Belvedere

Belvedere (pronounced bel-vi-deer or bel-ve-de-re (Italian))

(1) In architecture, a building, or an (often turret-like) feature of a building, designed and situated to look out upon a pleasing scene.

(2) A cigar, shorter and with thinner ends than a corona.

(3) A palace in Vatican City, Rome, now housing an art gallery.

(4) As Fort Belvedere (formerly Shrubs Hill Tower), a country house in Surrey, England, famously the site of the abdication of King Edward VIII in 1936.

(5) A widely used name for localities and structures.

Adopted in English in the sense of a “raised turret or open story atop a house” from the Italian belvedere (literally “a fair (ie beautiful) sight”), the construct being bel(lo) (beautiful), from the Latin bellus (beautiful, fair) + vidēre (to see; a view, sight), from the primitive Indo-European root weid- (to see).  The pronunciation is thought to have been influenced by the French form of the word.  The perhaps opportunistic but enduring noun gazebo is said by some to be a facetious formation, the construct being gaz(e) (from the Middle English gasen; akin to the Swedish dialectal gasa and Gothic usgasjan (to terrify) which English gained in the sense of "to stare intently or earnestly") + -ebo (the Latin first person singular future tense suffix, on the model of belvedere.  That’s an attractive etymology but the Oxford English Dictionary dismisses the theory, saying it’s a corruption of a word from the orient, possibly the Arabic قَصَبَة‎ (qaṣaba) (source of the familiar casbah).  Belvedere is a noun; the noun plural is belvederes.

In architecture, the word "tower" is used loosely but technically a tower should rise from ground-level to its conclusion whereas a turret begins part-way up a building, most commonly at a corner.  Historically a turret was something on a small scale (relative to the building on which it sat) and usually little more than ornamental (although for centuries many were part of the defensive system of a fort or castle, both as an observation and fire-point) while a belvedere's sole purpose should be to offer a commanding view of some pleasant vista.

Belvédère du Rayon Vert, Cerbère, France

Closed in 1983, the art deco Belvédère du Rayon Vert is a former hotel in Cerbère, France, built between 1928 and 1932.  What was known as “ocean liner” style was at the time popular in interior decorating but, taking advantage of the shape of the available land, the architect Léon Baille (1828-1932) extended the nautical idea to the whole building which follows the lines of a ship and borrowing further from the decks of ocean liners, a tennis court sat on the roof.  One of the nation’s protected historic monuments, some of the rooms have been restored as apartments and tours are conducted during the holiday season.

The Plymouth Belvedere

The use of the Belvedere name by the Chrysler’s corporation low-priced (and now defunct) Plymouth brand is illustrative of the practice of the US industry in the mid-late twentieth century to create a prestige model which gradually would be moved down the hierarchy as other names were introduced at the top of the range.  The Belvedere nameplate also shifted between market segments, moving from the full-sized to the intermediate platform as Detroit’s offerings began to proliferate as the public (sometimes an economic impreative) began to prefer smaller cars.

1951 Cranbrook (left), 1951 Cranbrook Belvedere (centre) and 1956 Belvedere (right).

Plymouth introduced the Belvedere name in 1951 for the new, two-door hardtop version of Cranbrook line, Plymouth’s first model with the style which would for a quarter-century be a signature of Detroit’s more expensive cars.  In 1954, the name ceased to be an option and the Belvedere supplanted the as Cranbrook as the top-of-the-range model, offered now in all available body-styles (sedans, hardtops, station wagons, and convertibles) in a mix of two and four-door configurations.  The 1951 line looks frumpy now and even then was considered bulbous compared with the more modernist lines coming from the Ford and General Motors (GM) design studios but Chrysler at the time was run by a chief executive who dictated their products had to be able to driven “by a man wearing his hat”.  That view was abandoned for the 1955 models and the refinements which followed the next year were emblematic of the longer-lower-wider dictum which would for a generation dominate the industry.

1957 (left), 1960 (centre) and 1961 (right) Belvederes.

The 1957-1960 Belvederes are among the best remembered from Detroit’s crazy macropterous years, and are related to the final iteration on the 1961 Imperial which featured the tallest fins of the era although it’s the extravagance of the 1959 Cadillac which is most famous.  The 1957 Plymouths, released with the advertising slogan “Suddenly it’s 1960” created a sensation but unfortunately, although immediately popular, the quality control was patchy (like some of the paintwork) and Chrysler's reputation would for years suffer.  The styling lasted until 1961 by which time the craze was over and the big fins looked dated but the replacement was truly bizarre.  Sales suffered but so low is the survival rate of the 1961 Belvederes their very scalloped weirdness has made them a collectable.

1962 (left), 1963 (centre) and 1964 (right) Plymouth Belvederes.

