Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Hardtop, Hard Top & Hard-top. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Hardtop, Hard Top & Hard-top. Sort by date Show all posts

Friday, April 28, 2023

Hardtop, Hard Top & Hard-top

Hardtop & Hard Top or Hard-Top ( pronounced hahrd-top)

(1) In automotive design, as hardtop, a design in which no centre post (B-pillar) is used between the front and rear windows.

(2) As "hard top" or "hard top", a rigid, removable or retractable roof used on convertible cars (as distinct from the historically more common folding, soft-top).

(3) Mid twentieth-century US slang for an indoor cinema with a roof (as opposed to a drive-in).

1947-1949: A compound of US origin, hard + top.  Hard was from the Middle English hard, from the Old English heard, from the Proto-West Germanic hard(ī), from the Proto-Germanic harduz, from the primitive Indo-European kort-ús, from kret- (strong, powerful).  It was cognate with the German hart, the Swedish hård, the Ancient Greek κρατύς (kratús), the Sanskrit क्रतु (krátu) and the Avestan xratu.  Top was from the Middle English top & toppe, from the Old English top (top, highest part; summit; crest; tassel, tuft; (spinning) top, ball; a tuft or ball at the highest point of anything), from the Proto-Germanic tuppaz (braid, pigtail, end), from the primitive Indo-European dumb- (tail, rod, staff, penis).  It was cognate with the Scots tap (top), the North Frisian top, tap & tup (top), the Saterland Frisian Top (top), the West Frisian top (top), the Dutch top (top, summit, peak), the Low German Topp (top), the German Zopf (braid, pigtail, plait, top), the Swedish topp (top, peak, summit, tip) and the Icelandic toppur (top).

1970 Imperial LeBaron four-door hardtop.

Although the origins of the body-style can be traced to the early twentieth century, the hardtop, a two or four-door car without a central (B-pillar) post, became a recognizable model type in the late 1940s and, although never the biggest seller, was popular in the United States until the mid 1970s when down-sizing and safety legislation led to their extinction, the last being the full sized Chrysler lines of 1978.  European manufacturers too were drawn to the style and produced many coupes but only Mercedes-Benz and Facel Vega made four-door hardtops in any number, the former long maintaining several lines of hardtop coupés.

1965 Lincoln Continental four-door sedan (with centre (B) pillar).

The convention of use is that the fixed roofed vehicles without the centre (B)-pillars are called a hardtop whereas a removable or retractable roof for a convertible is either a hard top or, somewhat less commonly a hard-top.  The folding fabric roof is either a soft top or soft-top, both common forms; the word softtop probably doesn't exist although it has been used by manufacturers of this and that to describe various "tops" made of stuff not wholly solid.  In the mid-1990s, the decades-old idea of the folding metal roof was revived as an alternative to fabric.  The engineering was sound but some manufacturers have reverted to fabric, the advantages of solid materials outweighed by the drawbacks of weight, cost and complexity.  A solid, folding top is usually called a retractable roof or folding hardtop.

1957 Ford Fairlane Skyliner.

Designers had toyed with the idea of the solid retractable roof early in the twentieth century, and patents were applied for in the 1920s but the applications were allowed to lapse and it wouldn't be until 1932 one was granted in France, the first commercial release by Peugeot in 1934.  Other limited-production cars followed but it wasn't until 1957 one was sold in any volume, Ford's Fairlane Skyliner, using a system Ford developed for the Continental Mark II (but never used) was an expensive top-of-the range model for two years.  It was expensive for a reason: the complexity of the electric system which raised and lowered the roof.  A marvel of what was still substantially the pre-electronic age, it used an array of motors, relays and switches, all connected with literally hundreds of feet of electrical cables in nine different colors.  Despite that, the system was reliable and could, if need be, be fixed by any competent auto-electrician who had the wiring schematic.  In its two-year run, nearly fifty-thousand were built.  The possibilities of nomenclature are interesting too.  With the hard top in place, the Skyliner becomes also a hardtop because there's no B pillar so it's a "hardtop" with a "hard top", something only word-nerds note. 

2005 Mercedes-Benz AMG SLK55.

After 1960, the concept was neglected, re-visited only by a handful of low-volume specialists or small production runs for the Japanese domestic market.  The car which more than any other turned the retractable roof into a mainstream product was the 1996 Mercedes-Benz SLK which began as a show car, the favorable response encouraging production.  Successful, over three generations, it was in the lineup for almost twenty-five years.

Roof-mounted hardtop hoist: Mercedes-Benz 560 SL (R107).

The Fairlane Skyliner's top was notable for another reason: size and weight.  On small roadsters, even when made from steel, taking off and putting on a hard top could usually be done by someone of reasonable strength, the task made easier still if the thing instead was made from aluminum or fibreglass.  If large and heavy, it became impossible for one and difficult even for two; some of even the smaller hard tops (such as the Triumph Stag and the R107 Mercedes SL roadster) were famous heavyweights.  Many owners used trolley or ceiling-mounted hoists, some even electric but not all had the space, either for the hardware or the detached roof.

