Batwing

Batwing (pronounced bat-wing)

(1) In zoology, the wing of a bat (and, informally, related creatures).

(2) In entomology, several South or Southeast Asian species of tailless dark swallowtail butterflies in the genus Atrophaneura.

(3) An object or design formed or shaped in a way resembling the extended wing of a bat.

(4) In architecture, as “batwing doors”, pairs of swinging doors which typically do not lock nor cover the full vertical range of the doorway (leaving a large gap at the top and bottom), common as entrances to commercial kitchens and in bars.  It was the US industry in the mid-1950s which adopted “batwing doors” to replace “saloon doors” because there was some “middle class resistance” to the association with such establishments; it was a in time which rising prosperity had made mass market interior decorating a thing, hence the re-branding.

(5) In fashion, a garment or part of a garment resembling or conceived of as resembling the wing of a bat, applied usually to a loose, long sleeve (some flaring out, some with a tight wrist and known also as the “magyar sleeve”) but also to hem-lines.

(6) In hairdressing, a variation of the pigtail (in which the tied hair extends from the scalp at close to 90^o before cascading) in which the tied hair extends from the scalp upwards at an acute angle before cascading.  Batwings can be single ties but more typically appear symmetrically to the sides, in emulation of the wings of a bat.

(6) In physical training, an exercise routine or posture on the stomach wherein a dumbbell row or lateral raise is performed.

(7) In slang, an area of flabby fat under a person's arms (known in some places as “tuck shop lady’s arms).

(8) In automotive design, a type of rear fin which extended laterally rather than upwards.

1955–1960: The construct was bat + wing.  Bat (in the sense of the small flying mammal) dates from the late 1570s and is thought to be from a Scandinavian source, possibly the dialectal Swedish natt-batta, a variant of the Old Swedish natt-bakka (night-bat).  It replaced the Middle English bake & bak, from balke & blake, also from a Scandinavian source.  The related Nordic forms included the dialectal Swedish natt-blacka and the Old Icelandic ledhr-blaka (bat), the construct being ledhr (skin, leather) + blaka (flutter) and understood in the vernacular as “leather flapper”, the sense something like the later Old Danish nathbakkæ (literally “night-flapper”).  The earlier use (to describe a club, staff etc) dated from the turn of the thirteenth century and was from the Middle English noun bat, bot & batte, from the Old English batt which may have been from Celtic (the Irish & Scots Gaelic bat & bata meant “staff, cudgel”.  The Middle English verb batten, came partly from the noun, influenced by the Old French batre (batter).  Wing dates from the mid-twelfth century and was from the Middle English plural nouns winge & wenge, from the Old Danish wingæ (the other Nordic forms including the Norwegian & Swedish vinge and the Old Norse vǣngr (wing of a flying animal, wing of a building)).  In the Old Norse, the architectural sense of “a building’s wing” extended to nautical use, a vængi a “ship's cabin”.  The Nordic forms came from the Proto-Germanic wēingijaz, from the primitive Indo-European hweh- (to blow (hence the connection with “flapping” & “wind”).  The cognates included the Danish vinge (wing), the Swedish vinge (wing) and the Icelandic vængur (wing).  In English, “wing” came to replace the Middle English fither, from the Old English fiþre, from the Proto-Germanic fiþriją), which merged with the Middle English fether (from Old English feþer, from Proto-Germanic feþrō).  The spellings bat wing & bat-wing are also used.  Batwing is a noun and adjective, batwinged & batwingish are adjectives; the noun plural is batwings.

Gothic Batwing Sleeved Mermaid Long Dress by Punk Design (left) and Gothic Black A-Line wedding dress with leg Slit, batwing sleeves and bat hem by Wulgaria Couture (right).  Goths like batwings (usually in black with the odd splash of purple), the flowing sleeves often paired with leather or the more accommodating “wet latex look”.  Wulgaria Couture describe the A-Line style as a “wedding dress in gothic black” but it’s available also in a blood red for those non-Goths who like the batwing aesthetic.

Alfa Romeo BAT 5 (1953, left), BAT 7 (1954, centre) and BAT 9 (1955, right), designed by Franco Scaglione (1916–1993).

The Alfa Romeo BAT (Berlina Aerodinamica Tecnica, best translated as “exploration of aerodynamic principles in cars”) concept cars were among the most stylistically adventurous (and aerodynamically successful) of the transatlantic movement in the 1950s which focused on applying the lessons learned from progress in aeronautics during World War II (1939-1945).  The tail fin had been seen as early as the 1920s and their role in enhancing straight-line stability was imported directly from aircraft design but on the road they’d tended to be single, upright structures, best remembered from the use in the pre-war Czechoslovakian Tatras, intriguing things which, configured with a rear-mounted V8 engine, at speed needed a “stabilizing fin” more than most.  However, it was in the 1950s, when such publicity was afforded to jet aircraft, rockets & missiles, that designers took a renewed interest in fins & wings.  In the US, they quickly became extravagances, divorced from any functional relationship to fluid dynamics much beyond the merely coincidental but for Europeans, for whom fuel was more expensive and incomes lower, it was understood aerodynamics alone could improve both a vehicle’s economy and its performance.

Batwings: A grey-headed flying fox.

