63%), benzene (16%), ethanol (12%), acetone (4.4%), nitrobenzene (2.2%), avgas (2%), and ether (0.4%) with MW (methanol-water) injection for charge cooling and as an anti-detonant.  This was more than twice the output of the Hurricanes, Spitfires and Messerschmitts which in 1940 fought the Battle of Britain but Porsche’s calculations suggested 2,574 kW (3,500 hp) would be needed to touch the 650 km/h target and the DB 603 would have been tweaked to achieve this as an EWR (emergency war rating, a concept of extracting maximum power at the expense of component longevity).

1939 Mercedes-Benz T80, Mercedes-Benz Museum, Stuttgart, Germany.

Some 8 metres (26 feet) in length with two of the three axles providing drive, the weight when fuelled and crewed was some 2600 kg (2.9 short tons) while the measured coefficient of drag (CD) was reported at 0.18, an impressive figure for such a thing as late as the 1990s and it would have been lower still, had wind-tunnel testing not revealed the need to add two small “winglets” to provide sufficient down-force to ensure the shape didn’t at speed assume the characteristics of an aeroplane and "try to take off"; notably, when in 1964 the Bluebird-Proteus CN7 ran on Australia's Lake Eyre salt flats, it was the first LSR machine to include “ground effect” technology to reduce lift.  Fundamentally, the aerodynamics are thought sound although there would be the usual vulnerability to cross-winds, the cause of several deaths in such attempts and the surface conditions of what was a temporarily closed public road would also have been critical; whether the tyre technology of the time would have been adequate under such conditions will never be known.  Had the T80 been run on the long, flat straights of the salt flats in the US or Australia, the prospects of success would have been better but for propaganda purposes (always a theme for the Nazis) the LSR runs had to be on German soil.

Bluebird-Proteus CN7, Lake Eyre, Australia, 1964.

The plan was for the attempt to be staged in January 1940 during what the regime dubbed RekordWoche (Record Week) on a section of the Berlin-Halle-Leipzig autobahn (now part of the A9), closed for the occasion.  The legend is that Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) himself choose the nickname Schwarzer Vogel (Black Bird) but that too may have been propaganda.  Hitler did though like romantic names so the story is least plausible.  He also had so little regard for titles he used them like cheap gifts and bribes, creating 26 field marshals during his rule including 7 after in February 1943 he'd declared he'd never appoint another.  That vow was prompted by his disappointment at Friedrich Paulus (1890–1957) declining to shoot himself and instead capitulating to the Red Army besieging Stalingrad.  Hitler had promoted Paulus the very day he surrendered and despite Hitler offering him this "one final satisfaction", he chose not to blow his brains out "for that Bohemian corporal" (a phrase attributed to Generalfeldmarschall Paul von Hindenburg (1847–1934; Reichspräsident (1925-1934) of Germany 1925-1934) who misunderstood the geography of Hitler's birthplace).  The Führer also appointed Ferdinand Porsche a professor although that was in recognition of his stellar work in the armaments industry rather than his equally impressive contributions to designing fast cars and anyway not too much should be made of it, Hitler conferring the academic honor even on his favorite photographer.  The design of the T80 was done in the era of slide rules and although some computer work has been applied to simulating the event, there’s no consensus on whether the thing really would have hit 650 km/h and set a new LSR.  As it was, it wasn't until August 1963 a turbojet-powered machine was clocked at 655.722 km/h (407.447) mph in a run on the Bonneville Salt Flats.  It was there in November 1965 a machine powered by four fuel injected Chrysler 426 cubic inch (7.0 litre) hemi V8s recorded a two-way average of 658.526 km/h (409.277 mph) and, in the class for wheel-driven vehicles, that mark stood for some 43 years.  In July 1964, it had been rain-affected surface conditions on the salt flats at Lake Eyre which had sabotaged the run by the gas turbine-powered Bluebird-Proteus CN7, limiting the speed to 648.73 km/h (403.10 mph).  Had the surface still been as hard and true as it had been when surveyed in 1962, the Bluebird would have a higher average over the measured distance because it was clocked at 710 km/h (440 mph) towards the end of a run.  The vehicle had a theoretical maximum speed of some 800 km/h (500 mph) but that was calculated in what was still the age of the slide rule and most experts now doubt that was attainable although something in excess of 450 mph (720 km/h) was plausible.  No wheel-driven car has ever come close to 500 mph.

Anniversary

 Anniversary (pronounced an-uh-vur-suh-ree)

(1) The yearly recurrence of the date of a past event.

(2) The celebration or commemoration of such a date.

(3) Returning or recurring each year; annual.

1200–1250: From the Middle English anniversarie from the Anglo-French and Medieval Latin anniversāria (anniversary (day)) & anniversārius (recurring yearly), the construct being anni (combining form of annus year) + vers(us) (turned), past participle of vertere (vert (turn) + tus (past participle suffix) + ārius or ary.  In Latin, the word was used especially of the day of a person's death but as first an adjective and later a noun, came to be used in Church Latin as anniversaria (dies) in reference to saints' days.  An Old English word for anniversary (as a noun) was mynddæg which translates literally as "mind-day".  Anniversary & anniversarian are nouns and anniversarily is an (archaic) adverb; the noun plural is anniversaries (the Latin anniversaria occasionally seen).

