Omicron

Omicron (pronounced om-i-kron or oh-mi-kron)

(1) The fifteenth letter of the Classical and Modern Greek alphabet and the sixteenth in Ancient archaic Greek; a short vowel, transliterated as o.

(2) The vowel sound represented by this letter.

(3) The common name designated (on 26 November 2021 by the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Technical Advisory Group on Virus Evolution (TAG-VE)) for the variant B.1.1.529 of the SARS-CoV-2 virus which causes the condition COVID-19.

(4) In English, as “o” & “O” (fifteenth letter of the alphabet), a letter used for various grammatical and technical purposes.

Circa 1400: The fifteenth letter of the Greek alphabet (oʊmɪkrɒn; the symbol Oo), literally "small o" (ὂ μικρόν (ò mikrón)), the construct being o + the Ancient Greek (s)mikros (small (source of the modern micro-) and so-called because the vowel was "short" in ancient Greek.  Omega (O) was thus the “long” (O) and omicron the “short” (o).  It’s from omicron both Latin and Cyrillic gained “O”.  Depending on the context in which it’s being written, the plural is omicrons or omicra.

The fifteenth letter of the Greek alphabet was derived from a character which in Phoenician was called 'ain or ayin (literally "eye") and represented by what most dictionaries record as something like "a most peculiar and to us unpronounceable guttural sound".  The Greeks also lacked the sound, so when they adopted characters from the Phoenician alphabet, arbitrarily they changed O's value to a vowel.  Despite the medieval belief, there is no evidence to support the idea the form of the letter represents the shape the mouth assumes in pronouncing it.  The Greeks later added a special character for the "long" O (omega), and the original thus became the "little o" (omicron).  In Middle English and later colloquial use, o or o' has a special use as an abbreviation of “on” or “of”, and remains literary still in some constructions (o'clock, Jack-o'-lantern, tam-o'-shanter, cat-o'-nine-tails, will-o'-the-wisp et al).  The technical use in genealogy is best represented by Irish surnames, the “O’” from the Irish ó (ua), which in the Old Irish was au (ui) and meant "descendant".

As a connective, -o- is the most common connecting vowel in compounds either taken or formed from Greek, where it is often the vowel in the stem.  English being what it is, it’s affixed, not only to constructions purely Greek in origin, but also those derived from Latin (Latin compounds of which would have been formed with the L. connecting or reduced thematic vowel, -i).  The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) adds the usage note that this occurred especially when what was wanted were compounds with a sense of Latin composition, which even if technically possible, would not be warranted but, were correct under the principles of Greek composition.  Similarly, blood type-O was in 1926 originally designated “0” (zero)" denoting the absence of any type-A & B agglutinogens but the letter O was adopted to align the group with existing nomenclature.  The standardized scale in railroads (O=1:48 (1:25 gauges)) dates from 1905.

As the character to represent the numerical value "zero", in Arabic numerals it is attested from circa 1600, the use based on the similarity of shape.  The similarity would later cause a Gaëtan Dugas (1952–1984), a Québécois Canadian flight attendant, mistakenly to be identified as "Patient Zero" (the primary case for HIV/AIDS in the United States).  The error happened because of a mistake made in 1984 in either the reading or transcription of a database maintained by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) which tracked the sexual liaisons and practices of gay and bisexual men, mostly those from California and New York. Dugas, because he was statistically unusual in having no relevant connections with either state, was coded as "Patient O" (indicating out-of-state) but this was at some point misinterpreted as "Patient 0 (Zero)".  Dugas was later identified as "Patient Zero" (ie the person who introduced HIV/AIDS to North America) in Randy Shilts's (1951-1994) book And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic (1987) which explored the outbreak of the AIDS epidemic in the United States.  Shilts would later dismiss the significance of the technical error, claiming it made no difference to his point that Dugas engaged in behavior by which he either carelessly, recklessly or intentionally infected his many sexual partners with HIV (a claim subsequently contested by others).  Shilts died in 1994 from an AIDS-related condition.