Acting on misunderstood rumors (which some insist was industrial espionage) about what the competition was doing with their full-sized lines, Plymouth "downsized" the Belvedere for 1962, something which in little more than a decade would make sense but it was out of tune with the early 1960s.  That was a shame because the engineering of the cars was solid and many of those who did buy the things expressed satisfaction with the reduced exterior dimensions, noting there was little loss in interior space and those who definitely found an advantage in the lower weight and more agile handling were drivers using Belvederes in competition, the cars successful on both circuits and drag strips.  The styling however was again unfortunate and was soon toned-down; it didn’t become quite as bland as the 1964 Chevrolet (a reaction to the excesses of their 1959-1960 “bat-wings”) which was described as “looking a little like every car ever built” but it was certainly inoffensive.

1966 Belvedere (left), 1969 Hemi Roadrunner (centre-left), 1970 Superbird (centre-right) and 1970 Superbird in NASCAR trim (right)

With the restoration of a full-sized model to the range in 1965, the Belvedere was maintained in the increasingly important intermediate sector (similar in to dimensions to what the full-size cars had been before they became bloated in the mid-late 1950s).  A new trim package called the Satellite was added (a la what the original Belvedere had in 1951 been to the Cranbrook) and, responding to the increased demand for muscle cars, the high-performance GTX was created.  The line was restyled in 1968 using an interpretation of the then popular “coke-bottle” look and it was on this platform that the Roadrunner was built.  The Roadrunner essentially combined a stripped-down, basic Belvedere with the high performance engines and, stripped of any luxury fittings, it was cheaper as well as lighter.  Able to be configured to outperform even the GTX and offered at a price which on any cost/performance analysis was a bargain, it was an immediate hit and the line soon proliferated, Roadrunner convertibles and additional engines soon offered.  The Belvedere's final fling was also its apotheosis, the be-winged Roadrunner Superbird, offered only in the 1970 model-year as a homologation exercise to qualify the aerodynamic improvements for use in competition.  That year however marked the swansong of the Belvedere name, Satellite preferred as it was more in accord with the space age.

Miss Belvedere as now displayed (left), being lowered into her capsule in 1957 (centre) and as exhumed in 2007 (right).

The 1957 Belvedere was used in one of the larger and more unusual time-capsules.  Named Miss Belvedere as part of the city of Tulsa's “Tulsarama” Golden Jubilee Week festivities celebrating Oklahoma's fiftieth year of statehood, the car was on 15 June 1957 sealed in an underground vault to be opened a half-century later.  Intended as a prize to whomever came closest to guessing Tulsa's population in 2007, cognizant of the fears of nuclear war prevalent at the time, the enclosure was built to withstand hydrogen bombs being detonated in the vicinity.  Unfortunately, less attention was given to making things watertight and, when opened in 2007, the Miss Belvedere was found to have spent much of her fifty years wholly or partially submerged, the result a muddy and rusty mess.  Some attempts were made to clean the worst of the damage in the hope a restoration might be possible but ultimately it was determined it was beyond salvation and she's now displayed as a dilapidated relic of a troubled yet optimistic age.

Camelot Inn & Suites: In 1977 (while Ramada Camelot Inn) and circa 2022 (right).  While externally (and perhaps internally based on the period-themed furnishings shown on the website) little changed apart from the color-scheme (curiously, it now looks "more 1970s" than it did in the era), windows have been added to the belvedere and while that may have been done for any number of reasons, fire regulations may have required the change. 

As early as the 1970s, south of the Mason-Dixon Line, belvederes and other architectural features recalling medieval castles became popular not only on what would come to be called McMansions but also on commercial buildings and the Camelot Inn in Amarillo, Texas was one of three (the others in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Little Rock, Arkansas), which were part of a “small chain”.  The term “small chain” was never really defined but generally applied to groups of hotels or motels (not necessarily with a common ownership” which operated over more several states under a shared identity.  In this they were different from the national or international “big chains” such as Four Seasons (1961) or Holiday Inn (1952).  The small chain model inherently was fragile and fell from favour as booking systems became increasingly inter-linked and management of almost all the properties came to be absorbed by the national operations, Ramada and Travelodge especially active in the regional areas.  Ramada in 1974 purchased Camelot Inn in Amarillo and re-branded it Ramada Camelot Inn (existing names often retained as an element during those days.  That arrangement lasted until 1981 when Best Western assumed control and the property, still with the distinctive belvederes, trades to this day as Camelot Inn & Suites.

McMansions in their natural habitat.