One of pop culture's more celebrated anniversaries is Mean Girls Day on 3 October, the origin of which is that it's the only date mentioned in the 2004 film although it has no specific relevance and could have been any date which fitted in with the weather.  Besides Mean Girls Day, other notable anniversaries on 3 October include: In 1929, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was renamed Jugoslavija (Yugoslavia).  In 1932, the Kingdom of Iraq was granted independence by the UK.  In 1935, Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & prime-minister of Italy 1922-1943) invaded Ethiopia (the Second Italo-Abyssinian War); it was Europe’s last old-style colonial adventure and one which even then looked anachronistic.  In 1952, the UK tested its first A-Bomb, becoming the third nuclear power; H-Bombs would soon follow.  In 1990, the GDR (the German Democratic Republic, the old East Germany) was dissolved and absorbed by the FRG (the Federal Republic of Germany, the old West Germany), marking the formal origin of the modern, unified German state, celebrated by most as German Unity Day and noted by others (then and now) with some regret.

In literature, probably the best known is Bloomsday, a reference to 16 June, a day (in 1904) in the life of Leopold Bloom, the protagonist in the novel Ulysses by James Joyce (1882–1941).  Although Bloomsday is centred usually on gatherings featuring readings from the book, the events also often commemorate other aspects of the author's life and are sometimes integrated with academic conferences or literary festivals.  Political and military anniversaries are often marked and can be celebrated even if the original was a defeat; it's all about the context of history and some have been misused by those with their own agendas to pursue.  Almost always, these events have a specific date but sometimes the day cannot be mentioned because of "political sensitivities".

In the early evening of 3 June 1989, in the culmination of some three weeks of mainly student-led protests directed at the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), martial law was declared and armed troops of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) were assigned to Beijing’s Tiananmen Square where the protests were centred.  What followed a few hours later on 4 June has come variously to be known as the “Tiananmen Square Incident” or “Tiananmen Square Massacre” (the CCP preferring “June Fourth Incident”, the same convention of use the Japanese government adopted in the 1930s when speaking of some of their conduct in China) and although there’s broad consensus about what happened when the soldiers opened fire with automatic weapons (sometimes from tanks and other armored vehicles), the extent remains contested with estimates of the death toll ranging from low-three to high-four figures.  There were at least several hundred thousand protesters in Tiananmen Square at the time of the incident so all estimates are plausible but the photographic evidence from the time is so fragmentary that verification has never been possible.

The traditional annual flowerbed in Tiananmen Square which is part of a "national celebration day" (officially the National Day of the People's Republic of China), marking the foundation of the republic on 3 October 1949.

Such is the sensitivity within the CCP that its impressive digital surveillance of the population has reacted quickly to attempts to circumvent attempts to evade the proscription of references such as “4 June”, “June 4”, “fourth of June” etc.  Because the filters are inherently text & character based this was historically usually just a matter of updating the database of “suspect terms”, done usually in reaction to emerging patterns of use but also sometimes anticipated.  Attempts on Chinese social media to evade the censor’s eye included (1) using fragments of some more obscure foreign languages, (2) using emojis which possess some degree of ambiguity, (3) using Pinyin (the Romanization of Chinese characters), (4) using coded phrases or metaphors to allude to the event, some of which may be understood only within a sub-set of users and (5) the use of numeric references such as “65-1”, “63+1” or “May 35^th”.

Little of this digital subterfuge proved much of an obstacle to the CCP surveillance machine and the regime’s enthusiastic embrace of AI (artificial intelligence) meant that even embedding messaging in imagery or music with no direct mention or even reference to the event or the date can now easily be assessed.  Western analysts note however there’s little to suggest the CCP has an especially large task in countering on-line discussion of the “June Fourth Incident”, other than in places like Hong Kong where malcontents and trouble-makers are known still to exist.  The CCP allows well-behaved Chinese citizen (ie those with a good “social credit” score) to holiday in the West and probably assumes (presumably correctly) that they spend their time taking selfies in front of the Eiffel Town or Trevi Fountain rather than sitting in darkened hotel rooms using the novelty of Google to search for “Tiananmen Square Massacre”.  Indeed, Western political scientists suspect there’s wide knowledge among the population about there being a massacre on 4 June (although not the detail) and for the CCP this is a desirable thing for Chinese citizens to keep in the back of their minds.  Like “something nasty in the woodshed” it’s there to be avoided and not discussed.