1962 Pontiac Catalina with Riveria Series 300 hard top.

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, offered them between 1963-1964 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 only a few years early were now cramped.    

1962 Chevrolet Impala Super Sport with Riveria 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.

1961 Lincoln Continental four-door hardtop (pre-production or prototype).

One of the anomalies in the history of the four-door hardtops was that Lincoln, in its classic 1960s Continental, offered a two-door hardtop, a four-door pillared sedan and, by then uniquely, a four-door convertible but, no four-door hardtop.  That seemed curious because the structural engineering required to produce a four door hardtop already existed in the convertible coachwork and both Ford & Mercury had several in their ranges, as did all other comparable manufacturers.  A four-door hard top was planned, the factory’s records indicate a handful were built (which were either prototypes or pre-productions vehicles) and photographs survive, as does the odd reference to the model in some later service bulletins but there’s no evidence any ever reached public hands.  Collectors chase rarities like this but they’ve not been seen in sixty years so it’s presumed they were scrapped once the decision was taken not to enter production.

1966 Lincoln Continental two-door hardtop.

The consensus among Lincoln gurus is the rationale for decision being wholly because of cost.  While the Edsel failure of the late 1950s is well storied, it’s often forgotten that nor were the Lincolns of that era a success and, with the Ford Motor Company suddenly being run by the MBA-type “wizz kids”, the Lincoln brand too was considered for the axe.  It did come close to that, Lincoln given one last chance at redemption, using what was actually a prototype Ford Thunderbird; that was the car which emerged as the memorable 1961 Lincoln.  But there was no certainty of success so it seems the decision was taken to restrict the range to the pillared sedan and the four-door convertible, a breakdown on the production costs of the prototype four-door hardtops proving they would be much more expensive to produce, the added inputs both of labour and materials dooming the project.  To attract attention, Lincoln anyway had something beyond the merely exclusive, they had the unique four-door convertible.

1967 Lincoln Continental four-door convertible.

It did work, sales volumes after a slow start in 1961 growing to a level Lincoln had not enjoyed in years, comfortably out-selling Imperial even if never a challenge to Cadillac.  Never a big seller, achieving not even four-thousand units in its best year, the four-door convertible was discontinued after 1967, the two-door hardtop introduced the year before out-selling it by five to one.  The market had spoken; it would be the last convertible Lincoln ever produced.

Deconstructing the oxymoronic  "pillared hardtop"

1970 Ford LTD four-door hardtop (left) and Ford's press release announcing the 1974 "pillared hardtop", September 1973. 

So it would seem settled a hard-top is a convertible’s removable roof made with rigid materials like metal or fibreglass while a hardtop is a car with no central pillar between the forward and rear side glass.  That would be fine except that in the 1970s, Ford decided there were also “pillared hardtops”, introducing the description on a four-door range built on their full-sized (a breed now extinct) corporate platform shared between 1968-1978 by Ford and Mercury.  The rationale for the name was that to differentiate between the conventional sedan which used frames around the side windows and the pillared hardtops which used the frameless assemblies familiar from their use in the traditional hardtops.  When the pillared hardtops were released, as part of the effort to comply with pending rollover standards, the two door hardtop switched to being a coupé with thick B-pillars, behind which sat a tall “opera window”, another of those motifs the US manufacturers for years found irresistible.

1976 Cadillac Eldorado convertible, at the time, “the last American convertible”.  The aluminium wheels were a rarely ordered factory option.  On paper, combining a 500 cubic inch (8.2 litre) V8 with front wheel drive (FWD) sounds daft but even in the early, more powerful, versions GM managed remarkably well to tame the characteristics inherent in such a configuration.

When ceasing production of the true four-door hardtops, Ford also dropped the convertible from the full-sized line, the industry orthodoxy at the time that a regulation outlawing the style was imminent, and such was the importance of the US market that expectation that accounted also for Mercedes-Benz not including a cabriolet when the S-Class (W116) was released in 1972, leaving the SL (R107; 1971-1989) roadster as the company’s only open car and it wasn’t until 1990 a four-seat cabriolet returned with the debut of the A124.  Any suggestion of outlawing convertibles ended with the election in 1980 of Ronald Reagan (1911-2004, US president 1981-1989).  A former governor of California with fond memories of drop-top motoring and a world-view that government should intervene in markets as little as possible, under his administration, convertibles returned (including Cadillacs) to US showrooms.  In the even then litigious US, that prompted a class action from disgruntled collectors who had stored 1976 Cadillac Eldorados with the expectation of them increasing sharply in value, the suit filed alleging a “breach of promise” on the basis of Cadillac advertising the things as “the last American convertible”.  Historically, breach of promise actions were most associated with women seeking redress against cads who promised marriage and then refused to fulfil the pledge (an action still technically available in some US states) but the courts quickly dismissed the claims of the Cadillac hoarders as “groundless”.  Legal opinion at the time was that the suit might have had a chance had the words been "the last Cadillac convertible" and even then it would have had to withstand (1) the precedents which underpinned the notion of what in contract law was called "mere puffery" and (2) the then still prevalent sentiment that "what was good for General Motors was good for America", something which critics noted was still a detectable feeling among US judges.