The performance of the trio was, by contemporary standards, remarkable, all able to attain in excess of 200 km/h (125 mph), despite being powered by a relatively small 1.9 litre (115 cubic inch) engine, albeit one fitted with double overhead camshafts (DOHC).  The wings (the BAT acronym for the cars was opportunistic) were just one part on a design which in all aspects was intended to optimize air-flow and although even at the time there were cars with smaller frontal areas, the BATs gained much of their advantage from the lowering of the front coachwork and the drag coefficient (CD) of the three ranged from 0.19-0.23, impressive even today.  It’s on BAT 7 that the batwing motif is most pronounced, the wings extending as a single structure from the base of the A-pillar, at the rear tilting and sweeping in an arc towards the centre-line.  When the metalworkers in the coach-building house first saw the design, their reaction was something like that of the structural engineers on first viewing the “sails” on the blueprints of Jørn Utzon’s (1918–2008) Sydney Opera House but they rose to the occasion.  The design would never have been suitable for mass-production; the famous fins on the US cars of the era were not only simpler structures but also designed in a way which accommodated the relatively “lose” manufacturing tolerances which permitted them being built quickly and at scale.  Perhaps tellingly, BAT 9 appeared with appendages less batwing-like and more attuned to the way Detroit was doing things.

It's the batwings which made BAT 7 the most memorable of the three and in 2008, Carrozzeria Bertone (builders of the original trio) built the Alfa Romeo BAT 11dk prototype, a conceptual rendering in clay, Styrofoam & filler, designed to use the underpinnings of the Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione.  Commissioned by a former owner of BAT 7, the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) scuttled its appearance at the Geneva Motors Show and certainly any prospect of a small production run or even a one-off creation.

Misty was a weekly British comic magazine for girls which, unusually, was found also to enjoy a significant male readership.  Published UK house Fleetway, it existed only between 1978-1980 although Misty Annual appeared until 1986.  The cover always featured the eponymous, raven haired beauty.  Befitting its theme, bats often featured in the artwork.

Lindsay Lohan in Anger Management (2013) demonstrates the batwing (left), defined by the tied hair extending upwards from the scalp before cascading, as distinct from the “pig tail” (centre) which extends from the scalp at close to 90^o before cascading.  Batwings can be single ties (centred or asymmetric) but more typically appear symmetrically to the sides, in emulation of the wings of a bat.  There are also batwing hair clips (right), also called “batwing hair claws” which is more evocative.

Chevrolet Bel Air: 1957 (left), 1958 (centre) and 1959 (right).

The 1959-1960 Chevrolets quickly picked up the nickname “batwing” and richly it was deserved; there was nothing like them at the time and there’s been nothing since.  The 1959 range actually had a strange and rushed gestation.  The fins on the 1955-1956-1957 cars (the so-called “tri-five Chevies”) had grown upwards in the fashion of the time but the corporation decided something different was needed and for 1958 chose baroque, the embryonic batwings obvious now but it was only when the next year’s model was released they would be understood thus.  The reason the General Motors (GM) 1958 body shape would last only one season was that at time it suffered by comparison with the sleek Chryslers; it was thought frumpy and even bloated and that it was released into that year’s short but sharp recession, didn’t help. The re-design for 1959 had its flaws (many of which (including toning down the batwings) were fixed for 1960) but it could never have been called “frumpy” and the “cats eye” taillights are admired even today.  Still the market didn’t respond as GM would have liked and the batwings soon flew off; by 1963 the Chevrolet was so blandly inoffensive it was being described as “a little bit like every car ever built”.  It proved a great success.

1960 Chevrolet "bubbletop" Impala Sport Coupe (left) and 1963 Ford Consul Capri (right).  On the 1960 Chevrolets, the memorable “cats eye” taillights were replaced by round units, three aside for the top-of-the-line Impala, two for the less expensive Bel Air & Biscayne.

For 1960, Chevrolet made the batwings a little less “batwingish” and the idea travelled across the Atlantic, Ford in the UK applying the scaled-down motif to their Ford Consul Classic (1961-1963) and Consul Capri (1961-1964), the latter a two-door coupé which the company wanted to be thought of as a “co-respondent's car” (ie the sort of rakish design which would appeal to the sort of chap who slept with other men’s wives, later to be named as the “co-respondent” in divorce proceedings).  Whether or not the “batwingettes” played a part isn’t known but neither the Classic nor the Capri were successful.

Heckblende

Heckblende (pronounced hek-blend or hek-blend-ah (German)

A moulded piece of reflective plastic permanently mounted between a car’s tail lamp (or tail light) assemblies and designed to make them appear a contiguous entity

1980s: A German compound noun, the construct being Heck (rear; back) + Blende (cover).  As a surname, Heck (most common in southern Germany and the Rhineland) came from the Middle High German hecke or hegge (hedge), the origin probably as a topographic name for someone who lived near a hedge.  The link with hedges as a means of dividing properties led in the Middle Low German to heck meaning “wooden fencing” under the influence of the Old Saxon hekki, from the Proto-West Germanic hakkju.  In nautical slang "heck" came to refer to the “back of a ship” because the position of the helmsman in the stern was enclosed by such a fence and from here it evolved in modern German generally to refer to "back or rear".  The Modern German Blende was from blenden (deceive), from the Middle High German blenden, from the Old High German blenten, from the Proto-Germanic blandijaną, from the primitive Indo-European blend- and was cognate with the Dutch blenden and the Old English blendan.  Because all German nouns are capitalized, Heckblende is correct but in English, heckblende is the usual spelling.

The German blende translates as “cover” so the construct Heck + Blende (one of their shorter compounds) happily deconstructs as “back cover” and that obviously describes the plastic mouldings used to cover the space between a car’s left and right-side tail lamps.  Blenden however can (as a transitive or intransitive) translate as (1) “to dazzle; to blind” in the sense of confuse someone’s sight by means of excessive brightness”, (2) (figuratively and usually as an intransitive) to show off; to pose (try to make an impression on someone by behaving affectedly or overstating one’s achievements) and (3) “to dazzle” in the sense of deception (from the 1680s German Blende (an ore of zinc and other metals, a back-formation from blenden (in the sense of "to blind, to deceive") and so called because the substance resembles lead but yields none (but should not be confused with the English construct hornblende (using the English “blende” in the sense of “mix”) (a dark-green to black mineral of the amphibole group, calcium magnesium iron and hydroxyl aluminosilicate)).

