Esquire

Esquire (pronounced es-kwahyuhr or e-skwahyuhr)

(1) An unofficial title of respect (usually with no precise definition or significance and sometimes self-conferred), placed (often in its abbreviated form), after a man's surname in formal written address (used with initial capital letter).

(2) In the US, an informal honorific used by lawyers (male & female).

(3) In the UK, a term applied to a commoner considered to have gained the social position of a gentleman (historically a man belonging to the order of English gentry ranking immediately below a knight).

(4) An alternative form for squire when that was used to mean “a youth who in the hopes of becoming a knight attends upon a knight” (obsolete).

(5) To raise to the rank of esquire; in medieval use the attendant and shield bearer of a knight (and subsequently sometimes knighted themselves), one practical significance of the title being it conferred the right to bear arms.

(6) In heraldry, a bearing similar in form to a gyron, but extending across the field so that the point touches the opposite edge of the escutcheon.

(7) To address as Esquire.

(8) A gentleman who attends or escorts a lady in public; a male escort (rare and long archaic except when applied humorously or euphemistically (as a sanitized alternative to “tame cat”, “rent boy” etc).

1425–1475: From the late Middle English esquier, from the Middle French escuyer & escuier (shield bearer; an attendant young man in training to be a knight), from the Old French esquiere, esquierre & esquarre (square), from the Latin scūtārius (“shield bearer”, “guardsman”, the construct being scūt(um) (shield) + -ārius (-ary).  The suffix -aris was a form of -ālis with dissimilation of -l- to -r- after roots containing an l (the alternative forms were -ālis, -ēlis, -īlis & -ūlis); it was used to form adjectives, usually from noun, indicating a relationship or a "pertaining to").  The form reached modern French as écuyer (shield-bearer, armor-bearer, squire of a knight, esquire, equerry, rider, horseman).  Rather (as some might reasonably suppose) than esquire being formed as e- + - squire, the word squire was a product of apheresis (the suppression or complete loss of a letter or sound (syllable) from the beginning of a word) from the earlier French & English.  Esquire is a noun & verb and esquired & esquiring are verbs; the noun plural is esquires.

Lindsay Lohan in Esquire (Middle East).

Esquire began as a feudal rank ranking below a knight, the origin of the word in the role of a squire who attended upon a knight as a kind of combination of personal assistant, apprentice and servant.  For those not from established families, it was one of the few available paths to knighthood.  As the historic role of knights receded in the sixteenth century, the use broadened to encompass (1) the educated or professional class (especially those practicing in law) & (2) members of the gentry and their sons not otherwise entitled to some title.  In the US, esquire became attached to lawyers (both male & female), probably as an identifier to align in some way with the “Dr” granted to physicians because by convention, those with vocational doctorates (Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur) don’t use the “Dr” like those with higher or research doctorates (Ph.D, D.Sc, DCL et al).  Reflecting the shared origin with lawyers as “men of letters” (the lawyers more anxious to acknowledge their past than the surgeons are to recall they came out of the barber shops) writers and journalists also long liked to adopt an “esq” though much derision means it’s now less common.

Admiral Sir Reginald Aylmer Ranfurly Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax KCB.  Lest it be thought multi-element names are a thing exclusive to the British Isles, they exist elsewhere, an example of which was the German Count Graf Philipp-Constantin Eduard Siegmund Clemens Tassilo Tobias von Berckheim (1924-1984).