1966 Lincoln Continental Sedan (left) and 1974 Buick Century Luxus Colonnade Hardtop Sedan (right).  Luxus was from the Latin luxus (extravagance) and appeared in several Germanic languages where it conveyed the idea of "luxury".   

It was actually only the ostensibly oxymoronic nomenclature which was novel, Ford’s Lincoln Continentals combining side windows with frames which lowered into the doors and a B pillar; Lincoln called these a sedan, then the familiar appellation in the US for all four-door models with a centre pillar.  Curiously, in the 1960s another descriptive layer appeared (though usually not used by the manufacturers): “post”.  Thus where a range included two-door hardtops with no pillar a coupés with one, there was among some to adopt “coupé” and “post coupé” as a means of differentiation and this spread, the term “post sedan” also still seen today in the collector markets.  Other manufacturers in the 1970s also used the combination of frameless side glass and a B-pillar but Ford’s adoption of “pillar hardtop was unique; All such models in General Motors’ (GM) “Colonnade” lines were originally described variously as “colonnade hardtop sedans” (Buick) or “colonnade hardtops” (Chevrolet, Oldsmobile & Pontiac) and the nickname was borrowed from architecture where colonnade refers to “a series of regularly spaced columns supporting an entablature and often one side of a roof”.  For whatever reasons, the advertising copy changed over the years, Buick shifting to “hardtop sedan”, Chevrolet & Oldsmobile to “sedan” and Pontiac “colonnade hardtop sedan”.  Pontiac was the last to cling to the use of “colonnade”; by the late 1970s the novelty has passed and the consumer is usually attracted by something “new”.  Because the GM range of sedans had for uprights (A, B & C-pillars plus a divided rear glass), the allusion was to these as “columns”.  Ford though, was a little tricky.  Their B-pillars were designed in such as way that the thick portion was recessed and dark, the silver centrepiece thin and more obvious, so with the windows raised, the cars could be mistaken for a classic hardtop.  It was a cheap trick but it was also clever, in etymological terms a “fake hardtop” but before long, there was a bit of a vogue for “fake soft-tops” which seems indisputably worse.

1975 Imperial LeBaron (left) and 1978 Chrysler New Yorker.  The big Chryslers were the last of the four-door hardtops to be produced in the US.

The Americans didn’t actually invent the pillarless hardtop style but in the post-war years they adopted it with gusto.  The other geo-centre of hardtops was the JDM (Japanese Domestic Market) which refers to vehicles produced (almost) exclusively for sale within Japan and rarely seen beyond except in diplomatic use, as private imports, or as part of the odd batch exported to special markets.  As an ecosystem, it exerts a special fascination for those who study the Japanese industry.  The range of high performance versions and variations in coachwork available in the JDM was wide and for those with a fondness for Japanese cars, the subject of much envy.  By the late 1970s, the handful of US four-door hardtops still on sale were hangovers from designs which dated from the late 1960s, behemoths anyway doomed by rising gas prices and tightening emission controls; with the coming of 1979 (coincidently the year of the “second oil shock”) all were gone.  In the JDM however, the interest remained and endured into the 1990s.

1965 Chevrolet Corvair Corsa (two-door hardtop, left) and 1969 Mazda Luce Coupé (right).

The first Japanese cars to use the hardtop configuration were two-door coupés, the Toyota Corona the first in 1965 and Nissan and Mitsubishi soon followed.  One interesting thing during the era was the elegant Izuzu 117 Coupé (1968-1980), styled by the Italian Giorgetto Giugiaro (b 1938) which, with its slender B-pillar, anticipated Ford’s stylistic trick although there’s nothing to suggest this was ever part of the design brief.  Another of Giugiaro’s creations was the rare Mazda Luce Coupé (1968), a true hardtop which has the quirk of being Mazda’s only rotary-powered car to be configured with FWD.  Giugiaro’s lines were hardly original because essentially they duplicated (though few suggest "improved") those of the lovely second generation Chevrolet Corvair (1965-1969) and does illustrate what an outstanding compact the Corvair could have been if fitted with a conventional (front-engine / rear wheel drive (RWD)) drive-train.

1973 Nissan Cedric four-door Hardtop 2000 Custom Deluxe (KF230, left) and 1974 Toyota Crown Royal Saloon four-door Pillared Hardtop (2600 Series, right).