A heckblende thus (1) literally is a cover and (2) is there to deceive a viewer by purporting to be part of the rear lighting rather than something merely decorative (sic).  If a similar looking assembly is illuminated and thus part of the lighting system, then it's not a heckblende but part of a full-width tail lamp. 

1934 Auburn Boat-tail Speedster.

On cars, the design of tail lamps stated modestly enough and few were in use before 1914, often a small, oil-lit single lens the only fitting.  Electric lamps were standardized by the 1920s and early legislation passed in many jurisdictions specified the need for red illumination to the rear (later also to indicate braking) but about the only detail specified was a minimum luminosity; shape, size and placement was left to manufacturers.  Before the late 1940s, most early tail laps were purely functional with little attempt to make them design motifs although during the art deco era, there were some notably elegant flourishes but despite that, they remained generally an afterthought and on lower priced models, a second tail lamp was sometimes optional, the standard of a left and right-side unit not universal until the 1950s.

A tale of the tails of two economies:  1959 MGA Twin-Cam FHC & 1959 Daimler Majestic (upper) and 1959 Chevrolet Impala (batwing) flattop & 1959 DeSoto Adventurer convertible (lower).

It was in the 1950s the shape of tail lamps became increasingly stylized.  With modern plastics freeing designers from the constraints the use of glass had imposed and the experience gained during the Second World War in the mass-production of molded Perspex, new possibilities were explored.  In the UK and Europe, there was little extravagance, manufacturers content usually to take advantage of new materials and techniques mostly to fashion what were little more than larger, more rounded versions of what had gone before, the amber lens being adopted as turn indicators to replace the mechanically operated semaphore signals often little more than a duplication of the red lamp or an unimaginatively-added appendage.

1961 Chrysler Turboflite show car.

Across the Atlantic, US designers were more ambitious but one idea which seems not to have been pursued was the full-width tail lamp and that must have been by choice because it would have presented no challenges in engineering.  Instead, as the jet age became the space age, the dominant themes were aeronautical or recalled the mechanism of rocketry, tail lamps styled to resemble the exhausts of jet-engines or space ships, the inspiration as often from SF (science fiction) as the runway.  Pursuing that theme, much of the industry succumbed to the famous fin fetish, the tails of their macropterous creations emphasizing the vertical more than the horizontal.  Surprisingly though, despite having produced literally dozens of one-off “concept” and “dream” cars over the decade, it seems it wasn’t until 1961 when Chrysler sent their Turboflite around the show circuit that something with a genuine full-width tail lamp was shown.

1936 Tatra T87 (left), 1961 Tatra T603A prototype (centre) & 1963 Tatra T-603-X5 (right).

That same year, in Czechoslovakia, the Warsaw Pact’s improbable Bohemian home of the avant garde, Tatra’s engineers considered full-width tail lamps for their revised 603A.  As indicated by the specification used since before the war (rear-engined with an air-cooled, 2.5 litre (155 cubic inch) all-aluminum V8), Tatra paid little attention to overseas trends and were influenced more by dynamometers and wind tunnels.  However, the tail lamps didn’t make it to volume production although the 603A prototype did survive to be displayed in Tatra’s Prague museum.  Tatra’s designs, monuments to mid-century modernism, remain intriguing.

1967 Imperial LeBaron four door Hardtop.

If the idea didn’t impress behind the iron curtain, it certainly caught on in the West, full-width assemblies were used by many US manufacturers over the decades including Mercury, Imperial, Dodge, Shelby, Ford, Chrysler & Lincoln.  Some genuinely were full-width lamps in that the entire panel was illumined, a few from the Ford corporation even with the novelty of sequential turn-signals (outlawed in the early 1970s, bureaucrats seemingly always on the search for something to ban).  Most however were what would come to be called heckblendes, intended only to create an illusion.

Clockwise from top left: 1974 ZG Fairlane (AU), 1977 Thunderbird (US), 1966 Zodiac Mark IV (UK), 1970 Thunderbird (US), 1973 Landau (AU) & 1970 Torino (US).

Whether heckblendes or actually wired assemblies, Ford became especially fond of the idea which in 1966 made an Atlantic crossing, appearing on the Mark IV Zodiac, a car packed with advanced ideas but so badly executed it tarnished the name and when it (and the lower-priced Zephyr which made do without the heckblende) was replaced, the Zephyr & Zodiac names were banished from Europe, never to return.  Ford’s southern hemisphere colonial outpost picked-up the style (and typically several years later), Ford Australia using heckblendes on the ZF & ZG Fairlanes (1972-1976) and the P5 LTD & Landau (1973-1976).  The Fairlane’s heckblendes weren’t reprised when the restyled ZH (1976-1979) model was released but, presumably having spent so much of the budget on new tail lamps, the problem of needing a new front end was solved simply by adapting that of the 1968 Mercury Marquis (the name shamelessly borrowed too), colonies often run with hand-me-downs.

1968 HK Holdens left to right: Belmont, Kingswood, Premier & Monaro GTS.  By their heckblende (or its absence), they shall be known.

In Australia, the local subsidiary of General Motors (GM) applied a double fake.  The "heckblende" on the HK Monaro GTS (1968-1969), as a piece of cost-cutting, was actually red-painted metal rather than reflective plastic and unfortunately prone to deterioration under the harsh southern sun; it was a fake version of a fake tail lamp.  Cleverly though, the fake apparatus was used as an indicator of one's place in the hierarchy, the basic Belmont with just tail lamps, the (slightly) better-appointed Kingswood with extensions, the up-market Premier with extended extensions and the Monaro GTS with the full-width part.  Probably the Belmont and Premier were ascetically most successful.  Exactly the same idea was recycled for the VH Commodore (1981-1984), the SL/E (effectively the Premier's replacement) model's tail lamp assemblies gaining stubby extensions.