Flirting with risk of exposure to, inter-alia, Omicron: Lindsay Lohan in facemask during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The authorities discourage the use of masks with the one-way, non-return valves (this one a twin-valve model) during epidemics & pandemics because, while affording the usual protection to the wearer, there is a slight reduction in their effectiveness in reducing the risk of infecting others.

A variant of the original SARS-CoV-2 virus which causes Covid-19, Omicron (B.1.1.529) was first reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) in November 2021 after being detected in Botswana.  Rapidly, it out-competed other SARS-CoV-2 strains to become the predominant variant in circulation, the primary transmission vector of that thought to be international air travel.  The WHO’s Technical Advisory Group on Virus Evolution (TAG-VE) named variant B.1.1.529 “Omicron” in November 2021, skipping the Greek letters next in sequence (nu (Ν, ν) & xi (Ξ ξ)), the former not used because of the confusion envisaged by virtue of the English pronunciation (“new” virus) and the latter avoided so the feelings of Xi Jinping (b 1953; general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and paramount leader of the People's Republic of China (PRC) since 2013) weren’t hurt, the origins of Covid-19 being a sensitive issue among the CCP’s Central Committee.

Flirting virus: Omicron FLiRT variant.

Although a number of Omicron sub-variants have subsequently been identified, none has been found so structurally dissimilar that the TAG-VE felt constrained to allocate a different Greek letter.  Instead, such variants were tagged alpha-numerically according to the group’s established convention (BA.1, BA.2 etc; identified sub-variants of BA.5 listed in a BQ.n sequence).  By June 2024, Omicron and its sub-variants remain dominant globally although new strains continue to emerge, notably the “FLiRT" which sounds encouraging but the US Centre for Disease Control (CDC) provided a rather dry explanation: “F for L at position 456, and R for T at position 346 (references to specific mutations in the virus’s spike protein).  The FLiRT variants are sub-variants of the Omicron JN.1 strain and include notable strains such as KP.2, KP.3, and KP.1.1.  The FLiRT variants now account for a significant portion of cases in the United States.

The Omicron and others: Notable Lancias

1981 Lancia Beta Spyder (Zagato).

Vincenzo Lancia (1881–1937) used letters from the Greek alphabet (Alpha, Beta, Lambda, Kappa, Omicron et al) as model names for many of his early vehicles and in 1953 returned to the practice for a one-off range based on a commercial chassis.  However, when the Beta (1972-1984) was released in 1972 it was the first time since 1945 the company had used letters from the Greek to designate a passenger vehicle.  It wasn’t Lancia’s first use of Beta, that had been the 1909 car which replaced the Alpha (also Alfa) and, although the 1972 car had been intended to be the model which would symbolize Lancia’s re-birth (il risorgimento), Beta rather than Alfa was chosen to avoid confusion with Alfa Romeo.  Over time, the Beta would be offered with two four-door saloon bodies and a coupé from which two variants were derived: (1) a three-door estate labeled HPE (high-performance estate) in the tradition of the "shooting brake" (a la the Reliant Scimitar et al) and (2) as a co-project with Lombardy-based coach-builder Zagato, a targa-style convertible with a structural arrangement vaguely similar to that used by the Triumph Stag.  In some markets, in an attempt to enhance the image, the Montecarlo sports car was badged as a Beta.  The survival rate of the Betas was low because of chronic rust but the oft-told tale the steel was of poor quality (described as “porous” and obtained in some sort of barter transaction between Italy and the Soviet Union) has been debunked, the Betas (like to contemporary Alfa Romeo Alfasud) crumbling away because of design flaws, inadequate corrosion-prevention measures and poor build quality, the latter due in part to the appalling state of the relations between capital & labor during the troubled 1970s.