In England, for historic reasons, the history and current usage is complicated.  The title is granted to the eldest sons of knights, the elder sons of the younger sons of peers and their eldest sons in succession, officers of the king's courts and of the royal household, barristers, justices of the peace while in commission & sheriffs and is available to gentlemen who have held commissions in the military.  It thus enjoys a wide vista but even now a definitive listing of the correct use has never been codified and some view it as pretentious even when technically correct.  Littered in the history of honors are also curiosities like the right of a Knight of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath to appoint three esquires at the time of his installation, something which seems of ancient origin but was formalized in 1815 when the old order of knighthood (KB) was re-organized into three classes: Knight Grand Cross (GCB), Knight Commander (KCB) & Companion (CB).  One task a KCB’s helpful esquire might have performed was to assist translators in formal ceremonies.  In 1939, when Admiral Sir Reginald Aylmer Ranfurly Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax, KCB, DSO, JP, DL (1880-1967) was introduced at a ceremony in Moscow, diplomatic protocol required his honors be read out in full, the Russian translator rendering his KCB as рыцарь умывальник (rytsar' umyval'nik) (Knight of the Wash Tub).  The Russians couldn’t help but laugh and, fortunately for the then strained diplomatic relations between the Kremlin and Downing Street, the admiral shared their amusement.  In legal documents and uses deemed "formal", a capitalized "Esquire" usually is written in full after the names of those using the designation.  It’s otherwise abbreviated to Esq or (the now less common) Esqr.  Those conventions should in theory be observed also when adding an address to an envelope and American lawyers settled on a post-nominal Esq. (almost always with the needless period (full-stop)) in their e-mail signature blocks.

Lindsay Lohan attending the Esquire and DKNY fashion show, London, June 2014.

Squire was a truncation of esquire, the process known in linguistics as apheresis (the suppression or complete loss of a letter or sound (syllable) from the beginning of a word).  It too was thus from the Old French escuier, from the Late Latin scutarius (shield bearer) which is Old English was spelled scutifer.  The equivalent in the Classical Latin was armiger (arms bearer).  The early meanings of squire were essentially the same as those attached to esquire but it evolved in England by the mid seventeenth century also to describe (with some variations) “a substantial landholder in a town or village who is a landlord to most or many inhabitants”.  The less formal term “lord of the manor” was essentially analogous and given the nature of the class system and economic relations in England, the role of squire often overlapped with offices such as that or mayor or magistrate and that (linguistic) tradition continues in contemporary American use, “squire” the title used for justices of the peace or similar local dignitaries.  Although the attractive slang forms squirearchy & squiress seem not to have survived, in UK working class slang, “squire” is used in a respectful and friendly way between men, a democratic re-purposing of the earlier sense of “country gentlemen”, dating from 1828.  The meaning “a ruler; a carpenter's square; a measure” was derived from the Middle French esquierre (rule, carpenter's square) or the Old French esquire (another form of esquarre (square)) and is long obsolete.

Ford Country Squires: 1951 (with genuine wood, left), 1959 (centre) and 1971 (right).

Long replaced in public favor by even more commodious SUVs, vans and people-movers, mass-market station wagons were a post-war phenomenon which was an element in a number of inter-related economic and sociological trends including (1) rising prosperity which made the "two car family" a standard which tricked down from the middle-class, (2) a shift of the population from urban to more remote suburban locations and (3) the development of suburban shopping malls (including supermarkets) with vast car parks.  The style remain popular until the late 1980s though a few lingered on for another decade.  Consistently the best-selling of the full-sized breed were the big Fords, the top-of-the-range being the Country Squire which was available between 1950-1991.  Its most distinctive feature was the “woodgrain” Appliqué which adorned the sides and for most of the Country Squire’s life it was rendered in DI-NOC, (Diurno Nocturna, from the Spanish, literally “daytime-nighttime” and translated for marketing purposes as “beautiful day & night”), an embossed vinyl or polyolefin material with a pressure-sensitive adhesive backing produced since the 1930s and perfected by Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing (3M).  The early cars (1950-1951) actually used genuine timber in a nod to earlier coach-building traditions which were an economic imperative, station wagons (until the suburban developments of the post-war years made them popular) never produced in sufficient volume to make viable tooling factories for production in metal.  Much cheaper, the plastic DI-NOC replaced the timber in 1952 (although the perimeter moldings remained timber until 1953, after which 3M produced a fibreglass emulation) and other manufacturers copied the idea which eventually (and unfortunately) spread beyond station wagons.  It was very much a thing which suited US tastes, Ford’s attempt to tempt UK & Australian buyers brief and unsuccessful.  They never bothered to trouble the Germans or the French.

One-off 1967 Ford Country Squire with Q-Code 428 V8 and four-speed manual transmission.