Left to right, 1967 HR Premier, 1969 HT Brougham & 1971 HQ Premier.  

The idea of a full-width decorative panel wasn’t new, Holden having used such a fitting on earlier Premiers.  Known as the “boot appliqué strip”, it began small on the EJ (1962-1963), EH (1963-1965) & HD (1965-1966) before becoming large and garish on the HR (1966-1968) but (although not then known as bling), that must have been thought a bit much because it was toned down and halved in height when applied to the elongated and tarted-up Brougham (1968-1971 and intended to appeal to the bourgeoisie) and barely perceptible when used on the HQ Premier (1971-1974).  Holden didn’t however forget the heckblende and a quite large slab appeared on the VT Commodore (1997-2000) although it wasn’t retained on the revised VX (2000-2002) but whether in this the substantial rise in the oil price (and thus the cost of plastic) was a factor isn’t known.

Left to right: 1973 Porsche 914 2.0, 1983 BMW 323i (E30) & 1988 Mercedes-Benz 300E (W124).

Although, beginning with the 914 in 1973, Porsche was an early European adopter of the heckblende and has used it frequently since, it was the 1980s which were the halcyon days of after-market plastic, owners of smaller BMWs and Mercedes-Benz seemingly the most easily tempted.  The additions were always unnecessary and the only useful way they can be catalogued is to say some were worse than others.  The fad predictably spread to the east (near, middle & far) and results there were just as ghastly although the popularity of the things must have been helpful as a form of economic stimulus, such was the volume in which the things were churned out.  Among males aged 17-39, few things have proved as enduringly infectious as a love of gluing or bolting to cars, pieces of plastic which convey their owner's appalling taste. 

2019 Mercedes-Benz EQC 400 with taillight bar.

Fewer manufacturers now use heckblendes as original equipment and when they did the terminology varied, nomenclature including "decor panels", "valances" or "tail section appliqués".  However, although the heckblende may (hopefully) be headed for extinction, full-width tail lamps still entice stylists and modern techniques of design and production, combined with what LEDs & OLEDs have made possible, mean it’s again a popular feature, the preferred term now “taillight bar”.

Gild

Gild (pronounced gild)

(1) To coat with gold, gold leaf, or a gold-colored substance.

(2) To render something with a bright, pleasing, or specious aspect; having the color or appearance of gold.

(3) Smear with blood; to make red, as with blood (archaic except in historic reference).

(4) To adorn in some way.

(5) In cooking, to render some surface with a golden appearance.

(6) To make appear drunk (now rare).

1300–1350: From the Middle English gilden & gulden (to gild, to cover with a thin layer of gold), from the Old English gyldan (akin to gold) and related to the Old Norse gylla (to gild), the Old High German ubergulden (to cover with gold) (the verb from gultham (gold)) and the Middle High German vergülden, from the Proto-West Germanic gulþijan, from the Proto-Germanic gulþijaną, from gulþą (gold).  In historic UK use, the noun gildsman was an alternative spelling of guildsman (a man who is a member of a guild).   Gild is a noun & verb, gilding is a verb & adjective, gilded is a verb, begild is a verb & adjective and begilded & gildable is an adjective.

1967 Cadillac Eldorado.

The figurative use of gild apparently began in the late sixteenth century.  The noun gilding (golden surface produced by gilding (the verb)" was from the mid fifteenth century, the verb pre-dating the form by some two decades.  The adjective gilded emerged 1400 as the past participle of the Middle English gilden and by the early fifteenth century was used also as a noun with the sense of "gilding".  The noun eldorado entered English in the 1590s from the Spanish El Dorado (the golden one ( the name given in the sixteenth century to the country or city laden with gold believed to lie in the heart of the Amazon jungle)); it was derived from the past participle of dorar (to gild), from Latin deaurare (to gild, to gild over), the construct being de- (probably used here as an intensifier) + aurare (to gild), from aurum (gold).  The legend began with the tales of early Spanish explorers and, regarding gold, there would once have been some truth in the story but, in the way of such things, there was embellishment (gilding the story as it were) until Eldorado was thought a city where the “streets were paved with gold” and for two centuries this drew explorers and adventurers.

Cartoon with a modern feeling: Chicago Labor Newspaper's (1894) critique of the policies of the Pullman railroad company.

The terms “gilded age” and “golden age” are sometimes confused, the former coined by Mark Twain (1835-1910) and Charles Dudley Warner (1829-1900) as the title of their 1873 novel.  The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today was a novel which satirized greed and political corruption in post-Civil War America and it lent the name to the period of US history (circa 1870-circa 1900) immediately prior to the era of progressivism and reform when something was done about political corruption and economic exploitation by the trusts (rail, steel etc).  A gilded age is thus suggestive of a time in which things seem superficially attractive and there is prosperity but the activity conceals the squalor and ugliness beneath.  Whenever there are periods of great social and economic inequality such as that which has evolved in the West over the last four-odd decades (trickle-down economics and its better disguised successors) with aggregated wealth high but disproportionately held by a tiny minority, the term gilded age is often suggested as a descriptor: Gilded age 2.0 in the fashionably modern parlance).  A golden age differs in that it’s associated with a period of peace, prosperity and progress, often expressed by historians in phrases such as the “golden age of the Gupta dynasty” which referred to the Gupta Empire in India which existed between the fourth and sixth centuries.

Gilding the lily: 1959 Chevrolet Impala convertible with after-market accessories (1) rear fender skirts (spats) and (2) “Continental” spare tyre kit.  The “Continental” alluded to was the Ford Motor Company’s original Lincoln Continental (1940–1942 & 1946–1948), first seen in 1939 in the one-off vehicle commissioned for his personal use by Edsel Ford (1893–1943; president of the Ford Motor Company (FoMoCo) 1919–1943).  The Continentals included both features but use of skirts was common whereas the externally mounted spare type housing had become unusual and it became for decades a signature motif of Lincolns and much beloved for just as long by the after-market industry, “Continental kits” appears of some most improbable cars. 

