Boomerang

Boomerang (pronounced boo-muh-rang)

(1) A bent or curved piece of tough wood used by some of the Indigenous peoples of Australian as a throwing stick (and for other purposes), one form of which can be thrown so as to return to the thrower.  Such throwing sticks have also been found in archaeological digs in other places.

(2) Based on the use Indigenous peoples of Australia, an object in the shape of a flat curved air-foil that spins about an axis perpendicular to the direction of flight, used for various purposes including sport, training and aeronautical purposes.

(3) In design, anything using the boomerang shape (not always symmetrically)

(4) Something which in flight assumes the shape of a boomerang, such as the “boomerang kick” in certain football codes.

(5) In theatre and other stage environments, a mobile platform (mobile and height-adjustable) used for setting or painting scenery.

(6) In theatre and other stage environments, a batten, usually suspended vertically in the wings, used for mounting lighting units.

(7) In theatre and other stage environments, a device for changing the color of a follow-spot(light).

(8) In psychology, as “boomerang effect”, a strong opposing response caused by attempts to restrict a person's freedom or change their attitudes.

(9) In pathology, as “boomerang dysplasia”, a lethal osteochondrodysplasia in which the bones of the arms and legs are congenitally malformed into the shape of a boomerang.

(10) In air force (originally Royal Air Force (RAF)) slang, the early return of an aircraft from an aborted mission, often attributer to mechanical or other technical problems.

(11) A cocktail made with rye whiskey and Swedish punsch.

(12) Figuratively, something or someone which come backs or returns (as the boomerang behaves when correctly thrown) and when applied to people used especially of those who habitually return (often as “serial boomeranger”).

(13) Something (physical and otherwise, such as a scheme, statement or argument) which causes harm to the originator (the idea of a “rebound” or “backfire”).

(14) The action of coming back, returning or backfiring:

1827: From būmariny (missile weapon used by Aborigines), the recorded phonetic form of a word in one of the now extinct languages spoken by the Dharuk people native to an area in New South Wales now known to geographers as the Sydent basin.  A word pronounced as wo-mur-rang was noted in NSW in 1798 which may have been related but there’s no documentary evidence.  Boomerang is a noun & verb; boomeranger is a noun, boomeranged & boomeranging are verbs, the noun plural is boomerangs.

Benson Microfibre Boomerang Pillow. The manufacturers claim the shape is adaptable to all sleeping positions and provides additional support for joints and relieves pressure points.  It’s also ideal for reading, tablet or laptop use in bed.

The verb use in the sense of “throw a boomerang” seems to have come into use in the 1800s while the figurative sense of “fly back or return to a starting point” was in use by the early twentieth century.  A “boomerang baby”, “boomerang child” or boomerang kid” is one who returns to live in the family home after a period of independent living and known collective as the “boomerang generation”, the phenomenon noted in many countries and associated with financial distress, related especially to the cost of housing.

Indigenous Australian boomerangs from the collections of the Australian National Museum: In pigmented wood (left), a hooked, "number 7" by Yanipiyarti Ned Cox (centre) and with carving of horse and cow (right).

For the Indigenous (Aboriginal) peoples of Australia, the boomerang is as old as creation and since white settlement it has become also a symbol of the enduring strength of Aboriginal culture.  Although no written form of language (in the structured sense used elsewhere) evolved among them, an oral tradition now known “the Dreaming” (apparently no longer “Dreamtime”) extends from the past into the present. In the Dreaming, many of the physical formations of the (lakes, rivers, rock structures, mountains etc) were created when Ancestors threw boomerangs and spears into the earth.  Although the boomerang of the popular imagination is the familiar chevron shape, during the nineteenth century almost 300 language groups were identified by anthropologists and the construction of boomerangs varied, the divergences dictated mostly by the prevailing environment: Larger, heavier boomerangs were associated with inland and desert people while the lighter versions were thrown by coastal and high-country inhabitants.  Despite the perceptions, most were of the non-returning variety and were used as hunting weapons for the killing of birds and game including emu, kangaroo and other marsupials.  Not only was the boomerang a direct-impact device but the technique was also noted of a hunter making a boomerang ricochet off the ground to achieve an ideal angle.  The early observers recorded in skilled hands (and over thousands of years those skills would have been well-honed) the boomerang could be effective when hunting prey at a range up to 100 yards (90 m).