1987 Lancia Thema 8·32.

By the standards of European front wheel drive mass-production, the Lancia Thema (1984-1994 and available as a four-door saloon, a five door estate and a low-volume long wheelbase (LWD) limousine) was completely conventional and mostly unexceptional but there was one memorable diversion: the Thema 8·32.  Introduced at the 1986 Turin Motor Show, instead of the predictable variety of four & six-cylinder petrol and diesel engines used in the mainstream range, the 8·32 was fitted with a version of the 3.0 litre V8 Ferrari used in their 308 and Mondial models.  By the mid-1980s, although it was no longer novel to put powerful engines into previously nondescript saloons, the 8·32 was in the avant garde of the more extreme, pre-dating the BMW M5 (E28) by some months and the Mercedes-Benz 500E (W124) by seven years but what made it truly bizarre was it retained the Thema’s front wheel drive (FWD) configuration.  That probably sounds like the daftest idea since Oldsmobile and Cadillac in the mid 1960s decided to offer big FWD "personal coupes" (which eventually would be offered with V8 engines as large as 500 cubic inches (8.2 litre)) but journalists who tested the 8·32 declared it a surprisingly good good road car although those who tried them on racetracks did note the prodigious understeer.  Ferrari supplying Lancia with a V8 was actually returning a favor: In 1954, it was the Lancia D50 Formula One car which became the first Ferrari V8.  By 1986, even the V8-powered Cadillac DeVille range had switched to FWD but it was a very different machine from the 8·32 and many DeVille owners probably neither noticed nor cared the configuration had changed although they would have appreciated the flat floor and additional interior space.

1974 Lancia Stratos HF.

The 8·32 experiment (which Lancia opted not the repeat) wasn’t the first time Ferrari had provided engines for a Lancia. The Stratos HF (1973-1978, the HF standing for "High Fidelity", a moniker sometimes attached to Lancia’s high performance variations) was named after the Stratos Zero, a 1970 show car designed by Bertone’s Marcello Gandini (1938–2024) although, except conceptually, the production vehicle bore little resemblance to that which lent the name.  The diminutive wedge was powered by the 2.4 litre V6 with which Ferrari used in the Dino 246 (1969-1974) and it was one of the outstanding rally cars of the 1970s, winning the 1974 Targa Florio and taking the World Rally Championship (WRC) in 1974, 1975 & 1976.  Still competitive in the late 1970s when factory support was withdrawn because Fiat, the conglomerate which by then owned Lancia, wished to use its activities in motorsport to promote more mainstream models, it continued in private hands to win events into the 1980s and replicas have since been produced.  Such is the appeal of the Stratos that Torino-based coach-builder Manifattura Automobili in 2018 announced a run (said to be limited to 25) of the "New Stratos", based on the (shortened) platform of a Ferrari 430 Scuderia (2007). 

1971 Lancia 2000 Coupé.

The Lancia Flavia was in production between 1961 and 1971 before it was re-named the 2000, a reference to the two litre flat-four, introduced in 1969, an enlarged version of the power-plant which, in 1.5 and 1.8 litre form had powered the Flavia.  Although a decade old at its introduction, the 2000 was still of an advanced specification including the then still uncommon option of fuel-injection.  Although the earlier Flavias were built as four-door saloons, two-door coupés & convertibles (including a quite strange looking coupé by Zagato), the 2000 was offered only with saloon and coupé coachwork, the latter so elegant that most were prepared to forgive the FWD beneath, something the Lancia cognoscenti (a most devoted crew) inexplicably believe is a good idea.

1983 Lancia 037.

The last rear-wheel drive car to win the WRC, the 037 (the mysterious name merely a carry-over of the original project name) was a highly modified version of the Montecarlo, a Pininfarina-designed mid-engined coupé produced between 1975 to 1981 (in some markets called the Beta Montecarlo to maintain a link with the more mainstream Beta models and in North America sold as the Scorpion).  The Montecarlo had begun life as a project undertaken by Pininfarina to replace Fiat’s much admired but outdated 124 Coupé but Bertone’s X1/9 design was thought so outstanding it was instead chosen for immediate production while the 124 continued.  Pininfarina’s bigger, heavier car was then designated the Fiat X1/8, envisaged to compete as an up-market, mid-engined, three litre V6 sports car.  However, after the first oil shock in 1973, the market was re-evaluated and, now code-named named X1/20, it was re-positioned as a two litre, four cylinder car and handed to Lancia to become the Montecarlo.  In development since 1980, the competition version, the Lancia Rally 037, was released late the next year and in its first competitive season in Group 5 rallying proved fast but still fragile although, it was certainly promising enough for the factory to return in 1983 when, fully developed, it won the WRC.  It was however the end of an era, the 037 out-classed late in the season by the all-wheel-drive competition which has since dominated the WRC.  In one aspect however it remains a WRC benchmark: no competitor since has looked as good.