To refer to the 1959 Chevrolet as a “lily” is a bit of a stretch although the “batwing” rear fins (General Motors (GM) at the time preferred “seagull wings”) and the “cat’s eyes” tail-lamps remain memorable.  The 1959 GM bodies were actually a rush job because the 1958 range was thought staid, bloated and old fashioned compared with the sleek lines of the lines Chrysler had for 1957 ushered in with the slogan “Suddenly it’s 1960s”.  Accordingly (and uniquely), GM’s 1958 bodies were a one-off.  However, whatever one’s opinion of the 1959 Chevrolet, most seem to agree that adding the “Continental” spare-wheel kit and the fender skirts over the rear wheels is gilding the lily but a remarkable number appear in the auction houses so outfitted and almost all the additions are modern re-productions rather than those purchased when the cars were new, or at least young and the photographic record of the era does appear to confirm these accessories were, in period, rare indeed.  It’s thus gilding the lily and an example of the way perceptions of the past can be shaped.

The phrase “gilding the lily” is used to describe the act of adding unnecessary adornment to something already beautiful, the implication being the embellishments are beyond superfluous to the point of detracting from the perfection.  So it's used to mean "unnecessarily to adorn something already beautiful, either in poor taste (a modern expression of which is “bling”) or in an attempt to make something appear more valuable (it has also been used (though less satisfactorily) to mean “inordinately to praise someone”).  It’s of Shakespearian origin although the exact text-string “gilding the lily” appears nowhere in his works, the modern idiom a mis-quote and Lord Salisbury's words were:

Therefore, to be possess'd with double pomp,
To guard a title that was rich before,
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.

King John (circa 1594), Act IV, Scene 2 by William Shakespeare (1564–1616).

The phrase “gilded cell” seems first to have been used in the early 1980s in the US to describe the unusually pleasant conditions (compared with mainstream jails) often afforded to celebrities or the rich who have been sentenced to a form of confinement for some offence.  In use, “gilded cell” is applied to those serving sentences “in the community” rather than a jail, often when fitted with that latter-day status symbol, the “ankle bracelet” monitor.  In the US, the companion phrase used of those put in federal government jails less unpleasant than most is the usually derisive “Cub Fed” a play on the brand “Club Med”, a well-known chain of all-inclusive beach resorts.  Although the conditions in “Club Fed” institutions are more lenient, that really is a relative measure and these remain minimum-security prisons (technically usually styled Federal Prison Camps (FPC) and nothing like a luxury resort; while these prisons do have dormitory housing, minimal perimeter security, and a lower staff-to-inmate ratio, they still enforce strict routines and restrictions, along with recreational and educational programs.  Despite the public perception, the the inmate population at Club Fed is said to be quite diverse.

In idiomatic use, the use as “gilded cage” refers to a place (and, by extension, a situation) which is superficially attractive but nevertheless restrictive (a luxurious trap) and appears to have been coined by the writers of the popular song A Bird in a Gilded Cage (1900).  In the slang of apothecaries, there was also “gild the pill”, the history of which is murky but it’s said to refer to the ancient practice of coating bitter tasting pills with a thin layer of metal, the modern version of the phrase being “sugarcoat the pill”.  The phrase “gilded cage” refers to a situation where someone is in a luxurious or privileged environment but feels trapped or restricted, the image being an elaborate golden cage which is exquisitely made but a cage none the less.  Those said to live in gilded cages include (1) celebrities who may enjoy lavish surroundings and many luxuries but exist under the “media spotlight” and lack privacy, (2) those in unhappy marriages with someone rich; while they may have all the material comforts this brings, the relationship may be loveless, sexless and constrained by expectations and limitations imposed by a spouse, (3) those in high paid jobs which they don’t enjoy (or may hate); it may be the long hours, stress or travel but it’s also often the case that expectation of lifestyle (and thus expenses) rise to meet income, thus trapping them in the job, (4) members of royal families who are restricted in what they can say, do or wear and (5) politicians, who may disagree with party platform or a decision of cabinet but are compelled to “toe the line”.  The point about the idiomatic “gilded cage” is that at any time, one can escape the confines but to do so means to sacrifice much; it’s all a question of what one wants from life.

Blackwing

Blackwing (pronounced blak-wing)

(1) In zoology (mostly ornithology, entomology & ichthyology), a widely used descriptor of birds, insects, certain water-dwellers and the odd bat.

(2) As Blackwing 602, a pencil with a cult following, manufactured by the Eberhard Faber between 1934-1988, by Faber-Castell 1988 to 1994 and by Sanford 1994-1998.  A visually (though not technically) similar pencil has since 2012 been produced by Palomino.

(3) A high-performance V8 engine manufactured by the Cadillac division of General Motors (GM) between 2018-2020.  Cadillac continues to use Blackwing name for the some of its sedans.