Back To Me (Cavalier's Boomerang Club Mix, 2020) by Lindsay Lohan.

Combination tactics were also observed.  When hunting for birds, a returning boomerang might be thrown above a flock of ducks to simulate the effect of a hovering bird of prey, inducing fright which would make the birds fly into nets set up in their flight path or, if within range, a hunter could cast a non-returning boomerang in the hope of a strike.  A special application and one which relied on a design with none of the famous aerodynamic properties was in the harvesting of fish, heavy boomerangs effective killing weapons of in areas of high tidal variation where fish became trapped in rock pools.   They were also Battle-weapons, used both to throw from some distance and in close combat, the types seen including small, hand-held “fighting sticks” device and some even two yards (1.8 m) in length.  Remarkably, the much the same implements served also as digging sticks used to forage for root and could be used to make fire, the familiar idea of “rubbing sticks together”.  Although these practical may have declined in significance as Western technology has been absorbed, boomerangs remain a prominent feature in Aboriginal dance and music.

Since the techniques developed for the shaping of Perspex and other plastics were (more or less) perfected during World War II (1939-1945), they’ve been widely adopted in industrial mass-production, for better and worse.  One thing made possible was boomerang-shaped taillights on cars which for years were about the most avant-garde of their type although of late, designers have been unable to resist the contortions and complexity made possible by the use of LEDs (light emitting diode).  Some critics insist the “boomerang” tag should be applied only to something in the shale of the “classic” boomerang and that anything asymmetric is properly a “hockey stick” but most seem content with the label.

Top row, left to right: 1969 Pontiac Bonneville, 1970 Hillman Avenger and 1967 Plymouth Barracuda.  Those which point "up" probably work better than those pointing "down" because the latter imposes a "droopiness".

Middle row, left to right: 1967 Chrysler Valiant VE Safari (Wagon), 1967 Chrysler Valiant VE Sedan and 1962 Pontiac Bonneville.  Strangely, although the sedan and wagon versions of the VE Valiant both used the boomerang shape, the moldings were different.

Bottom row, left to right: 1958 Edsel Bermuda station wagon, 1960 Chrysler New Yorker and 1975 Mazda RX-5.  The Edsel's tail lights worked as indicators and because the boomerang shape had link with the detailing on the rear quarter panels, when flashing, they actually "point" in the direction opposite to which the car is turning.  It was a harbinger of the Edsel's fate.

Louis Vuitton’s Fall 2014 campaign shoot with 1972 Maserati Boomerang, Giardini della Biennale, Venice.

The photo-shoot for Louis Vuitton’s Fall 2014 campaign at Venice’s Giardini della Biennale featured the 1972 Maserati Boomerang concept car.  Coordinated by Nicolas Ghesquière (b 1971; LV's women's creative director since 2013) and shot by German photographer Juergen Teller (b 1964), it was a rare appearance of the Boomerang which, designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro (b 1938), had first appeared at the Turin Motor Show as a static mock-up in Epowood (a versatile epoxy used for forming shapes) before being engineered as a fully-finished and working vehicle, built on the underpinnings of a Maserati Bora (1971-1978).  In that configuration it was displayed at the 1972 Geneva show where it was understood as one of the “high-speed wedges” of an era which included the original Lancia Stratos, the Lotus Esprit and, most influentially of all, the Lamborghini Countach, the cluster defining the template around which exotic machines would for decades be built, the design motif still apparent in today’s hypercars.  Eye-catching from the outside, the interior also fascinated with a steering wheel and gauge cluster built as a single console emerging from a distant dashboard, the wheel rotating as the gauges remained stationary.

1972 Maserati Boomerang by Giorgetto Giugiaro.

It was Italdesign, founded by Giorgetto Giugiaro which designed the Maserati 3200 GT (Tipo 338; 1998-2002), a car which, although not exciting in a way many of the marque’s earlier models had been, was an important element in the establishing Maserati’s twenty-first century reputation for functionalism and quality.  Importantly, although in production for only four of the transitional years during which ownership of the brand passed from Fiat to Ferrari and the solid underpinnings would be the basis for the succeeding Coupé and Spyder (4200 GT, Tipo M138; 2001-2007).

Maserati 3200 GT (left) and 1973 Dino 246 GTS (C&F) by Ferrari.  Round lights are better than other shapes.