Rightly or wrongly, many object to McMansions (the large, over-styled, essentially mass-produced houses built for the upper middle-class anxious to flaunt their wealth).  There is often an objection to conspicuous consumption and an extravagant use of resources but students of architecture focus on the confused mix of motifs which so often litter the structures with as many architectural clichés from palaces or castles as can be crammed into the space with little regard for scale or any sense of integrity.  On McMansions, it’s not unusual to see a mix of Corinthian columns, towers, turrets, belvederes, French doors, Gothic arches, flag-poles, stained glass, transom windows, balconies and porticos.  Much of the criticism probably is an expression of resentment that people with poor taste are able to afford such things but as a general principle, in architecture an emphasis on proportion and restrained elegance will tend to be more admired.

Fort Belvedere (formerly Shrubs Hill Tower), a country house in Windsor, Surrey, famously the site of the abdication of King Edward VIII in 1936 (left) and Belvedere Palace, Vienna (right).

Lindsay Lohan attending V Magazine, Marc Jacobs & Belvedere Vodka event, Hiro Ballroom, New York City, September 2009.

Cupola

Cupola (pronounced kyoo-puh-luh)

(1) In architecture, a light structure on a dome or roof, serving as a belfry, lantern, or belvedere (some functional, some merely ornamental).

(2) Any of various dome-like structures (especially in architecture or one covering a circular or polygonal area).

(3) In naval architecture, a protective dome for guns on a warship

(4) In armored vehicles, a raised structure with a narrow aperture for viewing, sometimes fitted with a gun or flame-thrower.

(5) In geology, an upward-projecting mass of plutonic rock extending from a larger batholith.

(6) In metallurgy, a vertical, air-blown coke-fired cylindrical furnace in which iron is re-melted for use in casting.

(7) In geometry, a solid formed by joining two polygons, one (the base) with twice as many edges as the other, by an alternating band of isosceles triangles and rectangles.

(8) In anatomy, a small cap over a structure, shaped like a dome or inverted cup.

(9) In railway carriage design, a small viewing window in the top of the caboose (guard’s van) for looking over the train, or the part of the caboose where one looks through this window (obsolete).

1540–1550: From the Italian cupola, from the Late Latin cūpula (a small cask; a little tub), from the Classical Latin cuppella, from cuppa & cūpa (tub), from the Ancient Greek κύπελλον (kúpellon) (small cup), the construct being cūp(a) + -ula, from the primitive Indo-European -dlom (the instrumental suffix) and used as a noun suffix denoting an instrument.  The origin in Latin was based on the resemblance to an upturned cup, hence the use to describe the rounded top of just about any structure where no specific descriptor existed.  Cupola is a noun and cupolated & cupolar are adjectives; the noun plural is cupolas or cupolae.

Cupola on the dome of St Peter's Basilica, Vatican City, Rome.

In architectural history, the cupola is considered a descendent of the oculus, which may seem strange given the evidence suggests domes came first but a cupola is something which can be added to a dome and the earliest may have been “bolted on” when the open nature of an oculus proved troublesome.  Fitted with one or more windows, they would still permit the entry of light but keep out the wind and rain.  From this functional origin, they became popular as features to crown turrets, roofs, and larger dome.  Confusingly, architects at one point decided a cupola was also the inner vault of a dome so historic plans and descriptions need to be read with care.  Although classically dome-like in shape, most modern cupolas are more angular.

Onion domes on the Kremlin, Red Square, Moscow, Russia.

Cupolas were a favorite in early Islamic architecture and began their proliferation the mid-late eighth century, presumably because they were a perfect decorative addition to a mosque’s minarets but such was the appeal they would appear also in the core of the building or at its corners.  Before long, they were a regular part of commercial and residential buildings, valued not only as decoration but as a light source and for the ease with which they could sit atop vertical ducts used for ventilation.  It was the Islamic influence which was responsible for the best known motif of Russian architecture, the onion dome which was well suited to the northern climate because, constructed with severe lines, effortlessly they resisted the gathering of snow.  The Moors brought the design to Spain and whatever religious conflicts may for centuries have disfigured the Middle East & Europe, Architectural taste proved ecumenical and onion domes can still be seen atop Christian churches in Austria and southern Germany.

US Marine Corps M17 flame-thrower in use, the M1919A4 Browning .30 caliber medium machine gun to the right is hard-mounted in the tank commander's cupola, South Vietnam, 1968.

In military use, a cupola is basically a helmet fixed in place and that may be on a building, a ship or an armored vehicle, the function being to protect the head while offering a field of view.  Sometimes, especially in tanks or armored cars, guns or flame-throwers were integrated into cupolas and in naval gunnery, there was the special use to describe the dome-like structures protecting a (usually single) gun mounting, something which distinguished them from the larger, flatter constructions which fulfilled the same purpose for multi-gun batteries.

Cupola on the International Space Station (ISS), outside & in.  Cupolas are used on space craft because they are a way of maximizing the window space for a certain amount of the hull’s surface area.

McMansion with turrets and cupola.