1971 Lancia Fulvia 1.3 Coupé.

The slightly frumpy looking Fulvia saloon was the mass-selling (a relative term) model of Lancia’s range between 1963-1976 but the memorable version was the exquisite coupé (1965-1977).  Mechanically similar to the saloon except that it was on a short wheelbase  (SWB) platform and the FWD Fulvias were only ever offered with V4 engines of modest displacement (1.1-1.6 litres), the relatively high-performance achieved by virtue of light weight, high specific output and, in the two-door versions, a surprisingly efficient aerodynamic profile, belying the rather angular appearance (except for the usual special coupes by Zagato which managed almost to look attractive, not something which could be guaranteed to emerge from their drawing boards).  The HF versions were built for competition with more spartan interior trim, aluminum doors & non-structural panels, the engines tuned for higher power.  Produced in small runs, the early Flavia HFs used quite highly-strung 1.2 & 1.3 litre engines (the last batch gaining a five-speed gearbox) but the definitive competition HF was released in 1969 with a 1.6 litre engine and nicknamed Fanalona (big headlamps), an allusion to the seven inch units which had replaced the earlier five inch versions.  Almost mass-produced by earlier standards, over thirteen hundred were build and it delivered for the factory-supported Squadra Corse team, winning the 1972 Monte Carlo Rally.  The success inspired the factory to capitalize on the car’s success, a purely road-going version, the 1600 HF Lusso (Luxury) with additional interior appointments and without the lightweight parts manufactured between 1970-1973.  This one really was mass-produced; nearly four thousand were made and they remain much coveted.

1930 Lancia Omicron with two and a half deck arrangement and a clerestoried upper windscreen.

The Lancia Omicron was a bus chassis produced between 1927-1936; over 600 were built in different wheelbase lengths with both two and three-axle configurations.  Most used Lancia's long-serving, six-cylinder commercial engine but, as early as 1933, some had been equipped with diesel engines which were tested in North Africa where they proved durable and, in the Sudan, Ethiopia, Libya and Algeria, once petrol powered Omicron chassis were being re-powered with diesel power-plants from a variety of manufacturers as late as the 1960s.  Typically of bus use, coachbuilders fabricated many different styles of body but, in addition to the usual single and double deck arrangements, the Omicron is noted for a number of two and a half deck models, the third deck configured usually as a first-class compartment but in at least three which operated in Italy, they were advertised as “smoking rooms”, the implication presumably that the rest of the passenger compartment was smoke-free.  History doesn't record if the bus operators were any more successful in enforcing smoking bans than the usual Italian experience.

1928 Lancia Lambda series 7 tipo Siluro Bateaux (torpedo) "Casaro".

One of the most innovative designs of the 1920s, the Lamba was produced between 1922-1931 and was the first car to enter volume production using a stressed, unitary body.  It featured very effective four-wheel brakes (something surprisingly rare at the time) and independent front suspension, the competence of which was such that it was able to more than match the point-to-point performance of many cars much more powerful but with more brutishly simple solid axles attached to a chassis.  However, because it was so attractive, demand much exceeded Lancia’s capacity to build sufficient numbers and the factory was forced to offer a model with a conventional chassis so coach-builders could provide bodies to fill the supply gap.  All Lambdas were powered by advanced and compact narrow-angle aluminum overhead camshaft V4 engines between 2.1-2.6 litres and over eleven thousand were built.