It was on the 3200 GT that Italdesign used tail-lights in the shape of a boomerang, much comment upon at the time but also a landmark in that they were the first production car to be sold with taillights which were an assembly of LEDs, the outer layer the brake lights, the inner the directional indicators (flashers).  Following the contours of the bodywork and integrated with the truck (boot) lid, they were the most memorable feature on what was otherwise an inoffensive but bland execution which could have come from any factory in the Far East.  They generated much publicity but it’s hard to argue they’re better looking than the classic four round lenses known from many of the best Italians.  Like architects, designers seem often drawn to something new and ugly rather than old yet timeless, the former more likely to attract the awards those in these professions award one-another.

Northrop YB-49 in flight, California, 1952.

The aerodynamic properties of the “flying wing” have long intrigued aircraft designers.  The USAF (United State Air Force) even contemplated putting into production on of Northrop’s design but in the mid-1940s, needing a delivery system for its nuclear bombs which was a known, reliable quantity, opted instead for the Convair B-36 which they acknowledged was obsolescent but would provide a serviceable stop-gap until wings of the upcoming Boeing B-52 could be formed.  That doubtlessly was the correct decision and in the decades since, neither a military or civilian case has been made for the “flying wings”, the machines which have entered service really variations on the proven delta-wing concept but the big Northrop YB-49 & XB-35 possessed an undeniable beauty and it’s a shame all were scraped by 1953.  The air force personnel actually preferred to call them “bat bombers”.

Greenhouse

Greenhouse (pronounced green-hous)

(1) A structure usually with a skeletal frame supporting panes of glass, Perspex or other translucent materials in which conditions such as temperature, humidity and irrigation are maintained within a desired range, used for cultivating delicate plants or growing plants out of season.

(2) In UK military slang, the clear material of an aircraft’s cockpit (now rare).

(3) In automotive design, the glass (and Perspex) between the beltline and roofline (also called the "glasshouse").

(4) In surgical medicine, a structure shielding an operating table and designed to protect from the transmission of bacteria.

(5) In climatology, as “greenhouse effect”, a description of the general global consequences of the increasing atmospheric concentrations of “greenhouse gases”, notably carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄) et al).

(6) In climatology, a hot state in the global climate.

(7) To place (plants) in a greenhouse and (figuratively), to nurture something in some way to promote growth or development.

1655–1665: From the late Middle English greenhouse (house for growing greens), the reference to the vegetables grown (the produce of various colors but much of the foliage was green during the growing process).  The construct was green + house and the form green-house, while now less common, still runs in parallel.  Green was from the Middle English grene, from the Old English grēne, from the Proto-West Germanic grōnī, from the Proto-Germanic grōniz, from the primitive Indo-European ghreh (to grow).  The related forms include the North Frisian green, the West Frisian grien, the Dutch groen, the Low German grön, green & greun, the German grün, the Danish & Norwegian Nynorsk grøn, the Swedish grön, the Norwegian Bokmål grønn and the Icelandic grænn.  The noun use to refer to the color developed from the earlier references to vegetables and having “grened”.  House was from the Middle English hous & hus, from the Old English hūs (dwelling, shelter, house), from the Proto-West Germanic hūs, from the Proto-Germanic hūsą (and comparable with the Scots hoose, the West Frisian hûs, the Dutch huis, the German Haus, the German Low German Huus, the Danish hus, the Faroese hús, the Icelandic hús, the Norwegian Bokmål hus, the Norwegian Nynorsk hus & Swedish hus).  The Germanic forms may have been from the primitive Indo-European skews & kews-, from skewh & kewh- (to cover, to hide).  The word supplanted the non-native Middle English meson & measoun (house), from the Old French maison (house).  The now rare (and effectively probable extinct) plural housen was from the Middle English husen & housen.  In the Old English the nominative plural was hūs.  Greenhouse is a noun & verb and greenhousing & greenhoused are verbs; the noun plural is greenhouses.

Greenhouse: The Orchid House, Kew Gardens.