In the US, Ford for decades churned out the Country Squires by the thousand but there was the odd oddity.  Like most big station wagons, almost all  Country Squires were built for function and although the engines might sometimes be large (in the 1970s they were available with 429 & 460 cubic inch (7.0 & 7.5 litre) V8s), they were configured to carry or tow heavy loads and were thus sold almost always with heavy-duty automatic transmissions.  In 1967 however, there was a one-off Country Squire built with the combination of a 428 cubic inch (7.0 litre) V8 in Q-Code configuration (the “Q” a marker of the engine's specification which included "Cobra Jet" style cylinder heads with larger valves, a four barrel carburetor (typically a 735 CFM (cubic foot per minute) Holley, a higher compression ration and exhaust manifolds with reduced impedance).  The Q-Code 428 was the most powerful offered that year in full-sized Fords (except for 12 Ford XLs with the 427 V8 derived from a unit built for competition).  Such vehicles are usually unicorns, often discussed and sometimes even created as latter-day “tributes” and are thus rarely "real" but the 1967 Country Squire is a genuine one-off and as a type may be unique not only among Fords but also the entire full-size ecosystem of the era.  The tale is sometimes still repeated that Plymouth built a special order Belvedere station wagon at the request of Bill Harrah (1911–1978) of Harrah's Hotel and Casinos in Nevada (now part of Caesars Entertainment) with the 426 cubic inch (7.0 litre) HEMI V8 for the rapid transport of cash across the desert but that is a myth and the coda (that Harrah decided instead to build his own) is just as unverified.  So the 1967 Country Squire is a curious period piece and a collectors’ item; despite its dilapidated appearance, its "one-of-one" status (much-prized in collector circles) meant that in 2020 it sold at auction in the US for almost US$50,000.  When exhibited at the South Carolina’s Hilton Head Island Concours d’Elegance in November 2024, an entry on the car’s placard claimed production of the special order required the personal approval of Lee Iacocca (1924–2019), then vice-president of Ford’s car and truck group.  The one-off wagon received a Palmetto Award in the “Barn Finds” class in which patina is a virtue.

1962 Pontiac Catalina convertible with Riveria "Esquire" Series 300 hard top.

Introduced in 1956 for the 1957 model year, the Ford Fairlane 500 Skyliner revived (at a larger scale), the idea of a retractable, full-sized hard-top, last seen in (limited) series production in Europe during the 1930.  Available for three seasons (the name bulked-up to Fairlane 500 Galaxie Skyliner for its last year), in advertising the feature was called the Hide-Away Hardtop and in operation the all-steel apparatus was a mesmerizing piece of early space-age mechanical choreography, controlled by three drive motors, ten solenoids and many relays & circuit breakers, all connected with a reputed 610 feet (186 m) of electrical cabling.  Despite the intricacy, it proved a reliable system.  After that, no manufacturer attempted a removable hard top on the scale of the big Skyliner but at least one aftermarket supplier thought there might be demand for something large and detachable.  Riveria Inc, based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, between 1963-1964 offered the "Esquire" hard-top for the big (then called full or standard-size) General Motors (GM) convertibles.  Such was GM’s production-line standardization, the entire range of models, spread over five divisions and three years could be covered by just three variations of hard top.  Made from fibreglass with an external texture which emulated leather, weight was a reasonable 80 lb (30 kg) but the sheer size rendered them unmanageable for many and not all had storage for such a bulky item, the growth of the American automobile meaning garages accommodative but a few years earlier were now cramped.    

1962 Chevrolet Impala SS (Super Sport) convertible with Riveria "Esquire" Series 100 hard top.

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

Sherry

Sherry (pronounced sher-ee)

(1) A fortified, amber-colored wine, originally from the Jerez region of southern Spain or any of various similar wines made elsewhere; usually drunk as an apéritif.  Technically, a white wine.

(2) A female given name, a form of Charlotte.

(3) A reddish color in the amber-brown spectrum.