1100s (originally of birds, first informally, later in formal taxonomy): The construct was black + wing.  Black (In the sense of the “color”) was from the Middle English blak, black & blake, from the Old English blæc (black, dark (also "ink”)), from the Proto-West Germanic blak, from the Proto-Germanic blakaz (burnt (and related to the Dutch blaken (to burn)), from the Low German blak & black (blackness, black paint, (black) ink), from the Old High German blah (black), which may be from the primitive Indo-European bhleg- (to burn, shine).  The forms may be compared with the Latin flagrāre (to burn), the Ancient Greek φλόξ (phlóx) (flame) and Sanskrit भर्ग (bharga) (radiance).  Black in this context was “a color” lacking hue and brightness, one which absorbs light without reflecting any of the rays composing it.  In the narrow technical sense, black is an absolute (absorbing light without reflecting any of the rays composing it) but in general use, as a descriptor or color, expressions of graduation or tincture are used, thus the comparative is blacker and the superlative blackest.  The usual synonyms are ebony, sable, inky, sooty, dusky & dark while the antonym is white.  Wing (in the sense used in “flight”) was from the twelfth century Middle English winge & wenge, from the Old Norse vængr (wing of a flying animal, wing of a building), from the Proto-Germanic wēingijaz, from the primitive Indo-European hweh- (to blow (thus the link with “wind”)).  It was cognate with the Old Danish wingæ (wing), the Norwegian & Swedish vinge (wing), the Old Norse vǣngr and the Icelandic vængur (wing).  It replaced the native Middle English fither, from the Old English fiþre, from the Proto-Germanic fiþriją (which merged with the Middle English fether (from the Old English feþer, from the Proto-Germanic feþrō)).  The original use was of birds but this quickly extended to things where a left-right distinction was useful such as architecture, sport and military formations (later extended to organizational structures in air forces).  Blackwing is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is blackwings.  In commercial use, as a registered trademark, an initial capital is used.

Quite why Cadillac (the premium brand of General Motors (GM) since 1909) chose the seemingly improbable “Blackwing” as a name for an engine and later the premium, high-performance versions (the V-Series) of its sedans (a now rare body-style in North America) is said to date to the very origin of the brand, more than a century earlier.  It was to recall the stylized black birds which appeared on the corporate crest first in 1902 (although not widely used until 2005 and trademarked in 1906).  That escutcheon was adopted as a tribute to the French explorer (some are less generous in their descriptions) Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac (1658-1730) who in 1701 founded the settlement which became the city of Detroit.

Evolution of the Cadillac Crest: Antoine Laumet's original (and dubious) family crest (top left), A early Cadillac from 1905 (top centre), from a 1960 Coupe DeVille (top right), with the restored laurel wreath on the unfortunate vinyl roof of a 1968's Eldorado (bottom left), a post 2014 version without couronne & merelettes (bottom centre) and the current versions (bottom right), the black & white edition an illuminated badge created to mark the transition to electric propulsion; it's currently available as an option on petrol vehicles.  The illuminated grill badge was a trick long used by the English manufacturer Wolseley (1901-1975). 

Although of bourgeois origin and having departed France surreptitiously after “some unpleasantness”, shortly after arriving in the new world, Antoine Laumet re-invented himself, adopting a title of nobility named after the town of Cadillac in south-west France and in some histories, it wasn’t unusual for him to claim some vague descent from the royal line, a story common among many of Europe’s aristocratic families and his “family crest” was wholly his own invention.  Such things were possible then.  The Cadillac company modified the crest but retained the most distinctive elements: (1) The couronne (crown (from the Old French corone, from the Latin corōna, from the Ancient Greek κορώνη (korṓnē)) symbolized the six ancient courts of France; (2) The pearls (which appeared in various numbers on both the family & corporate versions) signified a family descended from the royal counts of Toulouse; (3) The shield denoted the military traditions of a noble family, the “warrior symbol” one of the most commonly used in heraldry while (4) The black birds were known as merlettes (an adaptation of the martin), mythical small birds without beaks or feet and never touching the ground, always in flight; they represent a constant striving for excellence, and when presented as a trio, referenced the Holy Trinity and thus a family’s adherence to Christianity.  The merelettes appeared often on the standards flown by knights during the late Medieval Christian Crusades staged to recapture the Holy Land but they didn’t disappear from the Cadillac crest in deference to sensibilities in the Middle East (a market of increasing value to GM).  Like the crown, the black birds were removed in 2000 as a part of a modernization exercise, the aim to achieve something “sharper and sleeker”, the more angular look of the new “Art and Science” philosophy of design.  “Art and Science” was from the class of slogans campaign directors of corporations and political parties adore because they mean nothing in particular while sounding like they must mean something.

A Cadillac Escalade driven by Lindsay Lohan receiving a parking infringement notice (US$70) for obstructing access to a fire hydrant, Los Angeles, September 2011.  The crest’s laurel wreath would remain until 2014 but the merelettes had been removed a decade earlier.

Prestige by association: the badge of the 1971 HQ Holden Statesman de Ville.

Cadillac over the years made may detail changes to the corporate crest and structurally, the most significant addition came in 1963 when an almost enclosing laurel wreath returned (it had been there in 1902 but was gone by 1908, returning for a run between 1916-1925) and it proved the most enduring design thus far, maintained until 2014.  It clearly had some cross-cultural appeal because in 1971 Holden (GM’s now defunct Australian outpost) made a point of issuing a press release informing the country “special permission” had been received from Detroit for them to borrow the wreath to surround the Holden crest on their new HQ Statesman de Ville, a car so special that nowhere on the thing did the word “Holden” appear, the same marketing trick Toyota would three decades on apply to the Lexus.  What has remained constant throughout are the core colors and, according to Cadillac, black against gold symbolizes riches and wisdom; red means boldness and prowess in action; silver denotes purity, virtue, plenty and charity while blue stand for knightly valor.  Behind the and crest, the background is platinum (a high-value metal) and the whole combination is said to have been influenced by Piet Mondrian (1872–1944), a Dutch artist noted for his work with color and geometric shapes.

The elegant black-winged Damselfly, one of dozens of insects, birds, aquatic creatures and the odd bat known as the “black-winged” something.  One of some 150 species of Calopterygidae, the taxonomic name is Calopteryx maculata and the stylish little mosquito muncher is commonly found in North America, its other common name the ebony jewelwing.

Cadillac Blackwing V8.  It was a genuinely impressive piece of engineering but according to Road & Track magazine, Cadillac booked a US$16 million dollar loss against the project.    