As structures used to create artificial, environments, optimized for the cultivation of plants, greenhouse has several synonyms.  The earlier noun conservatory dates from the 1560s in the sense of “a preservative”, a development of the adjectival use (having the quality of preserving), from the Latin conservator (keeper, preserver, defender), an agent noun from conservare.  The meaning “a place for preserving or carefully keeping anything” emerged in the 1610s and when used for the growing of flowers & vegetables, such structures came in the 1650s be called greenhouses.  In English, the formal use in musical education as “a school of music; a place for the performing arts” dates from 1805, from the Italian conservatorio or the French conservatoire (places of public instruction and training in some branch of science or the arts, especially music), from the Medieval Latin conservatorium.  The first places so described were Italian and the word came into use in France after the Revolution (1789); the Italian word was used in English after 1771.  Among gardeners and horticulturalists, by the mid-nineteenth century earthier terms such as “planthouse” and “hothouse” were in use, even in places of serious scientific study such as London’s Kew Gardens (the Royal Botanic Gardens) which, for practical reasons, adopted for various greenhouses pragmatic descriptions such as “Palm House”, “Orchid House” et al.

Lindsay Lohan with a pair of ratchet loppers, pruning cuttings for the potting shed, May 2015.

A twentieth century coining was the “poly house”, an allusion to the use of thick, translucent polythene which in the 1930s, supplied at low cost in rolls by the US petrochemical industry, was instant popular, enabling greenhouses to be built quickly and cheaply.  The related “poly tunnel” & “poly-tube” described the use of the same material to produce even smaller micro-environments with the fabrication of long, “roofs” (semi-circular with the appearance of a tube although without a base) which covered the rows of plants; depending on the crop, such structures could be only a few inches high.  There was also the “potting shed” which was different in that it wasn’t a place with any form of climate control and simply a place a gardener (professional or amateur) could work with their tools, pots etc falling conveniently to hand.  “Potting shed” however has been a “loaded” euphemism and metonym since the publication of DH Lawrence’s (1885–1930) Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928) which wasn’t generally available in the UK until 1961 when R v Penguin Books was decided.  That was a test case of recent legislative amendments in which a jury found the novel satisfied the new provision that the work was “in the interests of science, literature, art or learning, or of other objects of general concern”.  According to some (and they still exist in the Conservative Party), society has since been in decline.  In the novel, more was fertilized in the potting shed than the plants.

August 1912: By the time reports about global warming appeared in the popular press, understandings of the basics of human-induced climate change had been understood for almost a century.

Most reputable sources define the greenhouse effect (on Earth and other heavenly bodies) as something like: “The radiative effect of all infrared absorbing constituents in the atmosphere”.  The operation of the greenhouse effect is not unique to the Earth of the post-industrial revolution but what makes it historically unusual is (1) the rapidity of the increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHGs) and (2) that so much of the increase is due to human activity (mostly the burning of fossil fuels).  In the early nineteenth century, French scientists had published papers describing what would later come to be known as the greenhouse effect, deconstructing the consequences of differing compositions in the Earth’s atmosphere and it was a Swedish meteorologist who first applied the term “greenhouse”, an example of the use of a term the general population would find more accessible than the sometime arcane language of science.  The term “greenhouse seems first to have appeared in print in 1937 but for decades, perception of the phenomenon as a problem was restricted to a handful of specialists and even in the scientific community there were many who viewed it as something benign or even beneficial, there being an awareness a rising temperature would make more of the planet habitable and the increasing volume of CO₂ would encourage plant growth, thus benefiting agriculture.  At the time, climate science was in its infancy, satellites and the big computers needed to model the climate system were decades away and the data on which to develop theories simply didn’t exist.  Additionally, it wasn’t until well into the second half of the century those emissions began radically to increase, the assumptions long that any possible problems probably wouldn’t emerge for centuries.

A chilly looking Greta Thunberg (b 2003), during School Strike for Change, protesting against global warming outside the Swedish Parliament, November 2018.  On 3 January 2024, the world's most famous weather forecaster turned 21.

So “greenhouse effect” never really worked as a term successfully to convey the degree of seriousness the issue deserved.  Accordingly, academics, the activist communities and sympathetic journalists began in the late 1970s to use other words but “global warming” although accurate, really wasn’t much of an improvement because “warm” is a generally “positive” word, used to covey the idea of “kindness, friendliness or affection” and while many people probably thought their climate was already hot enough, more (especially those in the “global north”) would probably have welcomed generally warmer weather.  So that didn’t gain the necessary traction and by the early 1990s, “climate change” began to be used interchangeably with “global warming”, the old “greenhouse effect” by now abandoned.  The scientific rationale for this was that in the narrow technical sense, global warming describes only increased surface warming, while climate change describes the totality of changes to Earth's climate system.  However, until well into the twenty-first century, for most of the population in the First World, what in retrospect have come to be understood as manifestations of climate change, things were hardly obvious.  By the 2020s, the linguistic implications in messaging seemed finally understood and “climate crisis”, “climate emergency” and “climate catastrophe” became the preferred terms and while the “climate change deniers” seem now less numerous (at least some perhaps having perished from heat stroke or drowned in one of the “once in 500 year floods” which seem now frequent).  In the political discourse, "climate crisis" and "global heating" seem now the popular forms. 