1590-1600: A (mistaken singular) back formation from the earlier sherris (1530s), from the Spanish (vino de) Xeres ((wine from) Xeres).  Xeres is now modern-day Jerez (Roman (urbs) Caesaris) in Spain, near the port of Cadiz, where the wine was made.  The official name is Jerez-Xérès-Sherry, one of Spain's wine regions, a Denominación de Origen Protegida (DOP).  The word sherry is an anglicisation of Xérès (Jerez) and the drink was previously known as sack, from the Spanish saca (extraction) from the solera.  In EU law, sherry has protected designation of origin status, and under Spanish law, to be so labelled, the product must be produced in the "Sherry Triangle", an area in the province of Cádiz between Jerez de la Frontera, Sanlúcar de Barrameda, and El Puerto de Santa María.  In 1933 the Jerez denominación de origen was the first Spanish denominación officially thus recognized, named D.O. Jerez-Xeres-Sherry and sharing the same governing council as D.O. Manzanilla Sanlúcar de Barrameda.  The name "sherry" continues to be used by US producers where, to conform to domestic legislation, it must be labeled with a region of origin such as Oregon Sherry but can’t be sold in the EU (European Union) because of the protected status laws.  Both Canadian and Australian winemakers now use the term Apera instead of Sherry, although customers seem still to favor the original.  Sherry is a noun; the noun plural is sherries.

Sherry Girl (in bold two-copa ‘Sherry Stance’) and the ultimate sherry party.

Held annually since 2014 (pandemics permitting), Sherry Week is a week-long celebration of “gastronomical and cultural events” enjoyed by the “vibrant global Sherry community” which gathers to “showcase the wine’s incredible diversity, from the dry crispness of Fino to the velvety sweetness of Cream.”  Although the multi-venue Sherry Week is now the best known meeting on the Sherry calendar, worldwide, since 2014 some 20,000 events have taken place with the approval of the Consejo Regulador for Jerez-Xérès-Sherry and Manzanilla; to date there have been more than half a million attendees and in 2024 alone there were over 3,000 registered events in 29 countries in cities including London, Madrid, São Paulo, Tokyo, Buenos Aires, Auckland and Shanghai.  Daringly, the publicity for the 2025 gatherings introduced “Sherry Girl” whose “bold two-copa ‘Sherry Stance’” is now an icon for the drink.  Sherry Girl is new but dedicated sherryphiles will be pleased to learn the traditional “Sherry Ruta” (Sherry route) remains on the schedule, again in “multi-venue routes offering exclusive pairing experiences”, described as “not a typical wine crawl but a triumphant strut with tipples, tastings, and tapas.”  For the adventurous, participants are able to use the interactive venue map to curate their own Sherry Ruta in their city of choice.  The 2025 event will be held between 3-9 November. 

Dry Sack, a sherry preferred by many because of its balance; straddling sweet and dry.  Purists tend to the dry finos while sweeter cream sherries are recommended for neophytes.

The name "sherry" continues to be used by US producers where, to conform to domestic legislation, it must be labeled with a region of origin such as Oregon Sherry but can’t be sold in the EU because of their protected status laws.  Both Canadian and Australian winemakers now use the term Apera instead of Sherry, although customers seem still to favor the original.  For the upper-middle class and beyond, sherry parties were a fixture of late-Victorian and Edwardian social life but the dislocations of the World War I (1914-1918) seemed to render them extinct. It turned out however to be a postponement and sherry parties were revived, the height of their popularity being enjoyed during the 1930s until the post-war austerity the UK endured after World War II (1939-1945) saw them a relic restricted moistly to Oxbridge dons, the genuinely still rich, Church of England bishops and such although they never quite vanished and those who subscribe to magazines like Country Life or Tatler probably still exchange invitations to each other's sherry parties.

For Sherry and Cocktail Parties, trade literature by Fortnum and Mason, Regent Street, Piccadilly, London, circa 1936.  The luxury department store, Fortnum & Mason, used the services of the Stuart Advertising Agency, which employed designers to produce witty and informative catalogues and the decorative art is illustrative of British commercial art in this period.

For the women who tended to be hostess and organizer, there were advantages compared with the tamer tea party.  Sherry glasses took less space than cups of tea, with all the associated paraphernalia of spoons, milk and sugar and, it being almost impossible to eat and drink while balancing a cup and saucer and conveying cake to the mouth, the tea party demanded tables and chairs.  The sherry glass and finger-food was easier for while one must sit for tea, one can stand for sherry so twice the number of guests could be asked.  Sherry parties indeed needed to be tightly packed affairs, the mix of social intimacy and alcohol encouraging mingling and they also attracted more men for whom the offer of held little attraction.  The traditional timing between six and eight suited the male lifestyle of the time and they were doubtless more attracted to women drinking sherry than women drinking tea for while the raffish types knew it wasn't quite the "leg-opener" as gin was renowned to be, every little bit helps.