Although the moment seems to have passed, one recent trend in domestic architecture which really disturbed the arbiters of style was the proliferation in parts of the US of McMansions, huge houses of sometimes dubious build quality often in a confusion of architectural styles and adorned with balconies, turrets, columns and cupolas, the more the better.

Coronet

Coronet (pronounced kawr-uh-nit, kawr-uh-net, kor-uh-nit, or kor-un-net)

(1) A small crown.

(2) A crown worn by nobles or peers (as distinct from those worn by sovereigns).

(3) A crown-like ornament for the head, as of gold or jewels.

(4) An ornament, tending to the pedimental in form, situated over a door or window.

(5) The lowest part of the pastern of a horse or other hoofed animal, just above the hoof.

(6) In heraldry, a crown-like support for a crest, used in place of a torse; also called crest coronet.

(7) The margin between the skin of a horse's pastern and the horn of the hoof.

(8) The knob at the base of a deer's antler.

(9) The traditional lowest regular commissioned officer rank in the cavalry (the equivalent of an ensign in the infantry or navy).

(10) Any of several hummingbirds in the genus Boissonneaua.

(11) A species of moth, Craniophora ligustri.

1350–1400: From the Middle English crownet & corounet, from the Middle French couronnette, from the Old French coronete (little crown) a diminutive of corone (crown) from the Latin corona (third-person singular present active subjunctive of corōnō) (crown), from the Ancient Greek κορώνη (korṓnē) (garland, wreath; a type of crown; a type of sea-bird, perhaps shearwater; a crow; anything curved or hooked (like a door handle or the tip of a bow).  Related in form, if not always function are diadem, wreath, crown, chaplet, circle, tiara, headdress, headband & anadem (a headband, particularly a garland of flowers).  Coronet is a noun; the noun plural is coronets.

Lindsay Lohan in coronet: Mean Girls (2004).

Crowns and coronet are both types of headgear worn as symbols of authority but there are technical differences between the two.  The crown is the traditional symbolic headpiece worn by a monarch and (in some cases) certain other members of royal families.  Fabricated usually from precious metals and adorned with jewels, crowns are by convention taller and more ornate than coronets but this is not an absolute rule and the symbolism of a crown as something representing sovereign power and regal authority doesn’t rely on its size.  Despite that, coronets tend to be smaller, less elaborate versions of crowns and they’re worn by members of the nobility who do not hold the rank of monarch and the consort of a monarch.  According to authoritative English sources, the general specification for a coronet dictates a small crown of ornaments  fixed on a metal ring and, as a general principle, a coronet has no arches and unlike a tiara, it wholly encircles the head.  Helpful as that may be, coronets in the wild are obviously rare (although that depends on the circles in which one moves) but are commonly seen as rank symbols in heraldry, emblazing coats of arms.  More opportunistically, they’re a popular symbol used in commerce.

Coronets of the United Kingdom.

In the UK, a country where there are more coronets than most, those worn by members of the House of Lords are of a defined designed according to the notch on the peerage one inhabits but surprisingly, they’re worn usually only for royal coronations (donning them for a lying in state or state funeral not the modern practice) so the 2023 event will be their first appearance en masse since 1953.  Outside of royalty, they were once exclusive to dukes but the right was granted to marquesses in the fifteenth century, to earls in the fifteenth, to viscounts (of which there are surprisingly few) in the sixteenth and barons in the seventeenth.  Coronets may not bear any precious or semi-precious stones.

1959 Dodge Silver Challenger

Chrysler’s Dodge division used the Coronet nameplate in a way typical of Detroit’s mid-century practices.  Between 1949-1959 it was a full-sized Dodge, beginning as a top-of-the-range trim before in 1955 being shifted downwards, seeing out its first iteration as an entry-level model.  One mostly forgotten footnote of the first Coronets is the 1959 range saw Dodge's first use of the Challenger name; in 1959 the Coronet-based Challenger was an early example of a model bundled with a number of usually optional accessories and sold at an attractive discount.  The concept would become popular and the Challenger name would later be twice revived for more illustrious careers as pony cars (and although the first attempt (1969-1974) was a financial disaster, the cars now much sought-after which, in their most desired configurations trade in the collector community well into six figures with the odd sale above US$1 million).

1979 Dodge Challenger (a "badge-engineered" Mitsubishi).

Although the Mopar crew don't much dwell on the matter, between 1978-1983, Dodge also applied the Challenger name to a "captive import" (the then current term describing an overseas-built vehicle sold under the name of domestic manufacturer through its dealer network), a Mitsubishi coupé sold in other markets variously as the Sapporo, Lambda and Scorpion.  Although somewhat porcine (until a mid-life facelift tightened things up), it was popular in many places (Australians especially took to it) but never achieved the same level of success in the US (where Plymouth also sold it as the Sapporo), even though that was where the "personal coupé" had become a very lucrative market segment.   