The Automotive Greenhouse

1970 Series 2 Fiat 124 Coupé (left) and 2022 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE (right).

The Fiat and Chevrolet represent two approaches to the coupé greenhouse (styled also as the "glasshouse") and both attracted some comment from critics, the Fiat because it was judged around an inch (25 mm) too high to achieve aesthetic success and the Chevrolet because it was too low (the estimates of by how much varied).  The Italian car however was much admired and enjoyed strong demand for most of its life (1967-1975 and given what followed the end of production was probably premature), and at least some of the success was attributable to the comfortable cabin with its generous headspace and the greenhouse which provided outstanding visibility in all directions, am important aspect of what was coming to be understood as “passive safety” (as opposed to “active safety” elements such as seat-belts or crumple-zones).  The low roof-line on the Chevrolet was thought by some to give the car a “cartoonish” quality although it’s a subjective judgment whether that detracted from the look and certainly it lent the thing a low-slung, sporty appearance which was after all presumably what most appealed to the target market.  The practical drawback was the abbreviated greenhouse meant a dark cabin and some compromise in the ease of ingress & egress although descriptions suggesting the space was “claustrophobic” or “oppressive” seem hyperbolic.  As a retro take on the original Camaro (1967-1969), the fifth (2010-2015) & sixth (2016-2024) generation models were well executed although greenhouse and other details unsettled some.  Ms Thunberg approves of neither although, depending on how one deconstructs the numbers, it's debatable which contributes more to the climate crisis.

Standard and Spezial coachwork on the Mercedes-Benz 300d (W189, 1957-1962).  The "standard" four-door hardtop was available throughout the run while the four-door Cabriolet D was offered (off and on) between 1958-1962 and the Spezials (landaulets, high-roofs et al), most of which were for state or diplomatic use, were made on a separate assembly line in 1960-1961.  The standard greenhouse cars are to the left, those with the high roof-line to the right.

The 300d (W189, 1957-1962) was a revised version of the W186 (300, 300b & 300c; 1951-1957) which came to be referred to as the "Adenauer" because several were used as state cars by Konrad Adenauer (1876–1967; chancellor of the FRG (West Germany) 1949-1963).  Although the coachwork never exactly embraced the lines of mid-century modernism, the integration of the lines of the 1950s with the pre-war motifs appealed to the target market (commerce, diplomacy and the old & rich) and on the platform the factory built various Spezials including long wheelbase "pullmans", landaulets, high-roof limousines and four-door cabriolets (Cabriolet D in the Daimler-Benz system).  The high roofline appeared sometimes on both the closed & open cars and even then, years before the assassination of John Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; US president 1961-1963), the greenhouse sometimes featured “bullet-proof” glass.  As well as Chancellor Adenauer, the 300d is remembered also as the Popemobile (although not then labelled as such) of John XXIII (1881-1963; pope 1958-1963).

Two from the Daimler-Benz Spezial line: The 1965 Papal Mercedes-Benz 600 (W100) Landaulet (left) built for Pope Paul VI (1897-1978; pope 1963-1978) (left) and the one-off short wheelbase (SWB) 600 Landaulet (right) built for racing driver Graf von Berckheim (Count Graf Philipp-Constantin Eduard Siegmund Clemens Tassilo Tobias von Berckheim, 1924-1984).

The Papal 600 used the higher roof-line which was a feature of some of the Spezial Pullmans & Pullman Landaulets.  The attractions of the high-roof coachwork was (1) greater headroom which afforded more convenient ingress & egress (a practical matter given the cars were sometime parade vehicles used by royalty and military dictators, both classes given to wearing crowns or big hats) and (2) the extended greenhouse made it easier for crowds to see the occupants.  Count von Berckheim's car used the standard roof-line and was the only SWB Landaulet, the other 59 all built on the LWB Pullman platform.