By 1972, Nissan released a version of the Laurel which was their first four-door although it was only the volume manufacturers for which the economics of scale of such things were attractive, the smaller players such as Honda and Subaru dabbling only with two-door models.  Toyota was the most smitten and by the late 1970s, there were hardtops in all the passenger car lines except the smallest and the exclusive Century, the company finding that for a relatively small investment, an increase in profit margins of over 10% was possible.  Toyota in 1974 also followed Ford’s example in using a “pillared hardtop” style for the up-market Crown, the exclusivity enhanced by a roofline lowered by 25 mm (1 inch); these days it’s be called a “four door coupé” (and etymologically that is correct despite the objections of many) and Rover had actually planned their 3.5 (P5B; 1967-1973) to include a four-door coupé featuring both pillarless construction and the lowered roof; as it was the former proved too difficult within the budget so only the chop-top survived.  In the JDM, the last true four-door hardtops were built in the early 1990s but Subaru continued to offer the “pillared hardtop” style until 2010 and the extinction of the breed was most attributable to the shifting market preference for sports utility vehicles (SUV) and such.  In Australia, Mitsubishi between between 1996-2005 used frameless side-windows and a slim B-pillar on their Magna so it fitted the definition of a “pillar hardtop” although the term was never used in marketing, the term “hardtop” something Australians associated only with two-door coupés (Ford and Chrysler had actually the term as a model name in the 1960s & 1970s).  When the Magna was replaced by the doomed and dreary 380 (2005-2008), Mitsubishi reverted to window frames and chunky pillars.

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.

Few European manufacturers attempted four-door hardtops.  One of the few was the Mercedes-Benz 300d (W189, 1957-1962), a revised version of the W186 (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 embraced 1950s modernism, the W186 & W189 obviously an evolution of pre-war practices, much of the engineering was advanced and the factory used the chassis to produce spezials including long wheelbase "pullmans", landaulets, high-roof limousines and four-door cabriolets (Cabriolet D in the Daimler-Benz system).  The W189 is remembered too as the state car of the Holy See, used by popes in the days before fears of assassination.  Most however were the "standard", four-door hardtop.

Pillars, stunted pillars & "pillarless"

1959 Lancia Appia Series III

Actually, although an accepted part of engineering jargon, to speak of the classic four-door hardtops as “pillarless” is, in the narrow technical sense, misleading because almost all used a truncated B-pillar, ending at the belt-line where the side glass begins.  The stunted device was required to provide a secure anchor point for the rear door's hinges (or latches for both if suicide doors were used) and in the case of the latter, being of frameless construction, without the upright, the doors would be able to be locked in place only at the sill, the physics of which presents a challenge because even in vehicles with high torsional rigidity, there will be movement.  The true pillarless design was successfully executed by some but those manufacturers used doors with sturdy window frames, permitting latch points at both sill and roof, Lancia offering the configuration on a number of sedans including the Ardea (1939-1953), Aurelia (1950-1958) & Appia (1953-1963).  The approach demanded a more intricate locking mechanism but the engineering was simple and on the Lancias it worked and was reliable, buyers enjoying the ease of ingress & egress.  It's sad the company's later attachment to front wheel drive (FWD) ultimately doomed Lancia because in every other aspect of engineering, few others were as adept at producing such fine small-displacement vehicles.

1961 Facel Vega II (a two door hardtop with the unusual "feature" of the rear side-glass being hinged from the C-pillar).

Less successful with doors was the Facel Vega Excellence, built in two series between 1958-1964.  Facel Vega was a French company which was a pioneer in what proved for almost two decades the interesting and lucrative business of the trans-Atlantic hybrid, the combination of stylish European coachwork with cheap, refined and reliable American engine-transmission combinations.  Like most in the genre, the bulk of Facel Vega’s production was big (by European standards) coupés (and the odd cabriolet) and they enjoyed much success, the company doomed only when it augmented the range with the Facellia, a smaller car.  Conceptually, adding the smaller coupés & cabriolets was a good idea because it was obvious the gap in the market existed but the mistake was to pander to the feelings of politicians and use a French designed & built engine which proved not only fragile but so fundamentally flawed rectification was impossible.  By the time the car had been re-engineered to use the famously durable Volvo B18 engine, the combination of the cost of the warranty claims and the reputational damage meant the bankruptcy was impending and in 1964 the company ceased operation.  The surviving “big” Facel Vegas, powered by a variety of big-block Chrysler V8s, are now highly collectable and priced accordingly.