1969 Dodge Hemi Coronet.  By 1969 the writing was on the wall for engines like the Hemi and just 97 Coronet hardtops and ten convertibles were built.  In 1970, when the last two-door Coronets were made, production had dropped to 13 hardtops and just a brace of convertibles (one manual, one automatic).

The Coronet’s second run was as an intermediate between 1965–1976 and it’s the 1968-1970 models which are best remembered, based on the corporate B-body platform shared with the Plymouth Belvedere and Dodge Charger.  Plymouth gained great success with their take on the low-cost, high-performance intermediate when they released the Road Runner, a machine stripped of just about all but the most essential items except for its high performance engines, including the 426 cubic inch (7.0 litre) HEMI V8.  It was a big hit, the sales wildly exceeding projections and it encouraged Dodge to emulate the approach with the Coronet Super Bee although for whatever reason, it didn’t capture the imagination as had the Road Runner and in the three seasons both were available, sold less than a third of its corporate stablemate.

1967 Dodge “Road Runner” advertisement.

Curiously though, Dodge may have missed what proved to be the priceless benefit of using the Road Runner name.  In 1967, Dodge had run advertisements for the Coronet R/T (“Road & Track” although “street & strip” would have been closer to the truth but Chevrolet had for years been using "SS" and S/S might have been thought slavishly imitative although the lawyers would have confirmed it would have been OK) which used the words “Road” & “Runner” although spaced as far apart as perhaps the lawyers advised would be sufficiently distant to avoid threats of litigation.  Plymouth solved that problem by legitimization, paying Warner Brothers US$50,000 for the Road Runner name and the imagery of the Wile E Coyote and Road Runner cartoon depictions, spending a reputed (though unverified) additional US$10,000 for the distinctive "beep, beep" horn sound, the engineering for which seems to have been as as simple as replacing the aluminium strands in the mechanism with copper windings.

Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021 and since 2025) admiring the coronet worn by Miss USA Kristen Dalton (b 1986), Miss USA 2009 Pageant, Las Vegas, Nevada.  Although the beauty contest business called them crowns or cornets, most, like that worn by Ms Dalton, technically were tiaras.

Satellite

Satellite (pronounced sat-l-ahyt)

(1) In astronomy, celestial body orbiting around a planet or star; a moon.

(2) In geopolitics, as “satellite state”, a country under the domination or influence of another.

(3) Something (a county, sub-national state, office, building campus etc), under the jurisdiction, influence, or domination of another entity; Subordinate to another authority, outside power, or the like (also known as a “satellite operation”, “satellite campus”, “satellite workshop” etc).

(4) An attendant or follower of another person, often subservient or obsequious in manner; a follower, supporter, companion, associate; lackey, parasite, sycophant, toady, flunky; now used usually in the derogatory sense of “a henchman” although, applied neutrally, it can be used of someone’s retinue or entourage (and even the machinery of a motorcade).

(5) A man-made device orbiting a celestial body (the earth, a moon, or another planet etc) and transmitting scientific information or used for communication; among astronomers and others form whom the distinction matters, man-made devices are sometimes referred to as “artificial satellites” to distinguish them for natural satellites such as the Earth’s Moon.  The standard abbreviation is “sat” and the situation in which a satellite is hit by some object while in orbit (which at the velocities involved can be unfortunate) is called a “sat-hit”.

(6) As “derelict satellite”, a man-made device (including the spent upper-stages of rockets) in orbit around a celestial body which has ceased to function.

(7) In medicine, a short segment of a chromosome separated from the rest by a constriction, typically associated with the formation of a nucleolus.

(8) In biology, a colony of microorganisms whose growth in culture medium is enhanced by certain substances produced by another colony in its proximity.

(9) In formal grammar, a construct that takes various forms and may encode a path of movement, a change of state, or the grammatical aspect (highly technical descriptor no longer used in most texts).

(10) In television, as satellite TV, the transmission and reception of television broadcasts (and used also in narrowcasting) using satellites in low-earth orbit.

(11) In the military terminology of Antiquity, a guard or watchman.

(12) In entomology, as satellite moth, the Eupsilia transversa, a moth of the family Noctuidae.

1540-1550: From the fourteenth century Middle French satellite, from the Medieval Latin satellitem (accusative singular of satelles) (attendant upon a distinguished person or office-holder, companion, body-guard. courtier, accomplice, assistant), from the Latin satelles, from the Old Latin satro (enough, full) + leyt (to let go) and listed usually as akin to the English “follow” although the association is undocumented.  Although the Latin origin is generally accepted, etymologists have pondered a relationship with the Etruscan, either satnal (klein) (again linked to the English “follow”) or a compound of roots: satro- (full; enough) + leit- (to go) (the English “follow” constructed of similar roots).  Satellite is a noun, verb & adjective and satellitic & satellitious are adjectives; the noun plural is satellites.  Satellitious (pertaining to, or consisting of, satellites) is listed by most dictionaries as archaic but is probably the best form to use in a derogatory sense, best expressed in the comparative (more satellitious) or the superlative (most satellitious).