Diagonal

Diagonal (pronounced dahy-ag-uh-nl or di-ag-nl (both uses U & non-U)

(1) In mathematics, connecting two nonadjacent angles or vertices of a polygon or polyhedron, as a straight line.

(2) In mathematics, a set of entries in a square matrix running either from upper left to lower right (main diagonal, or principal diagonal ) or lower left to upper right (secondary diagonal ).

(3) In number theory, as the broken diagonal, in the theory of magic squares, a set of n cells forming two parallel diagonal lines in the square.

(4) In linear algebra, as diagonal matrix, a matrix in which the entries outside the main diagonal are all zero.

(5) In geometry, extending from one edge of a solid figure to an opposite edge, as a plane (joining two nonadjacent vertices).

(6) In category theory, as diagonal morphism, a morphism from an object to the product of that object with itself, which morphism is induced by a pair of identity morphisms of the said object.

(7) Something with or assuming an oblique direction; having slanted or oblique lines or markings; having a slanted or oblique direction.

(8) In typography, a virgule (a slash), known also as a solidus (used in computing file systems variously as forward slash & back slash or slash & slosh (the generalized term the diagonal mark).

(9) In design, any line or pattern using diagonals; something put, set, or drawn obliquely.

(10) In fabrics, a cloth marked or woven with slanting lines or patterns

(11) In manège, of a horse at a trot, the state in which the foreleg and the hind leg, diagonally opposite, which move forward simultaneously.

(12) In zoological anatomy, of or related to the cater-corner (diagonally opposite) legs of a quadruped, whether the front left and back right or front right and back left.

(13) In chess, one of the oblique lines of squares on a chessboard (the mode in which a bishop may be moved).

1400s: From the Middle French diagonal From the Latin diagōnālis, the construct being the Ancient Greek διαγώνιος (diagṓn(ios)) (from angle to angle) + the Latin -ālis (the third-declension two-termination suffix (neuter -āle) used to form adjectives of relationship from nouns or numerals).  The construct of the Greek diagōnios, was dia- + γωνία (gōnía) (angle; corner), from the primitive Indo-European root genu- (knee; angle).  The dia- prefix was from the Ancient Greek prefix δια- (dia-), from διά (diá) (through, across, by, over) and was most productive, the familiar forms including diadem, diacritical, diagnosis, diagram, diameter, dialect, dialogue & diatribe.  The adjective diagonal (implied in diagonally) (extending as a line from one angle to another not adjacent) dates from the early fifteenth century and was from the Old French diagonal, from the Latin diagonalis, from diagonus (slanting line), from the Ancient Greek diagōnios.  It emerged as a noun in the 1570s in the sense of “a straight line drawn from one angle to or through another not adjacent, in a plane or solid figure".  The specific technical meaning in chess describes "a line of squares running diagonally across a board" and is the mode in which a bishop may move).  Diagonal is a noun & adjective, diagonality is a noun and diagonally is an adverb; the noun plural is diagonals.

Defying the tyranny of the horizontal line: Lindsay Lohan’s hand-written notes made during one of her court appearances in Los Angeles, July 2010.  Even on the Reddit subs where exist the planet’s most unforgiving critics, most were so taken with the neatness of the lettering, the diagonality attracted barely a comment.

A diagonal measurement is defined usually by describing a line between the bottom left and the upper right corners (or vice versa) of a square or rectangle.  It has a nuanced value when used of computer monitors, televisions and such because it has to be read in conjunction with the aspect ratio of the device.  A 19 inch (monitor sizes usually expressed in inches although the French will always include a metric conversion) monitor in a 16:9 aspect will be very different from a 19 inch 4:3 device.  In computing, what began in typography, as diagonal marks (the virgule (often called a slash of solidus (/) and the later “back slash (\)) are used in computing file systems to separate directories & sub-directories (now familiar as folders) from file names.  Under MS/PC-DOS, OS/2 & Windows, a file called myfile.txt to a sub-directory called text in a directory called user on D: drive would be displayed in the path D:\user\text\myfile.txt (although under DOS it would be in upper case).  The Windows crowd call these diagonal marks “back slashes” and the solidus they call “forward slashes” and they’re used for other purposes.  The Unix crew think this childish and insist a solidus is a “slash” and there’s no such thing as a back-slash which real people call a slosh.