Some names for anniversaries      

1        Annual
2        Biennial
3        Triennial
4        Quadrennial
5        Quinquennial
6        Sexennial
7        Septennial
8        Octennial
9        Novennial
10      Decennial
11      Undecennial
12      Duodecennial
13      Tredecennial
14      Quattuordecennial
15      Quindecennial
20      Vigintennial or Vicennial
25      Quadranscentennial
40      Quadragennial
50      Semicentennial or Quinquagenary
60      Sexagennial 
65      Sexagenary
70      Septuagennial
100    Centennial or Centenary
125    Quasquicentennial
150    Sesquicentennial
175    Dodransbicentennial
200    Bicentennial
250    Sestercentennial
300    Tercentenary or Tricentenary
350    Sesquarcentennial
400    Quadricentennial
500    Quincentenary
600    Sexcentenary
700    Septcentennial
800    Octocentenary
900    Nonacentennial
1000  Millennial
1500  Sesquimillennial
2000  Bimillennial

Unique

Unique (pronounced yoo-neek)

(1) Existing as the only one or as the sole example; single; solitary in type or characteristics; the embodiment of unique characteristics; the only specimen of a given kind.

(2) Having no like or equal; unparalleled; incomparable.

(3) Limited in occurrence to a given class, situation, or area.

(4) Limited to a single outcome or result; without alternative possibilities:

(5) Not typical; unusual (modern non-standard (ie incorrect) English).

1595-1605: From the sixteenth century French unique, from the Latin ūnicus (unparalleled, only, single, sole, alone of its kind), from ūnus (one), from the primitive Indo-European root oi-no- (one, unique).  The meaning "forming the only one of its kind" is attested from the 1610s while the erroneous sense of "remarkable, uncommon" emerged in the mid-nineteenth and lives on in the common errors “more unique” and “very unique” although etymologists are more forgiving of “quite unique”, a favorite of the antique business where it seems to be used to emphasize the prized quality of "exquisiteness".  Unique is a noun & adjective, uniqueness, uniquity & unicity are nouns and uniquely is an adverb; the (rare) noun plural is uniques.  The comparative uniquer and the superlative uniquest are treated usually as proscribed forms which should be used only with some sense of irony but technically, while the preferred "more unique" and "most unique" might sound better, the structural objection is the same.

The Triumph Stag and its unique, ghastly engine

There was a little girl by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)

There was a little girl,
And she had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good
She was very, very good,
And when she was bad she was horrid.

The V8 engine Triumph built for the Stag between 1970-1978 was a piece of machinery not quite uniquely horrid but so bad it remained, most unusually for such an engine, unique to the Stag.  The only other post-war V8 engine to be produced in any volume which was used in a single model was the Fiat 8V (1952-1954) though with a run of 114 it was hardly mass produced.  The Ford Boss 429 (1969-1970) was only ever used in the Mustang (apart from two Mercury Cougars built for drag racing) but it was a variant of the 385 series engines (370-429-460) rather than something genuinely unique.  More common have been V8s which never actually appeared in any production car such as Ford's 427 SOHC (a variant of the FE/FT family (332-352-360-361-390-406-410-427-428; 1957-1976)) or the Martin V8, designed by Ted Martin (1922-2010) initially for racing but briefly envisaged for the French Monica luxury car project (1971-1975) until a sense of reality prevailed.  What is unique about the Triumph 3.0 V8 is that it's the one produced in the greatest volume which was used only in the one model.

The Triumph 3.0 V8

Engine schematic. 

Problem 1: Some strange decisions were taken by British Leyland and many associated with the Stag’s engine are among the dopiest.  The engineering strategy was to create a family of engines of different size around common components which would enable the development of four, six and eight cylinder units with capacities between 1.5-4 litres, (75-245 cubic inches), the part-sharing offering some compelling economies of scale.  Done properly, as many have often done, it’s sound practice to create a V8 by joining two four-cylinder units but it’s unwise to using exactly the same bottom-end components for both.  Strictly speaking, because the V8 came first, the subsequent fours were actually half a V8 rather than vice-versa but the fact remains the bottom-end construction was more suited to the smaller mill; the bearings were simply too small.

Stagnant.  Blockages and corrosion by chemical reaction.

Problem 2: A second cause of engine trouble was the choice of materials. The block was made from iron and the heads from aluminum, a common enough practice even then but a combination new to Triumph owners and one demanding the year-round use of corrosion-inhibiting antifreeze, a point not widely appreciated even by the somewhat chaotic dealer network supporting them.  Consequently, in engines where only water was used as a coolant, the thermite reaction between iron and aluminum caused corrosion where the material were joined, metallic debris coming lose which was distributed inside the engine; the holes formed in the heads causing gaskets to fail, coolant and petrol mixing with lubricating oil.

Problem 3. The engine used a long, single row, roller-link timing chain which would soon stretch, causing the timing between the pistons (made of a soft metal) and the valves (made of a hard metal) to become unsynchronized.  There are “non-interference” engines where this is a nuisance because it causes things to run badly and “interference” engines where the results can be catastrophic because, at high speed, valves crash into pistons.  The Stag used an “interference” engine.

Engine schematic.  Note the angles of the head-studs.