1960 Facel Vega Excellence EX1

Compared with that debacle, the problem besetting the Excellence was less serious but was embarrassing and, like the Facellia's unreliable engine, couldn’t be fixed.  The Excellence was a four-door sedan, a configuration also offered by a handful of other trans-Atlantic players (including Iso, DeTomaso & Monterverdi) and although volumes were low, because the platforms were elongations of those used on their coupés, production & development costs were modest so with high prices, profits were good.  Facel Vega however attempted what no others dared: combine eye-catching suicide doors, frameless side glass and coachwork which was truly pillarless, necessitating latching & locking mechanisms in the sills.  With the doors open, it was a dramatic scene of lush leather and highly polished burl walnut (which was actually painted metal) and the intricate lock mechanism was beautifully machined and worked well… on a test bench.  Unfortunately, on the road, the pillarless centre section was inclined slightly to flex when subject to lateral forces (such as those imposed when turning corners) and this could release the locks, springing the doors open.  Owners reported this happening while turning corners and it should be remembered (1) lateral force increases as speed rises and (2) this was the pre-seatbelt era.  There appear to be no confirmed reports of unfortunate souls being ejected by centrifugal force through an suddenly open door (Albert Camus (1913–1960) was killed when the Facel Vega HK500 two-door coupé in which he was a passenger hit a tree, an accident unrelated to doors) but clearly the risk was there.  Revisions to the mechanism improved the security but the problem was never completely solved; despite that the factory did offer a revised second series Excellence in 1961, abandoning the dog-leg style windscreen and toning down the fins, both of which had become passé but in three years only a handful were sold.  By the time the factory was shuttered in 1964, total Excellence production stood at 148 EX1s (Series One; 1958-1961) & 8 EX2s (Series Two; 1961-1964).

The Mercedes-Benz R230 SL: Lindsay Lohan in 2005 SL 65 AMG with top lowered (left), 2006 SL 65 AMG with top erected (centre) & 2009 SL 65 AMG Black Series with fixed-roof.

At the time uniquely in the SL line, the R230 (2001-2011) was available with both a retractable hard top and with a fixed roof but no soft top was ever offered (the configuration continued in the R231 (2012-2020) while the R232 (since 2021) reverted to fabric).  Having no B pillar, most of the R230s were thus a hardtop with a hard top but the SL 65 AMG Black Series (2008–2011) used a fixed roof fabricated using a carbon fibre composite, something which contributed to the Black Series is weighing some 250 kilograms (550 lb) less than the standard SL 65 AMG.  Of the road-going SLs built since 1954, the Black Series R230 was one of only three models sold without a retractable roof of some kind, the others being the original 300 SL Gullwing (W198, 1954-1957) and the “California coupé” option offered between 1967-1971 for the W113 (1963-1971) roadster (and thus available only for the 250 SL (1966-1968) & 280 SL (1967-1971)).  The California coupé was simply an SL supplied with only the removable hard top and no soft top, a folding bench seat included which was really suitable only for small children.  The name California was chosen presumably because of the association of the place with sunshine and hence a place where one could be confident it was safe to go for a drive without the fear of unexpected rain.  Despite the name, the California coupé was available outside the US (a few even built in right-hand drive form) although the North American market absorbed most of the production.

1969 Chevrolet Corvette L88 convertible with soft top (or soft-top) erected.

1969 Chevrolet Corvette L88 convertible with hard top (or hard-top) attached.

1969 Chevrolet Corvette L88 convertible, topless.

Tuesday, January 3, 2023

Pagoda

Pagoda (pronounced puh-goh-duh)

(1) In South Asia and the Far-East, a temple or sacred building, often a pyramid-like tower and typically having upward-curving roofs over the individual stories.

(2) An ornamental structure imitating the design of the religious building, erected since the eighteenth century in parks and gardens.

(3) In fashion, a flared sleeve, most popular in the 1850s.

(4) A unit of currency, a coin made of gold or half-gold, usually bearing a figure of a pagoda temple, issued by various dynasties in medieval southern India and later by British, French, and Dutch traders.

(5) An image or carving of a god in South and South East Asia; an idol (sixteenth century use, usually as pagod, now extinct).

(6) Term applied to the first of the two generations of Mercedes-Benz SL (W113 & R107) roadsters to use a pagoda-themed roof.

1580-1585: From the Portuguese pagode, via Tamil from the Sanskrit भगवती (bhagavatī (name of a goddess, feminine of bhagavat (blessed, adorable) from bhagah (good fortune)) from the primitive Indo-European root bhag- (to share out, apportion; to get a share) or भागवत (bhāgavata), (follower of the Bhagavatī).  The alternative etymology suggests pagoda was either a corruption of the Persian butkada (from but (idol) + kada (dwelling) or perhaps from or influenced by the Tamil pagavadi (house belonging to a deity), itself from the Sanskrit bhagavatī.  There’s also the suggestion it’s derived a South Chinese pronunciation of the term for an eight-cornered tower (八角塔), a use influenced by the adoption by European visitors to China of the name of a noted pagoda in the Guangzhou region, the Pázhōu tǎ (琶洲塔).  Finally, it may be from the Sinhala dāgaba, from the Sanskrit dhātugarbha or the Pali dhātugabbha (relic, womb or chamber; reliquary shrine (ie stupa)) which made its way into other languages through Portuguese.