In hair color and related fields, "sherry red" (not to be confused with the brighter "cherry red") is a rich hue on the spectrum from amber to dark brown: Lindsay Lohan (who would be the ideal "Cherry Girl" model) demonstrates on the red carpet at the Liz & Dick premiere, Los Angeles, 2012.

Sherry party planner.

Novelist Laura Troubridge (Lady Troubridge, (née Gurney; 1867-1946)), who in 1935 published what became the standard English work on the topic, Etiquette and Entertaining: to help you on your social way, devoted an entire chapter to the sherry party.  She espoused an informal approach as both cheap and chic, suggesting guests be invited by telephone or with “Sherry, six to eight” written on a visiting card and popped in an envelope.   She recommended no more than two-dozen guests, a half-dozen bottles of sherry, a couple of heavy cut-glass decanters and some plates of “dry and biscuity” eats: cheese straws, oat biscuits, cubes of cheddar.  This, she said, was enough to supply the makings of a “…jolly kind of party, with plenty of cigarettes and talk that will probably last until half past seven or eight.”

Cocktail Party by Laurence Fellows (1885-1964), Esquire magazine, September 1937.

The Sherry party should not be confused with the cocktail party.  Cocktail parties in drawing rooms at which Martinis were served often were much more louche affairs.  Note the elegantly sceptical expressions on the faces of the women, all of whom have become immured to the tricks of “charming men in suits”.  For women, sherry parties were more welcoming places.

Martini

Martini (pronounced mahr-tee-nee)

(1) A surname of Italian origin.

(2) A breech mechanism for a rifle (a clipping of “Martini-Henry”, a lever action, breech-loading single-shot rifle in service with the British Army 1871-1918).

(3) A rifle using similar features.

(4) A cocktail made with a mix of gin (or vodka) & dry vermouth, served usually with a green olive (the twist of lemon a more recent alternative and a dozen or more variations like peppermintini, chocolatini dirty martini and pornstar martini(!) have proliferated).

1885-1890:  Origin disputed; it may be an alteration of Martinez (an earlier alternate name of the drink) but is probably by association with the vermouth manufacturer Martini, Sola & Co. (later Martini & Rossi). Another theory holds it’s a corruption of Martinez, California, town where the drink was said to have originated.  Others claim it was first mixed in New York but then NYC claims lots of things happened there first.  Martini is a noun; the noun plural is martinis.

CCTV image capture, New York City, 24 July 2012.  Noted one-time (and since reformed) martini aficionado Lindsay Lohan enjoys a vodka martini.

By 1922 the martini had assumed its modern, recognizable form: London dry gin and dry vermouth in a ratio 2:1, stirred in a mixing glass with ice cubes, sometimes with addition aromatic bitters, then strained into a chilled cocktail glass.  Green olives were the expected garnish by the onset of World War II (1939-1945) with a twist of lemon peel often seen by the 1950s and from the 1930s, the amount of vermouth tended steadily to drop as the cult of the dry martini prevailed.  Today, a typical dry martini is made with a ration between 6:1 and 12:1.  Some were more extreme, the playwright Noël Coward (1899–1973) suggesting filling a glass with gin, then lifting it in the general direction of the vermouth factories in Italy.  The author Ian Fleming (1908–1964) had James Bond follow Harry Craddock's (1876–1963; long-time barman (now bar attendant) at London's Savoy Hotel) shaken, not stirred directive from The Savoy Cocktail Book (1930) but contemporaries, the author Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) and Franklin Roosevelt (1882–1945; US president 1933-1945), neither a stranger to a Martini, both recommended stirring although chemists observe the concept of “bruising the gin” has no basis in chemistry or any other branch of science.  The vodka martini came later.  It was first noted in the 1950s when known as the kangaroo cocktail, a hint at its disreputable colonial origins but normally reliable sources commend the blueberry vodka martini and purists concede this is the only martini to benefit from using sweet vermouth.  In 1966, the American Standards Association (ASA) released K100.1-1966, "Safety Code and Requirements for Dry Martinis," a humorous account of how to make a "standard" dry martini. The latest revision of this document, K100.1-1974, was published by American National Standards Institute (ANSI).  Flippant they may have been but they’re good guides to the classic method.