Problem 4: There was a bizarre arrangement of cylinder head fixing studs, half of which were vertical in an orthodox arrangement while the other half sat at an angle. The angled studs, made from a high-tensile steel, were of course subject to heating and cooling and expanded and contracted at a different rate to the aluminum cylinder heads, the differential causing premature failure of the head gaskets.  It must have seemed a good idea at the time, the rationale being it made possible the replacement of the head gaskets without the need to remove the camshafts and re-set the valves.  That is a time-consuming and therefore expensive business so the intention was fine but it was defeated by physics, something which should have been anticipated.  Nor did the thermal dynamics damage only head gaskets, it also warped the aluminum heads, the straight studs heating differently than the longer splayed studs which imposed the side loads that promoted warping.  As a final adding of insult to injury, the long steel studs had a propensity solidly to fuse with the aluminum head and, because they sat at dissimilar angles, it wasn’t possible simply to saw or grind the top off the offending bolt and pull of the head.

Problem 5: The head failures would have been a good deal less prevalent had the company management acceded to the engineers’ request to use the more expensive head gaskets made of a material suited to maintaining a seal between surfaces of iron and aluminum.  For cost reasons, the request was denied.

Triumph Stag engine bay.

Problem 6: Despite the under-hood space being generous, instead following the usual practice of being mounted low and belt-driven, at the front of the engine, the water pump was located high, in the valley between the heads and was gear driven off a jackshaft.  This, combined with the location of the header tank through which coolant was added, made an engine which had suffered only a small loss of coolant susceptible to over-heating which, if undetected, could soon cause catastrophic engine failure, warped cylinder heads not uncommon.  Because, when on level ground, the water pump sat higher than the coolant filling cap, unless the car was parked at an acute angle, it wasn’t possible to fill the system with enough fluid actually to reach the water pump.    It seems a strange decision for a engineer to make and the original design blueprints show a belt-driven water pump mounted in a conventional manner at the front of the block.

It transpired that Saab, which had agreed to purchase a four cylinder derivative of the modular family, had to turn the slant four through 180^o because, in their front-wheel-drive 99, the transmission needed to sit at the front and, space in the Swedish car being tight, there would be no room between block and bulkhead for a water pump and pulley to fit.  So, dictated by necessity, the pump ended up atop the block, suiting both orientations and driven by the same shaft that drove the distributor and oil pump (and would have driven the mechanical metering unit for the abortive fuel injection).  Aside from the issues with coolant, the drive mechanism for the pump brought problems of its own, the early ones proving fragile.  As if the problems inherent weren’t enough, Triumph made their detection harder, locating the coolant temperature sender in one of the cylinder heads.  On the modular fours, with one head, that would be fine but the Stag’s two heads didn’t warp or otherwise fail in unison.  One head could be suffering potentially catastrophic overheating yet, because the sensor was in the as yet unaffected other, the temperature gauge would continue to indicate a normal operating level.  That’s the reason just about every fluid-cooled engine with multiple heads has the sender placed in the water pump.  To compound the problem, the four and eight used the same specification water pump, which, while more than adequate for the former, should have be uprated for the latter.

Problem 7: This was the eventually nationalized British Leyland of the 1970s, a case study, inter alia, in poor management and ineptitude in industrial relations.  Although the pre-production engines were cast by an outside foundry and performed close to faultlessly in durability-testing, those fitted to production cars were made in house by British Leyland in a plant troubled by industrial unrest.  Quality control was appalling bad, lax manufacturing standards left casting sands in the blocks which were sent for the internal components to be fitted and head gaskets were sometimes fitted in a way which restricted coolant flow and led to overheating.

The lineage of the Stag

Michelotti's show car, 1966.

It was a pity because but for the engine, the Stag proved, by the standards of the time, relatively trouble-free, even the often derided Lucas electrical equipment well behaved.  The story began in 1965 when Italian designer Giovanni Michelotti (1921–1980) had requested a Triumph 2000 sedan, a model he’d styled and which had been on sale since 1963.  Michelotti intended to create a one-off convertible as a promotional vehicle to display at the 1966 Geneva Motor Show and Triumph agreed, subject to the company being granted first refusal on production rights and, if accepted, it would not appear at the show.  The donor car sent to Turin was a 1964 saloon which, prior to being used as a factory hack, had been one of the support vehicles for Triumph’s 1965 Le Mans campaign with the Spitfire.  Driven to Italy for Michelotti to cut and shape, the result so delighted Triumph they immediate purchased the production rights and the Stag was born.  Briefly called TR6, the Stag name was chosen, somewhat at random, as the original project code but was retained when it was preferred to all the suggested alternatives; unlike the engine, the name was right from day one.

Michelotti's pre-production styling sketch for a cabriolet version of the Triumph 2000, 1967.  The concept was remarkably close to the production version.