Given the uncertainty, it’s not impossible pagoda emerged in its modern form under more than one influence.  The related (pagod) and alternative (pagode & pagody) forms are now rare, occurring almost exclusively in historic texts.  The noun plural is pagodas.

Pagoda Sleeve 

Pagoda sleeve describes any funnel shaped sleeve and the style is still seen, though its impracticality tends to confine it to cat-walks and casualwear.  Briefly popular in the US during the late 1850s, it appears abruptly to have vanished, an 1870s revival on not so extravagant a scale not lasting; function again triumphing over fashion.  The original design was narrow at the shoulder and very wide at the wrist, worn often with an under-sleeve, made usually of a lighter cotton or linen fabric, matching the bodice’s chemisette or collar.

Layered Pagoda Sleeve

The variation of the pagoda sleeve which most closely emulated the architectural motif was tailored with layered tiers.  It may not have been co-incidental that the pagoda sleeve’s decline in popularity was at the time of the US Civil War, conflicts often imposing austerity in fashion as in other parts of the economy.  The style didn’t entirely vanish but certainly became restrained, the replacement “bishop” and “bell” sleeves both of a more severe cut but all three terms were often used interchangeably.


Yellow Crane Pagoda, near Wuhan, China

In architecture, a Pagoda is an Asian temple, rendered usually as a pyramidal tower with one or more upward curving roofs.  Although most associated with structures created for Buddhist religious purposes, the first may actually have been built in China, even before Buddhism spread there.  Whether these early buildings used the motifs of the pagoda as a stylistic embellishment or for some function purpose such as rigidity or water drainage isn’t known but it does seem the technique improves resistance to the stresses imposed by earthquakes.  In Buddhism, the structure’s original purpose was to house relics and sacred writings but the style soon extended to other sacred and secular sites.  Made from wood, brick, or stone, they can have as many as fifteen stories, each with an up-curved, overhanging roof and the tradition, in the East, was always to build with an uneven number of levels, a convention not always followed in Europe.  

Grand Pagoda, Kew Gardens, London

Built in 1762 and designed by Sir William Chambers (1723-1796), the Grand Pagoda at Kew Gardens, London, is an example of what in the eighteenth century came to be called “follies”, the term referring to the tendency of increasingly rich plutocrats to build grandiose structures fulfilling no purpose.  A gift for Princess Augusta, founder of the botanic gardens and the first building to offer an aerial view of Greater London, it’s a ten-storey octagonal structure.  Although based on the fifteenth-century Porcelain Tower in Nanking, it’s thought Chambers based his design on a woodcut which erroneously showed ten floors.  Happily, despite not having the requisite uneven number of levels thought in the East to bring good luck, the Grand Pagoda still stands and is a fine example of chinoiserie (a loanword from the French from the Chinese chinois ), used to describe the European interpretation and imitation of Chinese and other East Asian artistic traditions.

Taipai 101 in the renegade province of Taiwan.  Although not technically a pagoda, it borrows aspects of the design.

Pagodas almost always have a central staircase and, in common with many architectural styles, consist of a base, a body, and a top although, because of the origin in sacred representational form, pagodas tend not to be optimized for the functional maximization of interior space, whether circular, square, or polygonal.  Because of their height, they’ve always attract lightning strikes, something which may have played a role in the perception of worshipers of them being spiritually charged places but the electrical propensity proved useful in the modern age, lightning rods and cabling often added.


Mercedes-Benz SL W113 (230, 250 & 280) 1963-1971

The pagoda roof on the 1963 230 SL was initially misunderstood.  The designer didn’t lower the roof’s centre; it was actually the side windows which were raised.  The engineering advantage was a strengthening of the structure and, when in place, the hardtop, although un-stressed, became an integral part of the passenger "safety-cell" introduced in 1959.  It had the additional benefit of making ingress and egress slightly easier.  All that was of interest to designers and engineers but for most, it was the delicacy of line which drew the eye and women especially proved loyal and often repeat customers.  There were those who hoped for more and when the 2.3 litre 230 SL made its debut in 1963, thought it was too much the replacement for the 190 SL (R121; 1955-1963), and not sufficiently a successor to the 300 SL (W198) which as both the gullwing coupé (1954-1957) and roadster (1957-1963) was one of the supercars of the era.  In that the critics were of course correct but it wasn't that the factory had failed, it was that it had abandoned that market, its priorities now to pursue objectives which lay in other directions.