Lindsay Lohan promoting the Sick Note series, TV & Satellite Week magazine, 21-27 July 2018.

The adjectival use is applied as required and this has produced many related terms including satellite assembly (use of committees or deliberative bodies created by a superior authority), satellite broadcasting (in this context distinguished from transmissions using physical (point-to-point) cables or ground-based relays), satellite campus, satellite DNA (in genetics, an array in  tandem of repeating, non-coding DNA), satellite-framing (in linguistics, the use of a grammatical satellite to indicate a path of motion, a change of state or grammatical aspect (as opposed to a verb framing)), satellite navigation (the use of electronic positioning systems which use data from satellites (often now as “SatNav”)) and satellite station (either (1) as ground-base facility used for monitoring or administrating satellites or (2) a manned facility in orbit such as the ISS (International Space Station)), satellite telephone (telephony using satellites as a transmission vector)

Sputnik, 1957

Sputnik 1 blueprint, 1957.

The original sense in the 1540s was "a follower or attendant of a superior person" but this use was rare before the late eighteenth century and it seemed to have taken until the 1910s before it was applied in a derogatory manner to suggest "an accomplice or accessory in crime or other nefarious activity” although the Roman statesman Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero, 106-43 BC) often used the Latin form in this way.  In the seventeenth century, as telescopes became available, the idea was extended to what was then thought to be "a planet revolving about a larger one" on the notion of "an attendant", initially a reference to the moons of Jupiter.  In political theory, the “satellite state” was first described in 1800, coined by John Adams (1735-1826; US president 1797-1801) in a discussion about the United States and its relationships with the other nations of the Americas although in geopolitics the term is most identified with the “buffer states”, the members of the Warsaw Pact which were within Moscow’s sphere of influence.  The familiar modern meaning of a "man-made machine orbiting the Earth" actually dates (as scientific conjecture) from 1936, something realized (to the surprise of most) in 1957 when the USSR launched Sputnik 1.  Sputnik was from the Russian спу́тник (sputnik) (satellite (literally "travelling companion” and in this context a shortened form of sputnik zemlyi (travelling companion of the Earth), from the Old Church Slavonic supotiniku, the construct being the Russian so- (as “s-“ (with, together)) + пу́тник (pútnik) (traveller), from путь (put) (way, path, journey) (from the Old Church Slavonic poti, from the primitive Indo-European pent- (to tread, go)) + ник (-nik) (the agent suffix).

Soviet Sputnik postcard, 1957.

The launch of Sputnik shocked the American public which, in a milieu of jet aircraft, televisions and macropterous Cadillacs, had assumed their country was in all ways technologically superior to their Cold War enemy.  Launched into an elliptical low-Earth orbit, Sputnik was about twice the size of a football (soccer ball) and it orbited for some three more months before falling towards earth, the on-board batteries lasting long enough for it to broadcast radio pulses for the first three weeks, transmissions detectable almost anywhere on earth.  It sounds now a modest achievement but it needs to be regarded as something as significant as the Wright Flyer in 1903 travelling 200 feet (61 m), at an altitude of some 10 feet (3 m) and in the West the social and political impact was electrifying.  There were also linguistic ripples because, just as a generation later the Watergate scandal would trigger the –gate formations (which continue to this day), it wasn’t long before the –nik prefix (which had actually been a part of Yiddish word creation for at least a decade) gained popularity.  Laika, the doomed stray dog launched aboard Sputnik 2 in November 1957 was dubbed muttnik (although the claims it was the first living thing in space have since been disproved because "living" entities were both on board the Nazi V2 rockets (1944-1945) which often briefly entered the stratosphere and have long been present in the upper atmosphere where they’re ejected into space by natural atmospheric processes) while the early US satellites (quickly launched to display the nation’s scientific prowess) failed which gave the press the chance to coin kaputnik, blowupnik, dudnik, flopnik, pffftnik & stayputnik.

Sputnik 1's launch vehicle (left), the satellite as it orbited the earth (centre) and in expanded form (right. 