The styling too turned out to be just about spot-on.  The partially concealed headlights, then a fashionable trick many US manufacturers had adopted, was thought potentially troublesome and abandoned but the lines were substantially unchanged between prototype and production.  There was one exception of course and that was the most distinctive feature, the B-pillar mounted loop which connected to the centre of windscreen frame, creating a T-section.  This wasn’t added because of fears the US Congress was going to pass legislation about roll-over protection; that would come later and see European manufacturers produce a rash of “targas” (a kind of roll-bar integrated into the styling as a semi-roof structure) but Triumph’s adaptation was out of structural necessity.  Based on a sedan which had a permanent roof to guarantee structural integrity, Michelotti’s prototype had been a styling exercise and no attempt had been made to adapt the engineering to the standards required for production.  Although the platform had be shortened, a sedan with its roof cut of is going to flex and flex it did, shaking somewhat if driven even at slow speeds in a straight line on smooth surfaces; with any change to any of those conditions, vibration and twisting became much worse.  The T-top not only restored structural integrity but was so well-designed and solidly built the Stag’s torsional stiffness was actually better than the sedan and unlike Triumph's long running TR range (TR2-TR6, 1953-1976 (the TR7-TR8 (1975-1981) a different platform)), there was no scuttle shake.

Given the platform and styling was essentially finished at the beginning, the initial plan the Stag would be ready for release within two years didn’t seem unreasonable but it took twice that long.  Perhaps predictably, it was the engine which was responsible for much of the delay, combined with the turmoil and financial uncertainty of a corporate re-structure.  Triumph had since 1960 been part of the Leyland group (a profitable bus and truck manufacturer) and until 1968 enjoyed much success as their car-making division.  However, in 1968, under some degree of government coercion, a large conglomerate was formed as British Leyland (BL) and Triumph was absorbed into BL's Specialist Division as a stable-mate to Rover and Jaguar-Daimler.

Jaguar & Daimler: V8s, V12s and missed opportunities

Daimler 2.5 V8.

What became the Stag's engine imbroglio was interlinked with the merger because with the great coming-together, BL had on the books, in development or production, one V12 engine and five V8s, an indulgence unlikely to survive any corporate review.  Jaguar-Daimler, the most substantially semi-independent entity within the conglomerate, were adamant about the importance of the V12 to their new model ranges and the point of differentiation it would provide in the vital US market.  They were notably less emphatic about their V8s.  Within the company, there had long been a feeling Jaguars should have either six or twelve cylinders, any V8 a lumpy compromise for which there’d never been much enthusiasm.  Additionally, the Jaguar was more of a compromise than most.  Based on the V12 it was thus in a 60^o configuration and so inherently harder to balance than a V8 using an orthodox 90^o layout.  Development had been minimal and Jaguar was happy to sacrifice the project, doubtlessly the correct decision.

1961 Jaguar Mark X.

Less inspired was to allow the anti-V8 feeling to doom the hemi-head Daimler V8s.  Built in 2½ litre (2,548 cm³ (155 cubic inch)) and 4½ litre (4,561 cm³ (278 cubic inch)) displacement, both were among the best engines of the era, light, compact and powerful, they were noted also for their splendid exhaust notes, the only aspect in which the unfortunate Stag engine would prove their match.  Jaguar acquired both after merging with (ie taking over) Daimler in 1960 and created a popular (and very profitable) niche model using the smaller version but the 4½ litre was only ever used in low volume limousines, barely two-thousand of which were built in a decade.  Both however showed their mettle, the 2.5 comfortably out-performing Jaguars 2.4 XK-six in the same car and in some measures almost matching the 3.4, all to the accompaniment of that glorious exhaust note.  The 4.6 too proved itself in testing.  When, in 1962, engineers replaced the 3.8 XK-six in Jaguar’s new Mark X with a 4.6, it was six seconds quicker to 100 mph (162 km/h) and added more than 10 mph (16 km/h) to an already impressive top speed of 120 mph (195 km/h).  The engineers could see the potential, especially in the US market where the engines in the Mark X’s competition was routinely now between six-seven litres (365-430 cubic inches) and increasingly being called upon to drive power-sapping accessories such as air-conditioning.  As Mercedes-Benz too would soon note, in the US, gusty sixes were becoming technologically bankrupt.  The engineers looked at the 4.6 and concluded improvements could be made to the cylinder heads and the design would accommodate capacity increases well beyond five litres (305 cubic inches); they were confident a bigger version would be a natural fit for the American market.

Internal discussion paper for Jaguar XK-V8 engine, Coventry, UK, 1949.

Curiously, it could have happened a decade earlier because, during development of the XK-six, a four cylinder version was developed and prototypes built, the intent being to emulate the company’s pre-war practice when (then known as SS Cars) a range of fours and sixes were offered.  This continued in the early post-war years while the XK was being prepared and the idea of modularity appealed; making fours into sixes would become a common English practice but Jaguar flirted also with an XK-eight.  While the days of straight-eights were nearly done, trends in the US market clearly suggested others might follow Ford and offer mass-market V8s so, in 1949, a document was circulated with preliminary thoughts outlining the specification of a 4½ litre 90^o V8 using many of the XK-four’s components including a pair of the heads.  There things seemed to have ended, both four and eight doomed by the success and adaptability of the XK-six and there's never been anything to suggest the XK-eight reached even the drawing-board.  Work on the prototype four did continue until the early 1950s, the intention being to offer a smaller car which would fill the huge gap in the range between the XK-120 and the big Mark VII saloon but so quickly did the XK-six come to define what a Jaguar was that it was realized a four would no longer suit the market.  Instead, for the small car, a small (short) block XK-six was developed, initially in two litre form and later enlarged for introduction as the 2.4; with this, the XK-four was officially cancelled by which time the flirtation with the eight had probably already been forgotten.  For decades thereafter, Jaguar would prefer to think in multiples of six and, having missed the chance in the 1960s to co-op the Daimler 4.6, it wouldn’t be for another thirty years that a V8 of four-odd litres would appear in one of their cars.