Cadillac’s all aluminium Blackwing V8 was designed with an AMG-like specification which would once have seemed exotic to Cadillac owners.  Built in a single basic configuration, it featured a displacement of 4.2 litres (256 cubic inches), double overhead camshafts (DOHC), four valves per cylinder, cross-bolted main bearings and twin, intercooled turbochargers mounted in a “hot-V” arrangement (atop the block, between the cylinder banks) a layout which delivers improved responsiveness but, as BMW found, can bring its own problems.  Intended always to be exclusive to Cadillac’s lines (recalling GM’s divisional structure in happier times) it was in production less than two years because the collapse in demand for the models for which it was intended doomed its future; it was too expensive to produce to be used in other cars.  The early indications had however been hopeful, the initial run of 275 over-subscribed, a slightly detuned version accordingly rushed into production to meet demand.  In 2020, the Blackwood V8 was cancelled.

2025 Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing.

Repurposed, Blackwing however lives on at Cadillac, the company in 2021 appending applying the name to exclusive variants of its CT range sedans.  The CT5-V Blackwing is the last survivor of what once was a well-inhabited niche and although clearly an anachronism, demand still exists and although Cadillac has admitted this will be their last V8-powered sedan, in announcing the 2025 range they’ve made it clear the last days will be memorable.  In a nod to history, the company chose Le Mans in France to reveal details of the 2025 V-Series Blackwing “Special Editions”, honoring the “Le Monstre” and “Petit Pataud” Cadillacs which contested the 1950 24 hour endurance classic.  Each of those was a one-off (one especially so) but in 2025 there will be 101 copies of the Blackwing Le Monstre and 50 of the Petit Patauds.  The two are visually similar, the exteriors finished in Magnus Metal Frost matte paint, accented by Stormhawk Blue Carbon Fiber and Royal Blue brake callipers, the blue theme extened to the interior fittings.  Mechanically, the two are essentially stock, the Petit Pataud based on the CT4-V Blackwing powered by a twin-turbo 3.6 liter (223 cubic inch) V6 while the more alluring Le Monstre includes a supercharged 6.2-liter (376 cubic inch) V8.  For those who care about such things, although Mercedes-Benz AMG once offered rear-wheel-drive (RWD) 6.2 litre V8s, the Batwing offers the chance to enjoy the experience with a manual gearbox, something the Germans never did.  The Blackwings are also much cheaper and have about them an appealing brutishness, a quality Stuttgart’s engineers felt compelled to gloss a little.

2025 Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing.  Compared with some of the atmospheric interiors in the Cadillacs of old, the Blackwing is disappointingly close to what one finds in a Chevrolet but for a number of reasons, creating something which is both attractive and lawful is not as easy as once it was.  For many, the sight of the stick-shift and a clutch pedal means all is forgiven.

In something which would for most of the second half of the twentieth century have seemed improbable or unthinkable, it’s now possible to buy a Cadillac with a manual gearbox and a clutch pedal but not a Ferrari so configured.  Ferrari by 1976 had begun to flirt with automatic transmissions in their road cars (GM’s famously robust Turbo-Hydramatic 400) but until 2004, Cadillac hadn’t needed clutch pedal assemblies on the assembly lines since the last 1953 Series 75 (among the Cadillac crowd the Cimarron (1982-1988) is never spoken of except in the phrase “the unpleasantness of 1982”).  However, by the early twenty-first century, the market for the cars Cadillac had perfected was shrinking fast so, noting the success of Mercedes-AMG and the M-Series BMWs, Cadillac entered the fray and the existence of the Chevrolet Corvette’s transmission in the corporate parts bin meant offering a manual gearbox was financially viable in a way it wasn’t for the Germans.  In the same decade, advances in hydraulics and electronics meant the earlier inefficiencies and technical disadvantages attached to automatic transmissions had been overcome to the point where no Ferrari with a manual transmission, however expertly driven, could match their performance and customers agreed, sales of manual cars dwindling until a swansong when the Ferrari California was released in 2008 with expectations some 5-10% of buyers would opt for a clutch pedal.  However between then and late 2011, a mere three were ordered (some sources say two or five but the factory insists it was three).  Ever since, for Maranello, it’s been automatics (technically “automated manual transmission”) all the way and that wasn’t anything dictatorial; had customer demand existed at a sustainable level, the factory would have continued to supply manual transmissions.  The rarity has however created collectables; on the rare occasions a rare manual version of a usually automatic Ferrari is offered at auction, it attracts attracts a premium and there's now an after-market converting Ferraris to open gate manuals.  It's said to cost up to US$40,000 depending on the model and, predictably, the most highly regarded are those converted using "verified factory parts".  The Cadillac Blackwing offers the nostalgic experience from the factory although the engineers admit there is a slight performance penalty, buyers choosing the manual purely for the pleasure of driving.

The quincunx induction system, the Cadillac Le Monstre and the 24 Heures du Mans, 1950

Living up to the name: The 1950 Cadillac Le Monstre.