Compare & contrast: A classic gin martini (left) and a Stoli blueberry vodka martini (right)

Stoli Blueberry Vodka Martini Recipe

Ingredients

60 ml (2 oz) Stoli Blueberi Vodka
60 ml (2 oz) sweet vermouth
15 ml (½ oz) lemon Juice
3-5 fresh blueberries
Ice Cubes

Instructions

(1) Pour Stioli Blueberi Vodka, sweet vermouth and lemon juice into cocktail shaker and middle blueberries.
(2) Add ice cubes until shaker is two-thirds full.
(3) Shake thoroughly until mixture is icy.
(4) Strain and pour into chilled martini glasses.
(5) Skew blueberries with cocktail pick, garnish martini and serve.
(6) Add a little blueberry juice to lend a bluish tincture (optional).

Cocktail Party by Laurence Fellows (1885-1964), Esquire magazine, September 1937.

Unfairly or not, cocktail parties in drawing rooms at which Martinis were served gain a reputation as sometimes louche affairs.  Note the elegantly sceptical expressions on the faces of the women, all of whom have become immured to the tricks of “charming men in suits”.  For women, sherry parties were more welcoming places.

Martini Racing, the Porsche 917 and the Pink Pig

Porsche 917LH, Le Mans, 1970.

Unlike some teams which maintained a standard livery, Martini Racing sometimes fielded other designs.  One noted departure was the “hippie” or “psychedelic” color scheme applied to the Porsche 917LH (Langheck (Longtail)) which placed second at Le Mans in 1970 and proved so popular that the factory received requests from race organizers requesting it be entered.  Weeks later, across the Atlantic, the organizers of the Watkins Glen Six Hours wanted their own ‘hippie’ 917 but with the car in Stuttgart, Martini Racing took over another team’s car and raced in ‘hippie’ colors to ninth place on one day and sixth the next.

Porsche 917K, 1970.

Subsequently the scheme was reprised in another, even more lurid combination of yellow & red in another psychedelic design, this time to match the corporate colors of Shell, the teams sponsor.  This remains the only surviving psychedelic car, the factory’s Langheck 917 being converted to 1971 specifications and painted in Gulf Oil’s livery for Le Mans.  Like many other used 917s, subsequently it was scrapped by an unsentimental Porsche management.

Pink Pig Porsche 917-20, 1971.

Although it raced only once, the “Pink Pig” (917-20) remains one of the best remembered 917s.  In the never-ending quest to find the optimal compromise between the down-force needed to adhere to the road and a low-drag profile to increase speed, a collaboration between Porsche and France's Société d’Etudes et de Réalisations Automobiles (SERA, the Society for the Study of Automotive Achievement) was formed to explore a design combine the slipperiness of the 917-LH with the stability of the 917-K.  Porsche actually had their internal styling staff work on the concept at the same time, the project being something of a Franco-German contest.  The German work produced something streamlined & futuristic with fully enclosed wheels and a split rear wing but despite the promise, the French design was preferred.  The reasons for this have never been clarified but there may have been concerns the in-house effort was too radical a departure from what had been homologated on the basis of an earlier inspection and that getting such a different shape through scrutineering, claiming it still an “evolution” of the original 917, might have been a stretch.  No such problems confronted the French design; SERA's Monsieur Charles Deutsch (1911-1980) was Le Mans race director.  On the day, the SERA 917 passed inspection without comment.

Der Trüffeljäger von Zuffenhausen (The Trufflehunter from Zuffenhausen), a fibreglass display (some 45 inches (1150 mm) in length) finished in the Pink Pig’s livery.  It includes battery-operated LED (light emitting diode) fixtures within the nostrils, activated by a toggle switch under an access panel on the neck.  Weighing some 50 lb (23 kg), it measures (length x width x height) 45 inches x 20 x 32 (1140 x 510 x 810 mm).  In an on-line auction in 2024, it sold for US$3800.