Although not a great surprise to either the White House or the better-informed in the Pentagon, the American public was shocked and both the popular and quality press depicted Sputnik’s success as evidence of Soviet technological superiority, stressing the military implications.    This trigged the space race and soon created the idea of the “missile gap” which would be of such significance in the 1960 presidential election and, although by the early 1960s the Pentagon knew the gap was illusory, the arms race continued and the count of missiles and warheads actually peaked in the early 1970s.  It also began a new era of military, technological, and scientific developments, leading most obviously to the moon landing in 1969 but research groups developed weapons such as the big inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and missile defence systems as well as spy satellites.  Satellites were another step in the process of technology being deployed to improve communications.  When Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865; US president 1861-1865) was assassinated in 1865, the news didn’t reach Europe until the fastest ship crossed the Atlantic a fortnight later.  By the time of William McKinley's (1843–1901; US president 1897-1901) assassination in 1901, the news travelled around the world by undersea cables within minutes.  In 1963, while news of John Kennedy's (JFK, 1917–1963; US president 1961-1963) death was close to a global real-time event, those thousands of miles from the event had to wait sometimes 24 hours or more to view footage, delivered in canisters byu land' sea or air.  By 1981, when an attempt was made to take Ronald Reagan's (1911-life, television feeds around the planet were within minutes picking up live-feeds from satellites.

Two comrades with their 1960 Trabant P50 in stylish two-tone pastellblau (pastel blue) over creme (cream) admiring the Leipzig Opera building, Saxony, circa 1961 (left) and a 1990 Trabant 601 in a by then more typical beige (right).

In the GDR (German Democratic Republic, the old East Germany), the long-running (1957-1991) Trabant's bodywork was made with Duroplast, a composite thermosetting plastic (and a descendant of Bakelite).  It was a resin plastic reinforced with fibres (the GDR used waste from both cotton & wool processing) which structurally was similar to fibreglass although the urban myth Trabants were made from reinforced cardboard persists.  The first Trabants left the Saxony production line in November 1957, only weeks after the Soviet Union had startled the world by launching Sputnik and while the first man-made Earth satellite did nothing other than transmit radio pulses, the significance was that was something which had never before been done and, launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit where it circulated for three months, because of the flight path, the little sphere's "beeps" could at various times be detected just about anywhere below.  Compared with what space programmes would become, it sounds now a modest achievement but was at the time a sensation and the event which triggered the “space race”.

Two comrades approaching their 1957 Trabant P50 in stylish korallenrot (coral red) over creme (cream).  Note the amber turn signals; Trabants were factory-fitted with flashers at a time Rolls-Royce and other manufacturers in the “advanced West” were still installing antiquated semaphores.

In the Eastern Bloc there weren’t many marketing departments but there was a vast propaganda apparatus and opportunistically, the name Trabant was derived from the Middle High German drabant (satellite; companion; foot soldier) which at the time was a positive association with the famous Sputnik but it later became emblematic of the economic and moral bankruptcy of the whole communist project: While by the fall of the Berlin Wall (1961-1989) Soviet satellites and related technologies greatly had advanced, the “Trubi” remained a little changed “1957 time capsule”.  Although much despised in the early 1990s in the aftermath of the break-up of the Soviet Union (1922-1991), opinions softened and the survivors of the more than three million produced (a greater volume than BMC's (British Motor Corporation) Mini (1959-2000)) gained a cult following.  More correctly, the marque gained a number of cult followings, some attracted by the “retro-cuteness”, some with genuine, Putinesque nostalgia for the old Soviet system and other with a variety of projects as varied as EV (electric vehicle) conversions, the installation of V8s for drag-racing and the re-purposing in many forms of competition.  The Trubi is now a fixture in the lower reaches (a notch above the Austin Allegro) of the collector market.

Low-emission Trabant (rated at 1 PP (pony-power)) with driver using semaphore signal to indicate intention to turn left, Barnim district, Bernau bei, Berlin, GDR, 1981.

As late as the 1960s, in some places, trucks & vans still were being built with a hand-operated semaphore mounted on the driver’s door and specialized vehicles likely also to have an occupant on the passenger-side (such as fire-engines) sometimes had two.  If need be they could also be improvised, as in the low-tech “lollipop” sign being used in this image of a two-seater buggy, a vehicle crafted using the salvageable section of a Trabant which may have suffered frontal damage in a crash.  Trabants really could go fast enough to have damaging crashes and although not engineered with the “crumple zones” which were introduced in the West as a way of absorbing an impact’s energy before it reached the occupants, in their own way, crumple Trabants did.  The photograph of the horse-drawn Trubi, while not representative of the entire Eastern Bloc experience under communist rule, captures a sight which would not have been uncommon away from large urban centres (which could be grim enough).  Dr Henry Kissinger (1923-2023; US national security advisor 1969-1975 & secretary of state 1937-1977) said his abiding memory of Eastern Bloc cities was of “the smell of boiled cabbage and an unrelenting greyness.”  In fairness, English cooks probably inflicted worse on the noble cabbage than anything done behind the Iron Curtain but his sense of “greyness” was literal, the appalling air pollution of the GDR (its industrial base powered by burning lignite (from the Latin lignum (wood)) and other forms of low-grade, “dirty coal”), thus the griminess of the buildings.  Places like London similarly were affected and it was only after the 1952 “Great Smog of London” that the Clean Air Act (1956) became law, meaning air quality began slowly to improve.  That the photographs of the era look so drab was not because of the film stock; buildings literally were “dirty”.  Because of various other advances in health care, it’s difficult to quantify the contribution to reducing mortality achieved by reducing air pollution but few doubt it was significant.