The two Cadillacs which in 1950 raced at Le Mans were mechanically similar but visually, could have been from different planets.  The more conventional Petit Pataud was a Series 61 coupe with only minor modification and it gained its nickname (the translation “clumsy puppy” best captures the spirit) because to the French it looked a lumbering thing but, as its performance in the race would attest, Cadillac’s new 331 cubic inch (5.4 litre) V8 (which would grow to 429 cubic inches (7.0 litres) before it was retired in 1967) meant it was faster than it looked.  Underneath the second entrant (Le Monstre obviously needing no translation but used in the sense of “monstrosity” rather than “large”) there was also a Series 61 but the body had been replaced by something more obviously aerodynamic although few, then or now, would call it “conventionally attractive”.  Although Le Monstre seemed very much in the tradition of the “cucumber-shaped” Mercedes-Benz SSKL which had won the 1932 race at Berlin’s unique AVUS circuit, the lines were the result of testing a one twelfth (Uncia in the Latin) scale wooden model in a wind-tunnel used usually to optimize the shape crop dusters and other slow-flying airplanes.  Presumably that explains the resemblance to a section of an airplane’s wing (a shape designed to encourage lift), something which would have been an issue had higher speeds been attained but even on the long (6 km (3.7 mile)) Mulsanne Straight, there was in 1950 enough power only to achieve around 210 km/h (130) mph although as a drag-reduction exercise it must have contributed to the 22 km/h (13 mph) advantage it enjoyed over Petit Pataud, something Le Monstre’s additional horsepower alone could not have done and remarkably, even with the minimalist aluminium skin it wasn’t much lighter than the standard-bodied coupe because this was no monocoque; the robust Cadillac chassis was retained with a tube-frame added to support the panels and provide the necessary torsional stiffness.

Le Monstre's 331 cubic inch V8 with its unusual (and possibly unique) five-carburetor induction system.  The layout (one in each corner, one in the centre) is a "quincunx", from the Latin quīncunx.

Some of the additional horsepower came from the novel "quincunx" induction system.  Le Monstre’s V8 was configured with five carburettors, the idea being that by use of progressive throttle-linkages, when ultimate performance wasn’t required the car would run on a single (central) carburettor, the other four summoned on demand and in endurance racing, improved fuel economy can be more valuable than additional power.  That’s essentially how most four-barrel carburettors worked, two venturi usually providing the feed with all four opened only at full throttle and Detroit would later refine the model by applying “méthode Le Monstre” to the triple carburettor systems many used between 1957-1971.  As far as is known, the only time a manufacturer flirted with the idea of a five carburetor engine was Rover which in the early 1960s was experimenting with a 2.5 (153 cubic inch) litre in-line five cylinder which was an enlargement of their 2.0 litre (122 cubic inch) four.  Fuel-injection was the obvious solution but the systems then were prohibitively expensive (for the market segment Rover was targeting) so the prototypes ended up with two carburettors feeding three cylinders and one the other two, an arrangement as difficult to keep in tune as it sounds.  Rover’s purchase of the aluminium 3.5 litre (214 cubic inch) V8 abandoned by General Motors (GM) meant the project was terminated and whatever the cylinder count, mass-produced fuel injection later made any configuration possible.  Five carburettors wasn’t actually the highest count seen in the pre fuel-injection era, Ferrari and Lamborghini both using six (done also by motorcycle manufacturers such as Honda and Benelli) and Moto-Guzzi in the 1950s fielded a 500 cm³ Grand-Prix bike with the memorable component count of 8 cylinders, 4 camshafts, 16 valves & 8 carburetors.  The early prototypes of Daimler’s exquisite hemi-head V8s (1959-1969) were also built with eight carburettors because the original design was based on a motorcycle power-plant, the reason why they were planned originally as air-cooled units.

Le Monstre ahead of Petit Pataud, Le Mans, 1950.  At the fall of the checkered flag, the positions were reversed. 

Motor racing is an unpredictable business and, despite all the effort lavished on Le Monstre, in the 1950 Le Mans 24 hour, it was the less ambitious Petit Pataud which did better, finishing a creditable tenth, the much modified roadster coming eleventh having lost many laps while being dug from the sand after an unfortunate excursion from the track.  Still, the results proved the power and reliability of Cadillac’s V8 and Europe took note: over the next quarter century a whole ecosystem would emerge, crafting high-priced trans-Atlantic hybrids which combined elegant European coachwork with cheap, powerful, reliable US V8s, the lucrative fun lasting until the first oil crisis began in 1973.

Perfection in a pencil: The Eberhard Faber Blackwing 602.  They were not cylindrical so, like a "carpenter's pencil", were less prone to rolling onto the floor.  

The Blackwing 602 remains fondly remembered by those who admire the perfect simplicity of the pencil.  Produced in the shape of a square ferrule (both pleasant to hold in one’s hand and less susceptible to rolling off the desk), it used a soft, dark graphite blend which required less pressure (the manufacturer claimed half but it’s not clear if this was science or “mere puffery”) to put what was wanted on paper.  To casual users, this may not sound significant but for those for whom pencilling was a full-time task (notably writers and artists), the advantages were considerable and the advertising claim “Half the Pressure, Twice the Speed” must have convinced one target market because the Blackwing 602 was a favourite of stenographers (a profession one of the early victims of the technological changes which have emerged in the wake of the transistor & microprocessor).  The Blackwing 602 was manufactured by Eberhard Faber between 1934-1988, by Faber-Castell (1988-1994) and by Sanford (1994-1998).  In 2012, after buying rights to the name, Palomino being production of a visually similar Blackwing but they didn’t quite replicate the graphite’s recipe.  Original Blackwing 602s are now a collectable and in perfect condition are advertised between US$50-100 although there was one recent outlier sale which benefited from a celebrity provenance.

Pencil porn.

Doyle’s in New York on 18 June 2024 conducted an auction of some items from the estate of US composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim (1930–2021), attracting dealers, collectors & Sondheim devotees.  There was Lot 275: (Three blue boxes printed with "Eberhard Faber/Blackwing/Feathery-Smooth Pencils, two of the boxes complete with 12 pencils, one with 8 only (together 32 pencils).  Some wear to the boxes and drying of the erasers”, listed with a pre-sale estimate of US$600-800.  The hammer fell at US$6,400 against a pre-sale estimate of US$600-800.  That’s US$200.00 per pencil, indicating the value of a celebrity connection but whoever set the pre-sale estimate (US$18.75-25.00 per pencil) clearly didn’t check eBay.