1954 prototype Jaguar 9 litre military V8.

That didn't mean in the intervening years Jaguar didn't build any V8s.  In the early 1950s, while fulfilling a contract with the Ministry of Supply to manufacture sets of spares for the Rolls-Royce Meteor mark IVB engines (a version of the wartime Merlin V12 made famous in Spitfires and other aircraft) used in the army's tanks, Jaguar was invited to produce for evaluation a number of V8s of "approximately 8 litres (488 cubic inches)".  Intended as a general purpose engine for military applications such as light tanks, armored cars and trucks, what Jaguar delivered was a 9 litre (549 cubic inches), 90^o V8 with double overhead camshafts (DOHC), four valves per cylinder and a sealed electrical system (distributors and ignition) to permit underwater operation, thereby making the units suitable also for marine use.  With an almost square configuration (the bore & stroke was 114.3 x 110 mm (4.5 x 4.33 inches)), the naturally aspirated engine exceeded the requested output, yielding 320 bhp (240 kw) at 3750 rpm and either five or six were delivered to the ministry for the army to test.  From that point, it's a mystery, neither the military, the government nor Jaguar having any record of the outcome of the trials which apparently didn't proceed beyond 1956 or 1957; certainly no orders were placed and the project was terminated.  At least one one of the V8s survived, purchased in an army surplus sale it was as late as the 1990s being used in the barbaric-sounding sport of "tractor-pulling".  Later, Jaguar enjoyed more success with the military, the army for some years using a version of the 4.2 litre XK-six in their tracked armored reconnaissance vehicles, the specification similar to that used when installed in the Dennis D600 fire engine.             

Jaguar V12 in 1973 XJ12.  So tight was the fit in the XJ's engine bay, even the battery needed its own cooling fan.

Jaguar’s management vetoed production of the Daimler 4.6 on the grounds (1) there was not the capacity to increase production to what be required for the volume of sales Jaguar hoped the Mark X would achieve and (2) the Mark X would need significant modifications to permit installation of the V8.  Given that Daimler’s production facilities had no difficulty dramatically increasing production of the 2.5 when it was used in the smaller saloon body and a number of specialists have subsequently noted how easy it was to fit some very big units into the Mark X’s commodious engine bay, it’s little wonder there’s always been the suspicion the anti-V8 prejudice may have played a part.  Whatever the reasons, the decision was made instead to enlarge the XK-six to 4.2 litres and missed was the opportunity for Jaguar to offer a large V8-powered car at least competitive with and in some ways superior to the big Americans.  The Mark X (later re-named 420G) was not the hoped-for success, sales never more than modest even in its early days and in decline until its demise in 1970 by which time production had slowed to a trickle.  It was a shame for a design which was so advanced and had so much potential for the US market and had the V8 been used or had the V12 been available by the mid-1960s, things could have been different.  The unfortunate reputation the twelve later gained was because of lax standards in the production process, not any fragility in the design which was fundamentally sound and it would have been a natural fit in the Mark X.  So the Daimler 4.6 remained briefly in small-scale production for the limousines and the 2.5 enjoyed a successful run as an exclusive model under the hood of the smallest Jaguar (as well as the footnote of the SP250 roadster), a life which would extend until 1969.  Unfortunately, the powerful, torquey, compact and robust 2.5, which easily could have been enlarged to three litres, wasn’t used in the Stag.  More helpfully, even if capacity had been limited to 2.8 litres (170 cubic inches) to take advantage of the lower taxation rates applied in Europe, the Daimler V8 would have been more than equal to the task.

Crossing the Rubicon

Fuel-injected 2.5 litre Triumph six in 1968 Triumph TR5.

The Triumph six was essentially an enlarged version of an earlier four.  Released also in 1.6 & 2.0 capacities and used in the 2000/2500, Vitesse, GT6 & TR5/6, the fuel-injection was adopted only for the some of the non-US market sports cars and the short-lived 2.5 PI saloon and because of the reliance on the US market, TVR, which used the engine in the 2500M, in all markets, offered only the twin-carburetor version certified for US sale in the TR-250.  Apart from those fitted with never wholly satisfactory Lucas mechanical fuel-injection, with roots in a tractor engine, the pushrod Triumph six was not an advanced powerplant but it was highly tuneable and something the Stag's V8 never was: robust and reliable.  Although it sounds (and would have been) anachronistic, Triumph would have been better advised to take the old four and create a 3.0 litre straight-eight with the power take-off in the centre.  Even with carburetors (certainly for the US market) it would have been unique (in a good way) and doing that while adding a few inches to the nose would have been a simpler and cheaper task than what was done.  A straight-eight Stag would also have reached the market earlier.      