By the late 1960s however, Mercedes-Benz understood the gusty, high-revving straight-sixes, on which they'd re-built the brand's post-war reputation, were technologically bankrupt and that success in the next decade would be delivered by a range of larger-capacity, mass-market V8s, the known concerns then mostly about pollution rules rather than a rise in the price of oil.  The events of October 1973 would change that but while US$2 a barrel oil was being pumped in abundance the engineer's attention remained fixated on poise, power and performance and the W113 even played a small part in the development of the new, bigger engines.  Although, bizarrely, one W113 had been fitted with the 6.3 litre (M100) big-block V8 used in the 600 and 300 SEL 6.3 (presumably because the engineers wondered what would happen), a more plausible prototype was the one which used the new 3.5 litre V8 (M116).  That was a more satisfactory machine but the limitations of the old platform meant even it couldn't be considered for production.  All the V8 W113s were scrapped once testing was complete as was the even more unusual test-bed which used a Wankel engine, something for which (never realized) high hopes were once held.

Over its life, although the appearance didn't change, the W113 was subject to constant product development, the engine growing first to 2.5 and later 2.8 litres but the emphasis always was more on improving low and mid-range torque rather than outright power although, by 1968 when production began, the 280 SL was usefully quicker and even a little faster than its predecessors.  It wasn't sportier though, the stiff suspension of the original softened as the decade grew into middle-age though the addition of disk brakes at the rear was a welcome improvement.  More attention however was devoted to creature comforts because things like the seats and air-conditioning were more important to the target market than ultimate cornering performance, something indicated by the majority being sold with automatic transmissions, sales of the four-speed manual declining year-by-year while the optional ZF five-speed was rarely specified.

Almost all were sold with both a folding fabric soft-top and the pagoda hard-top but one interesting variation concocted for the US market was the "Californian Coupe" which was actually just a W113 outfitted with the standard removable hard-top but no soft-top, a folding bench-seat fitted in the space the deletion made available.  That made the California Coupe a genuine (if cramped) 2+2, something rather more accommodating than the rarely-seen option of a transverse seat for one.  Of course without a folding top, the thing was suitable only for days when it didn't rain but, as everyone in Stuttgart knew, California had plenty of those.  Available both as a 250 and 280 SL, the California Coupe was one of three occasions the SL was sold without a folding top, the others being the original 300 SL Gullwing and the AMG SL 65 Black Series (2008-2012), on the R230 (2001-2012) platform.  The Black Series was some 250 kilograms (551 lb) lighter than the 604 horsepower AMG SL 65 AMG (made famous in 2005 when Lindsay Lohan crashed one) and rated at about 10% more powerful (although those numbers are thought conservative).  The weight-loss programme included substituting some metal components with carbon-fibre units but of greater significance was the deletion of the folding aluminium roof, replaced by a fixed structure in carbon-fibre, something which produced the additional benefit of a lower centre of gravity.  Only 350 were built (tales of 400 seem to be an internet myth).                     

Mercedes-Benz SL R107 (280, 300, 350, 380, 420, 450, 500 & 560) 1971-1989.

The pagoda roof was retained when the R107 was introduced in 1971 but, despite the contours, it was only ever its predecessor which was known as "the pagoda".  Because of concerns impending US legislation would outlaw convertibles, Daimler-Benz didn’t develop open versions of their new (W116) S-Class platform so the R107 SL remained in production for close to two decades as the marque’s only drop-top.  The factory claimed the pagoda roof was the strongest ever offered and, like the W113's pagoda, a slight aerodynamic advantage was claimed, directional stability said to be improved.  Strongest or not, made from steel and glass, it was certainly one of the heaviest.  SL actually stands for “super light” which was sort of true when first it was used in 1952 but by 1971 was misleading at least, the R107 no lightweight and a grand tourer rather than a sports car.  For years, the factory never much discussed what the abbreviation "SL" stood for and the assumption had long been it meant Sports Light (Sports Leicht), based presumably on the SSKL of 1929-1931 (Super Sports Kurz (short) Leicht) but the factory documentation for decades used both Sports Leicht and Super Leicht.  It was only in 2017 it published a 1952 paper discovered in the corporate archive confirming the correct abbreviation is Super Leicht. However defined, the R107 is heavy, the removable hard-top famously so.

The first R107 sold in the US was the 350 SL but it was fitted with a long-stroke, 4.5 litre engine, the 3.5 sold in the rest of the world lacking the torque characteristics known to be preferred by American drivers and it was anyway soon to be too toxic to meet the stricter emission regulations.  In time, as the bigger engine was made available in other markets, the 450 SL badge was applied to all such machines.  The R107 was thus an early example of the once (usually) logical nomenclature of Mercedes-Benz beginning the path to confusion which the reorganization of the mid-1990s substantially fixed before in the twenty-first century descending to the point where the model designations are now merely indicative of a place in the hierarchy.  It was a footnote in engineering too, the 350 SL (along with the SLC & SE) in 1980 the last occasion the factory would offer a manual transmission behind a V8 engine.  In truth, using the clunky Mercedes-Benz four-speed was not all that satisfying an experience but the rarity of the small number of 350 SLs so equipped has made them something of a collector's item among the survivors of the 227,000-odd produced and (as automatics) they were for decades the preferred (one suspects almost the obligatory) transport for types such as interior decorators, Hollywood starlets, successful hairdressers and the wives of cosmetic surgeons.