Notable moments in diagonal (canted) headlamps

The one-off, 1938 Jaguar SS100 fixed head coupé (FHC) “Grey Lady” which demonstrates the traditional placement when four lights were used.

The inclination designers for decades felt to use a diagonal arrangement for headlights began innocently enough in the pre-war years when it emulated the usual practice of placing a pair of driving lamps or for lights inboard of the main headlamps and lower down, mounted typically on the bumper bar or its supporting brackets.  Most headlamps until the late 1930s were in separate housings, as were the auxiliary devices and even cars which integrated them into the coachwork adopted the same geometry.  This was due in part to the evolutionary nature of automobile styling which has often tried to avoid the “shock of the new” and in part to regulations, especially those which applied in the US.

Jaguar S-Type (1963-1968, left), Vanden Plas Princess R (1964-1968, centre) and Volvo 164 (1968-1975, right).

Although most would regard the technique which essentially integrated the driving lamps/fog lamps into the coachwork as just a variation on the diagonal theme, professional designers insist not; they say this is just wrapping enveloping bodywork around an existing device.  Also, the professionals prefer the term “canted headlamps” because “diagonal” has a more precise definition in mathematics.

Rover 3.5 Coupé (P5B 1967-1973, left) and Packard Coupe (1958) (right)

While the US manufacturers usually re-tooled in 1957-1958 after regulations had been changed to allow quad head-lamps, the British were often fiscally challenged and needed to continue to use existing sheet metal.  A design like the Vanden Plas Princess R (and the companion Wolseley 6/99 & 6/110 (1959-1968)) has sufficient space to allow the diagonal placement but the Rover P5 (1958-1967) with its wider grill precluded the approach so the expedient solution was to go vertical.  Although obviously just “bolted on”, such was the appeal of the P5B it just added to the charm.  It could have been much worse because less charming was the 1958 Packard Coupe, produced by Studebaker-Packard, the company an ultimately doomed marriage of corporate convenience which seemed at the time a good idea but proved anything but. Studebaker-Packard lacked the funds to re-tool to take advantage of the rules allowing four head-lamps but without the feature their cars would have looked even more hopelessly outdated than they anyway did so cheap fibreglass “pods” were produced which looked as “tacked on” as they were.  They were the last Packards made and Studebaker’s demise followed within a decade.

1963 Zunder

The Zunder ("spark" in German) was produced in Argentina between 1960-1963 and used the power-train from the Porsche 356.  The body was fashioned in fibreglass and was one of the many interesting products of the post war industry in Brazil and Argentina, the history of which is much neglected.  By the standards of time, it was well-built but as a niche product, was never able to achieve the critical mass necessary to ensure the company’s survival and production ceased in 1963 after some 200 had been built.

Buick Electra 225 (First generation 1959–1960, left) and (Lincoln) Continental Mark III (1958-1960, right).  The Buick adopted horizontal headlamps in 1960.

In the late 1950s, most US manufacturers did have cash to spend and the industry spirit at the time was never to do in moderation what could be done in excess although by comparison with the Lincoln, the Buick verged on the restrained.  Tellingly, the Buick sold well while the Continental was such a disaster Ford considered sending Lincoln to join Edsel on the corporate scrapheap and the nameplate was saved only because it was possible at low cost to re-purpose a prototype Ford Thunderbird as the new Continental.  Rarely has any replacement been such a transformation and the 1961 Continental would influence the design of full-sized American cars for twenty years.  It used horizontally mounted head-lamps.

1961 Chrysler 300 G.

Chrysler’s “Letter Series 300” (1955-1965) coupes and convertibles were the brightest glint in the golden age in which Detroit’s power race was played out in the big cars, an era which would be ended by the introduction of the intermediates and pony cars in the 1960s.  The 300G (1961) was visually little changed from the previous year’s 300F but the simple change to diagonal headlamps was transformative.  There were those who didn’t like the look but generally it was well received and as a first impression, the feeling might have been Chrysler had mastered the motif in a way the Continental Mark III proved Ford just didn’t get it.