Triumph tried using the fuel-injected 2.5 litre straight-six already in development for the TR5 (TR-250 in North America) but the rorty six was a sports car engine unsuited to the grand tourer Triumph intended the Stag to be and thus was born a 2.5 litre V8, part of a modular family.  Another innovation was that the V8 would use the Lucas mechanical fuel-injection adopted for the long-stroke six and this at a time when relatively few Mercedes-Benz were so equipped.  However, while the power output met the design objectives, it lacked the torque needed in a car of this nature, and the high-revving nature wasn’t suited to a vehicle intended to appeal to the US market where it was likely often to be equipped both with air-conditioning and automatic transmission; the decision was taken to increase capacity to three litres.  Because the quest was for more torque, it might be thought it would be preferred to lengthen the stroke but, for reasons of cost related to the modularity project, it was decided instead to increase the bore to a very over-square 86.00 x 64.50 mm (3.39 x 2.52 inches).  Despite this, the additional half-litre delivered the desired torque but the coolant passages remained the same so an engine with a capacity twenty percent larger and an increased swept volume, still used the already hardly generous internal cooling capacity of the 2.5.  It was another straw on the camel’s back.

It was also another delay and, within Leyland, questions were being raised about why a long and expensive programme was continuing to develop something which, on paper, appeared essentially to duplicate what Leyland then had in production: Rover’s version of the small-block Buick V8 which they’d much improved after buying the rights and tooling from General Motors.  Already used to much acclaim in their P5B and P6 saloons, it would remain in production for decades.  The Rover V8 did seem an obvious choice and quite why it wasn’t adopted still isn’t entirely certain.  One story is that the Triumph development team told Rover’s chief engineer, by then in charge of the Stag project, that the design changes associated with their V8 were by then so advanced that the Rover V8 “wouldn’t fit”.  While it seems strange an engineer might believe one small V8 wouldn’t fit into a relatively large engine bay which already housed another small V8, he would later admit that believe them he did.

Tight fit: Ford 289 (4.7) V8 in 1967 Sunbeam Tiger Mark II.  A small hatch was added to the firewall so one otherwise inaccessible spark plug could be changed from inside the cabin.

It actually wasn’t a wholly unreasonable proposition because to substitute one engine for another of similar size isn’t of necessity simple, things like cross-members and sump shapes sometimes rendering the task impossible, even while lots of spare space looms elsewhere and a similar thing had recently happened.  In 1967, after taking control of Sunbeam, Chrysler had intended to continue production of the Tiger, then powered by the 289 cubic inch (4.7 litre) Windsor V8 bought from Ford but with Chrysler’s 273 cubic inch (4.4 litre) LA V8 substituted.  Unfortunately, while 4.7 Ford litres filled it to the brim, 4.4 Chrysler litres overflowed; the small-block Ford truly was compact.  Allowing the Tiger to remain in production until the stock of already purchased Ford engines had been exhausted, Chrysler instead changed the advertising from emphasizing the “…mighty Ford V8 power plant” to the correct but less revealing “…an American V-8 power train”.

1973 Triumph Stag.

It may have been, in those perhaps kinder times, one engineer would believe another.  However, years later, a wrinkle was added to the story when, in an interview, one of the development team claimed what was said was that they felt the Rover V8 was “not a fit” for the Stag, not that “it wouldn’t fit”, an amusing piece of sophistry by which, it was said, they meant the characteristics of the engine weren't those required for the Stag.  That may have been being economical with the truth: any engineer looking at the specifications of the Rover unit would have understood it was highly adaptable and so for decades it proved to be, powering everything from the Land Rover to executive saloons and high-performance sports cars.

More plausible an explanation was competing economics.  Triumph was projecting a volume of between twelve and twenty-thousand a year for the Stag and, within the existing production facilities Rover could not have satisfied the demand in addition to their own expanding range, soon to include the Range Rover, added to which, an agreement had been reached to supply Morgan with engines for the +8 which would revitalize their fortunes.  The Morgan deal was for a relatively small volume but it was lucrative and the success of the +8 was already encouraging interest from other manufacturers.  So, with Triumph already in the throes of gearing up to produce their modular engines and Rover said to be unable to increase production without a large capital investment in plant and equipment, the fateful decision to use the Triumph engine was taken.

1974 Triumph Stag in magenta.  Some of the shades of brown, beige, orange and such used in the 1970s by British Leyland are not highly regarded but some were quite striking.