Over its unexpectedly long life, the appearance changed little except for a mid-life revision to the size and design of the aluminium wheels but over the eighteen-odd years, eight different engines and several transmissions were fitted and the biggest offered was the 5.6 liter V8 in the 560 SL.  The factory had never intended to develop the 5.6 but two factors forced their hand, the first being the news BMW were unexpectedly reviving their 5.0 litre V12 project, shelved in the 1970s when the political and economic atmosphere proved unfriendly.  The other was pressure from the US where dealers were losing sales because the largest engine Mercedes-Benz were then offering (the 3.8 litre V8) was thought inadequate and the volume of "grey-market" sales of 5.0 litre cars (500 SL, SEL & SEC) was troublesome.  With their own V12 years from readiness and the 5.0 V8 not suitable for modification to comply with US emission rules, the solution was obvious; thus the 560 range, offered only in the US, Japan and Australia, then the markets with (1) a taste for big engines and (2) the toughest anti-emission laws.

However, although it packed the biggest engine, the 560 SL wasn't the fastest R107, that honor accorded to the 500 SL which used a modified version of the 5.0 litre V8 first offered in 1977 in the 450 SLC 5.0 (the C107, a long-wheelbase coupé based on the SL).  Used (improbably but successfully) as the factory's entry in long-distance rallies, the 450 SLC 5.0 was a homologation special produced only to ensure the bits and pieces needed to make the thing competitive in motorsport (the all-aluminium engine and some light-weight body & structural components) could lawfully be used.  Toxic though it was at the tail-pipes, by the standards of the 1980s, the 500 SL was a genuine high-performance car.                

Mercedes-Benz SL R129 (280, 300, 320, 500, 600) 1989-2002.

By 1989, improvements in metallurgy and structural engineering meant the pagoda curves were no longer required to achieve the desired strength, it being now possible to render an even stronger roof in aluminum with the advantage of a significant weight reduction.  It’s not known if a pagoda roof was considered but the late 1980s was the last era  at Mercedes-Benz during which engineers held sway over salesmen so a mere styling gimmick would likely have been vetoed.  Much admired as it had been, by 1989 the origins of the R107 as a design of the late 1960s were looking obvious; it had after all been on the market for what would usually have been two-three model cycles so hopes for the new SL were high.

The R129 didn't disappoint.  Introduced in 1989 as the 500 SL, it was based on the fine platform of the W124 (which had proved its competence as the 500 E) and as well as the 5.0 litre V8, would be offered also with 2.8, 3.0 and 3.2 litre sixes, the larger of which, for general use, proved remarkably effective alternatives to the big-engined versions which tended to attract most publicity.  That was certainly the case in 1993 when the 600 SL was released with the new 6.0 litre V12 (M120).  The M120 would prove to be one on the best engines Mercedes-Benz ever made and it made headlines at the time as the company's first road-going V12 (their previous V12s were all for racing or the Luftwaffe and the planned 600K programme was scrapped in 1940 because German industry suddenly had other priorities).  Some purists thought the front-heaviness detracted somewhat from the fine balance achieved by the six and eight-cylinder cars but it was the beginning of the emergence of AMG as a major player in the high-performance market and for them, the M120 was a base the like of which few other manufacturers offered and in time, 7.0, 7.1 and 7.3 litre SLs would appear with the AMG badge, offering a naturally-aspirated driving experience (including aurally) very different from the turbo-charged competition.  The AMG V12 SLs were a reminder of the way things used to be done, done faster.  That the Citroën XM (a car hardly as innovative as the DS, SM or CX had in their day been) won the 1990 European Car of the Year can be explained only by dark hints about the undue influence (or worse) of French journalists. The R129 was runner-up and remains, unlike the XM, fondly remembered and much admired.

Temple of the 500 Lohan, Kijiang, Riau Islands Province, Indonesia.  Many Buddhist temples use the pagoda root as an architectural feature and despite the traditional appearance, the Temple of the 500 Lohan is a recent construction.

Not etymologically or in any other way connected with Lindsay Lohan, in Buddhist theology a Lohan is an individual who had achieved Enlightenment and was a true follower of Buddha.  The Lohans are also known as the Arhat, Arahat or Arahant while in the Far East, the transliteration was often phonetic and in the Chinese 阿羅漢 (āluóhàn) it was often shortened to 羅漢 (luóhàn) and, via the Raj, this was picked up in English as Lohan or luohan whereas in Japanese the pronunciation of the Chinese characters was arakan (阿羅漢) or rakan (羅漢).