Pink Pig Porsche 917-20, Le Mans, 1971.

At 87 vs 78 inches (2200 mm vs 2000 mm), the SERA car was much wider than a standard 917K, the additional width shaped to minimize air flow disruption across the wheel openings.  The nose was shorter, as was the tail which used a deeper concave than the “fin” tail the factory had added in 1971.  Whatever the aerodynamic gains, compared to the lean, purposeful 917-K, it looked fat, stubby and vaguely porcine; back in Stuttgart, the Germans, never happy about losing to the French, dubbed it Das Schwein (the pig).  Initially unconvincing in testing, the design responded to a few tweaks, the factory content to enter it in a three hour event where it dominated until sidelined by electrical gremlins.  Returned to the wind tunnel, the results were inconclusive although suggesting it wasn't significantly different from a 917K and suffered from a higher drag than the 917-LH.  It was an indication of what the engineers had long suspected: the 917K's shape was about ideal.

Pink Pig Porsche 917-20, Le Mans, 1971.

For the 1971 Le Mans race, the artist responsible for the psychedelia of 1970 applied the butcher’s chart lines to the body which had been painted pink.  In the practice and qualifying sessions, the Pig ran in pink with the dotted lines but not yet the decals naming the cuts; those (in the Pretoria typeface), being applied just before the race and atop each front fender was a white pig-shaped decal announcing: Trüfel Jäger von Zuffenhausen (the truffel hunter from Zuffenhausen); the Pink Pig had arrived.  Corpulent or not, in practice, it qualified a creditable seventh, two seconds slower than the 917-K that ultimately won and, in the race, ran well, running as high as third but a crash ended things.  Still in the butcher's shop livery, it's now on display in the Porsche museum.

Pink Pig Porsche 917-20, 1971.

Scuttlebutt has always surrounded the Pink Pig.  It's said the decals with the names of the cuts of pork and bacon were applied furtively were applied, just to avoid anyone demanding their removal.  Unlike the two other factory Porsches entered under the Martini banner, the Pink Pig carried no Martini decals, the rumor being the Martini & Rossi board, their aesthetic sensibilities appalled by the porcine lines, refused to associate the brand with the thing.  Finally, although never confirmed by anyone, it's long been assumed the livery was created, not with any sense of levity but as a spiteful swipe at SERA although it may have been something light-hearted, nobody ever having proved Germans have no sense of humor.

A coffee table in Pink Pig livery built on a M28 Porsche V8 engine (introduced in 1977 for use in the new 928 and, much updated, still in production).

Coffee tables in this form are not uncommon as display or promotional pieces and are sometimes advertised as “the gift for the man who has everything”; whether the pink paint will extend the attraction to many women seems improbable but, despite the perceptions, there are women who share the stereotypically male attachment to cars and their components.  Almost all coffee tables built around engine blocks use a glass top so the interesting bits are visible; if there’s thus a flat surface they are as functional as any of the same dimensions.  Some however have some of the mechanical bits protruding, usually just for visual impact although there have been some V8s and V12s where the heads are not installed, the open cylinders used as somewhere to place jars of sauces, dressings and such.  On this table, the intake manifold extends above the table-top through a surface cut-out so it reduces the usable area but the tubular intake rams are there to be admired.  Although all-aluminium, the M28 was built for robustness and was no lightweight: the table weighs some 240 lb (110 kg) and measures (length x width x height) 43 x 20 x 32 inches (1090 x 940 x 432 mm).  In an on-line auction in 2024, it sold for US$5300.

In the pink: 1983 Porsche 928S in  a “rauchquarzmetallic” wrap.  The 928 was the first Porsche to use the M28 V8. 