The Plymouth Satellites

1967 Plymouth Satellite convertible.

Chrysler's Plymouth division introduced the Satellite on the corporation's intermediate ("B") platform in 1965 as the most expensive trim-option for the Belvedere line.  Offered initially only with two-door hardtop and convertible coach-work, the range of body-styles was later expanded to encompass four-door sedans and station wagons.  In a manner, typical of the way the industry applied their nomenclature as marketing devices to entice buyers, the Belvedere name was in 1970 retired while Satellite remained the standard designation until it too was dropped after 1974.

1970 Plymouth Road Runner, 440 6 Barrel.

Were it not for it being made available in 1966 with the 426 cubic inch (7.0 litre) Street Hemi V8, the Belvedere and Satellite would have been just another intermediate but with that option, it was transformed into a (slightly) detuned race-car which one could register for the road, something possible in those happier times.  The Street Hemi was an expensive option and relatively few were built but the demand for high-performance machinery was clear so in 1968, Plymouth released the Road Runner, complete with logos (licensed from the Warner Brothers film studio for US$50,000) and a “beep beep” horn which reputedly cost US$10,000 to develop.  The object was to deliver a high-performance machine at the lowest possible cost so the Road Runner used the basic (two-door, pillared) body shell and eschewed niceties like carpet or bucket seats, the only addition of note a tuned version of the 383 cubic inch (6.3 litre) V8 engine; for those who wanted more, the Street Hemi was optional.  Plymouth set what they thought were ambitious sales targets but demand was such production had to be doubled and the response encouraged the usual proliferation: a hardtop coupé and convertible soon rounding out the range.

1970 Plymouth Hemi Road Runner Superbird.

The option list later expanded to include the six-barrel version which used the of the 440 cubic inch (7.2 litre) V8, a much cheaper choice than the Street Hemi and one which (usually) displayed better manners on the street while offering similar performance until travelling well over 100 mph (160 km/h) although it couldn't match the Hemi’s sustained delivery of top-end power which, with the right gearing, would deliver a top speed in excess of 150 mph (240 km/h), something of little significance to most.  However, by the early 1970s sales were falling.  The still embryonic safety and emission legislation played a small part in this but overwhelmingly the cause was the extraordinary rise in insurance premiums being charged for the high-performance vehicles, something which disproportionately affected the very buyers at which the machines were targeted: single males aged 19-29.  However, the platform endured long enough to provide the basis for the Road Runner Superbird, a “homologation special” produced in limited numbers to qualify the frankly extreme aerodynamic modifications for use in competition.  At the time, the additions were too radical for some buyers with dealers unable to find buyers forced to convert the things back to standard specifications just to shift them from their lots.  They’re now prized collectables, the relatively few with the Street Hemi especially sought.

As a footnote, corporate stablemate Dodge called their six barrel 440s the "Six Pack" (which was a much snappier name) and in the UK this was in 1972 picked up by Jensen which was able to buy (at a bargain price) a tranche of the engines Chrysler had stored in a warehouse after US emission regulations rendered them unlawful for road-registered passenger vehicles.  Jensen called the model created the "Interceptor SP" but it proved an unfortunate experience for both company and customers for while the engine delivered a lift in performance, for a variety of reasons it was, in that configuration, not suitable for the car (or its target market) and a number had to be converted to use the standard Interceptor's single four barrel carburetor.  Its brief existence did though produce something for the automotive trivia buffs: While the accepted orthodoxy is "the factory never installed air-conditioning (AC) in any car fitted with the six barrel 440s or the Street Hemi", strictly speaking that applies only to "No Chrysler factory ever installed..." because Jensen did so equip the SP.  More exclusive still was the single Street Hemi-powered Hai built in 1970 by the much-missed Swiss boutique operation Monteverdi, also with AC. 

1971 Plymouth Hemi Road Runner.

The intermediate line was revised in 1971 using the then current corporate motif of “fuselage styling” and it was probably more aesthetically pleasing there than when applied to the full-sized cars which truly were gargantuan.  The 1971 Satellites used distinctly different bodies for the two and four-door models and while there were no more convertibles, the Street Hemi and Six-Barrel 440 enjoyed a swansong season although sales were low, the muscle car era almost at an end and although in late 1971 a reported seven 1972 Road Runners with the Six-Barrel option were built, 1971 really was the end of the line for both engines.