1961 DeSoto Adventurer (left), 1962 Dodge Dart (centre) and 1963 Dodge Polara (right).

However, Chrysler’s designers in the early 1960s may have decided they liked diagonal headlamps which was good but seemingly they liked them so much they though the buyers should be offered as many permutations of the idea as could be made to work on a production line.  What’s remarkable is not that the public didn’t take to the approach but that it took the corporation so long to admit the mistake and try something more conventional.  Just to hedge their bets, while Dodge, Plymouth and DeSoto all had headlamps mounted at an obvious degree of cant, on the Chryslers the effect was so subtle one really needed to hold a spirit level to the front end to confirm there was an slant, albeit one imperceptible to the naked eye.  The one division which never were the diagonal way was the Imperial but it’s headlamp treatment was more bizarre still.

1961 DeSoto styling proposal (September 1958) for the 1961 range.

For DeSoto, things could have looked worse even than they did, some of the implementations of the diagonal motif which went as far as clay models or actual metal prototypes so bizarre one wonders what external influences were being studied (or inhaled).  As it turned out, 1961 would be the end of the line for DeSoto, a nameplate which had been successful as recently as the mid 1950s.  Its demise was little to do with diagonal head-lamps (though they didn’t help) but a product of Chrysler’s other divisions expanding their ranges up and down, encroaching on a market segment DeSoto once found so lucrative.  The phenomenon was a harbinger of the eventual fate of marques like Mercury, Pontiac, Oldsmobile and Plymouth.

Clockwise from top left: Fiat 8V (1952-1954), Gordon-Keeble GK-1 (1961-1967), Jensen C-V8 (1962-1966) and Triumph Vitesse (1962-1971).

Perhaps surprisingly, the French majors were never enamored, presumably because Citroën and Renault didn’t like to be imitative and Peugeot were too conservative.  Some of the Europeans did dabble with the idea, embracing it as an expression of modernity although the then radical treatment of the head-lamps sometimes struck a discordant note when they were grafted onto something where the rest of the platform was so obviously from one or two generations past.  Fiat’s exquisite 8Vs didn’t all get the diagonal look but those which did remain the most memorable of the few of the breed built.  An unqualified aesthetic success was the Gordon-Keeble built to aviation standards and powered by a Chevrolet V8.  It deserved to succeed but floundered as much of the British industry did in the era because of a lack of capitalization and an accounting operation which didn’t match the quality of the Engineering.  More successful was the Jensen C-V8 but while the distinctive front end now makes it much prized by collectors, at the time it was less admired and its very presence served only to emphasize how antiquated the rest of the styling had become.  For its replacement, Jensen tuned to an Italian styling house and the Interceptor, introduced in 1966 and remembered for the vast expanse or rear glass, is now thought a classic of the era.  The one which sold best was the Triumph Vitesse, one of a number of variations built on the robust and versatile separate chassis of the Herald (1959-1971) including the Spitfire and GT6.  Somewhat the BMW M3 of its day, the Vitesse’s front end actually lived on in India (though without the lusty six cylinder engines) but curiously, the inner headlights weren’t fitted.

Gilding the lily: The Lancia Fulvia coupé (1965-1976) before & after.

The lovely, delicate lines of the Lancia Fulvia were perfect and really couldn’t be improved.  The unfortunate facelift with the canted lights was no improvement.

Unique

Unique (pronounced yoo-neek)

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Triumph Stag and its unique, ghastly engine

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

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

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

The Triumph 3.0 V8.

Engine schematic. 

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

Stagnant.  Blockages and corrosion by chemical reaction.

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

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

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

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

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

Stag engine bay.

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

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

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

Michelotti show car, 1966.

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

Michelotti pre-production styling sketch, 1967.

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

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

Daimler 2.5 V8.

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

1961 Jaguar Mark X.

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

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

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

1954 prototype Jaguar 9 litre military V8.

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

Jaguar V12 in 1973 XJ12.

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

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

The six was essentially an enlarged version of the earlier four.   Released also in 1.6 & 2.0 capacities and used in the 2000/2500, Vitesse, GT6 & TR5/6, the fuel-injection was adopted only for the some of the non-US market sports cars and the short-lived 2.5 PI saloon.  Because of the reliance on the US market, TVR, which used the engine in the 2500M, in all markets, offered only the twin-carburetor version certified for US sale in the TR-250).

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

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

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

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

Triumph Stag.

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

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

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

1973 Stag.

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

1974 Stag interior (manual o/d).

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

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

End of the line: 1978 Triumph Stag.

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