In production between 1977-1995, with a front-mounted, water-cooled V8, the 928 was a radical departure from the configuration of their previous road cars, all air-cooled flat fours or sixes and mostly with a true rear engine layout (the power-plant installed aft of the rear axle).  By the early 1970s the Porsche management team had come to believe (1) the fundamental limitations and compromises physics imposed on cars with so much weight at the rear extreme meant such engineering was a cul-de-sac, (2) demand for the by then decade-old 911 would continue to decline and (3) US regulators (then much in the mood to regulate) would soon outlaw rear engines and air-cooling, along with convertibles.  As things turned out, the election of Ronald Reagan (1911-2004; US president 1981-1989), a one-time Hollywood film star with fond memories of convertibles and some distaste for “excessive and intrusive regulations” was elected with the (never explicitly stated but well-understood) agenda to make America great again and a new mood prevailed in Washington, convertibles and much else surviving the expected fall of the axe.  The 928 was well-received by the press but like Toyota’s Lexus which never quite managed to achieve the reputation it deserved because it was “not a Mercedes-Benz” (actually perhaps “not what a Mercedes-Benz used to be”), the 928 suffered from being “not a 911”.  Although the 928 joined the list of machines out-lived by those which they were intended to replace, it was a success and in production for some eighteen years although in the twenty-first century depressed values in the after-market meant it became associated with drug dealers and people with maxed-out credit cards (at some points, certain used 928s were the cheapest 160 mph (260 km/h) cars on the market).  The perception has now improved and around the planet there are solid 928 communities although the members have nothing like the devotional feelings of the 911 congregation.

Porsche 917KH, 1971.

Using the 917KH (Kurz (Short)), the factory team in 1970 gained Porsche its first outright victory in the Le Mans twenty-four classic.  In the following year's race, Martini Racing won using a 917KH with a similar specification, running this time in the standard corporate livery.  The refinements to the 917K's aerodynamic properties had tamed whatever idiosyncrasies remained from the fast but unstable original and with still could have been extracted from the enlarged flat-12 but with the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (International Automobile Federation); international sport’s dopiest regulatory body), again changing the rules, the run in 1971 would be the 917’s last official appearance at Le Mans.

Porsche 917-10, 1972.

Although the bloodless bureaucrats at the FIA probably thought they'd killed off the 917, there was still much potential to be exploited and Porsche now devoted the programme to the Can-AM (Canadian-American Challenge Cup), conducted on North American circuits for unlimited displacement sports cars.  Run under Group 7 regulations, what few rules existed mostly were easy simultaneously to conform with while ignoring which is why the Can-Am between 1966-1973 is remembered as one of the golden eras of the sport.  Now turbocharged (as 917-10 & 917-30), in their ultimate form the cars were tuned in qualifying trim for some 1500 horsepower and raced usually with over 1000.  So dominant were the 917s that the previously successful McLaren team (their cars powered by aluminium big-block Chevrolet V8s as large as 509 cubic inches (8.3 litres) withdrew to focus on Formula One and there were doubts about the future of the series but as it turned out, the interplay of geopolitics and economics that was the first oil crisis meant excesses such as unlimited displacement racing was soon sacrificed.

Porsche 917K-81 (Kremer).

However, the 917 was allowed one final fling as an unintended consequence of rule changes for the 1981 sports car season.  It was a sort of revenge on the FIA because although never intended as a loophole through which the now ancient Porsche could pass, for one team the chance again to run the 917 at Le Mans proved irresistible.  The factory had retired the 917 after its win in the 1973 Can-Am, moving to the 936 platform for 1975 and while aware of the implications of the rule changes, weren't tempted by what they regarded a nostalgic cul-de-sac but those at Kremer Racing (founded in Cologne, FRG (Federal Republic of Germany, the old West Germany) by brothers Erwin (1937-2006) and Manfred Kremer (1940-2021)) were intrigued and, with factory support, built a new 917 to Group 6 specifications (enclosed bodywork and a 5.0 litre flat-12), labeling it the 917K-81.  Using Kremer own aluminium spaceframe, at the 1981 Le Mans 24 hour it was fast enough to qualify in the top ten and run with the leaders until a suspension failure forced retirement (the car eventually classified: 38th, DNF (did not finish).  The pace displayed was sufficiently encouraging for the car to be entered in that year's 1000 km event at Brand Hatch where it proved fast but, lacking the factory support, also fragile and it again recorded a DNF.  That was the end of the line for the 917 but, fast and loud, they remain a popular attraction whenever they appear.