This was the critical point, yet even then it wasn’t too late.  Although Jaguar were emphatic about shutting down Daimler’s V8 lines and converting the factories to XJ6 production, it would have been possible to move the tooling and resume building a 2.5, 2.8 or 3.0 Daimler V8 for the Stag.  Rover had found managing a shift of some tooling across the Atlantic not too onerous a task so trucking stuff a few miles down the road should have been possible.  Ironically, Triumph argued their OHC V8 was a more modern thing than the then decade-old pushrod Daimler which, they suggested, wouldn’t be able to be adapted to upcoming US emission regulations and thus would have a short life.  Given the success of many in coaxing pushrod V8s through decades of US regulations, that probably wasn’t true but it had all become irrelevant; the decision had been taken to pursue Triumph’s modular option.  At least a decision had been taken that was final, unlike some British Leyland decisions of the era but it did mean the Stag’s introduction was further delayed.

1973 Triumph Stag.

Eventually, the Stag was launched in the summer of 1970 to a positive if not rapturous reception.  There was criticism of weight of the hardtop and the fabric roof not being as easy to us as the brochure suggested but most contemporary journalists seemed to enjoy the drive although some were disappointed with the lack of power; the wonderful exhaust note and rakish lines perhaps promising more but this was a relatively heavy four-seat grand tourer, not a sports-car.  Still, it would touch 120 mph (190 km/h) and its acceleration, brakes and handling were all at least comparable to the competition and, among that completion, it was close to unique.  A small-capacity V8, four-seat convertible with a choice of manual or automatic transmissions and all-independent suspension was a tempting specification in 1970; to get the same thing from Mercedes-Benz would cost more than three times as much.  Of course Stuttgart would probably have suggested their buyers got something more than three times as good, a not unreasonable point at the time and, given the prices at which 280SE 3.5 cabriolets now trade, the Germans appear to have been conservative in their three-fold estimate.  But it was value for money and had some nice touches, a heated rear window when that was a novelty in removable hard tops, a clever (and influential) multi-function display of warning lights and even, though curiously discordant, the option of wire wheels.

1974 Triumph Stag interior.  The switch atop the shifter (gear lever) knob activated the Laycock de Normanville overdrive.

All concluded that driving one was a pleasant, if not especially rapid, experience but owning a Stag proved frequently nightmarish, all because of that unique engine.  Before many months had elapsed it was clear there were problems and, despite years of fixes and adjustments, the inherent design faults proved just too embedded in the mechanical DNA.  A change to the Rover V8 might, even then been the answer for the Stag otherwise suffered from little but by the early 1970s, Leyland was in dire financial straits, chronically under-capitalized and without any appetite to invest in a small volume product with an uncertain future.  Perhaps the earlier failure by Facel Vega to rescue the doomed Facellia by replacing the interesting but fragile French engine with a dreary but reliable Volvo unit played on their minds.  An upgraded automatic transmission, improvements to the cooling system and other detail changes to the engine were pursued and even an inconspicuous re-style was thought to warrant a “Mark 2” tag but the reputation never recovered.

Quixotic derivations were built but never pursued.  There were a couple of clumsy-looking prototype GT6-esque (the GT6 was a successful fastback version of the Spitfire roadster which used a the 2.0 litre straight-six in place of the smaller car's 1.3 litre four) hatchbacks which excited little interest and in 1972 Ferguson Research adapted two using their all-wheel-drive and anti-lock brake systems made famous on the Jensen FF; said to work most effectively, both still exist in private hands but there's nothing to suggest even limited production was ever contemplated.  In seven years, 25,877 Stags were built, 6,780 of which were exported but only 2,871 Americans were persuaded, a disappointment in a market of which much had been hoped.

End of the line: 1978 Triumph Stag.

The Stag however has enjoyed an extraordinary afterlife for something once thought a fragile failure.  Seduced by the style, the surprising practicality and the intoxicating burble of the exhaust, the survival rate has been high and most still run the Triumph V8 rather than the Rover V8, Ford V6 or any of the small-block Detroit V8s to which not a few owners once resorted.  Modern additions improve the experience too, five speed manual transmissions have been fitted, mostly to cars not equipped with the desirable overdrive and there's a popular and well-executed conversion to a four-speed ZF automatic which many describe as transformative.  There can be few engines which have for so long inspired owners to devote so much energy to rectifying the defects the factory never fixed.  High strength timing chains, external water pumps, improved radiators, better bearings and (the once rejected) correct head gaskets are now available, the consensus being that properly sorted and maintained by the book, it’s a solid, reliable engine, just not one which can be tolerate the sort of neglect Detroit's V8s of the era famously would endure with little complaint.

The Stag, November 2023 (the date stamp 21/8/2024 presumably wasn't caught during the pre-production process).

The Stag is the student newsletter of Reddam House Sydney, an independent, co-educational, non-denominational, day school, located in the leafy (Sydney code for “rich”) suburb of Woollahra.  An encouragingly professional example of student journalism, the content appears to reflect the generation's interest in popular culture (film, fashion, music, sport etc), climate change, consumer tech products and progressive politics (including the now obligatory trigger-warnings).  The writers take a few youthful liberties with conventions of formal English but that lends the publication an accessible, conversational tone.