Clerestory

Clerestory (pronounced kleer-stawr-ee or kleer-stohr-ee)

(1) In architecture, a portion of an interior rising above adjacent rooftops, fitted with windows admitting daylight.

(2) In church architecture, a row of windows in the upper part of the wall, dividing the nave from the aisle and set above the aisle roof (associated particularly with the nave, transept and choir of a church or cathedral.

(3) In transportation vehicles (usually busses, railroad cars and occasionally cars & vans), a raised construction, typically appended to the roof structure and fitted with (1) windows to admit light or enhance vision or (2) slits for ventilation (or a combination of the two).

1375–1425: From the late Middle English, the construct being clere (clear (in the sense of “light” or “lighted”)) + story (from storey (a level of a building).  The word is obviously analyzed as “a story (upper level) with light from windows”.  Storey was from Middle English stori & storie, from the Anglo-Latin historia (picture), from the Latin, from the Ancient Greek ἱστορία (historía) (learning through research, narration of what is learned), from ἱστορέω (historéō) (to learn through research, to inquire), from ἵστωρ (hístōr) (the one who knows, the expert, the judge).  In the Anglo-Latin, historia was a term from architecture (in this case “interior decorating” in the modern sense) describing a picture decorating a building or that part of a building so decorated.  The less common alternative spellings are clearstory & clerstory.  Clerestory is a noun and clerestoried is an adjective; the noun plural is clerestories.

From here was picked up the transferred sense of “floor; level”.  The later use in church architecture of “an upper story of a church, perforated by windows” is thought simply to be a reference to the light coming through the windows and there is nothing to support the speculation the origin was related to a narrative (story) told by a series of stained glass windows, illuminated by sunlight.  Historians have concluded the purpose of the design was entirely functional; a way of maximizing the light in the interior space.  The related architectural design is the triforium.  The noun triforium (triforia or triforiums in the plural) (from the Medieval Latin triforium, the construct being tria (three) + for (opening) + -ium) describes the gallery of arches above the side-aisle vaulting in a church’s nave.  The –ium suffix (used most often to form adjectives) was applied as (1) a nominal suffix (2) a substantivisation of its neuter forms and (3) as an adjectival suffix.  It was associated with the formation of abstract nouns, sometimes denoting offices and groups, a linguistic practice which has long fallen from fashion.  In the New Latin, it was the standard suffix appended when forming names for chemical elements.

Clerestories which once shone: Grand Central Terminal (the official abbreviation is GCT although the popular form is "Grand Central Station" (often clipped to "Grand Central")), Midtown Manhattan, New York City, 1929 (left) and the same (now dimmed) location in a scene from the Lindsay Lohan film Just my Luck (2006) (right).  Because of more recent development in the surrounding space, the sunlight no longer enters the void through the clerestoried windows is such an eye-catching way.  In modern skyscrapers, light-shafts or atriums can extend hundreds of feet.

Tourist boat on a canal cruise, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Boats with clerestory windows are commonly seen on waterways like the canals of Amsterdam and are valued by tour-guides because they make excursions possible in (almost) all-weathers.  Those designing passenger busses and train carriages were also early adopters of clerestory windows, initially because they were a source of “free” light but as packaged tourism developed into “sightseeing”, tour operators recognized the potential and commissioned versions optimized for outward visibility, essentially a form of “value-adding” which made even the dreary business of bus travel from one place to the next more of a “sightseeing” experience, something probably most valued by those afforded a greater vista to observe in mountainous regions.

Greyhound Scenicruiser in original livery.

A variation of the idea was used for long-distance busses in North America, the best known of which remains the Greyhound Scenicruiser (PD-4501), featuring a raised upper deck with a clerestory windscreen.  Although the view through that was enjoyed by many passengers, the design was less about giving folk a view and more a way to maximize revenue within the length restrictions imposed by many US states.  What the upper deck did was allow a increase in passenger numbers because the space their luggage would absorb in a conventional (single layer) design could be re-allocated to people, their suitcases (and in some cases also freight, another revenue stream) relegated to the chassis level which also improved weight distribution and thus stability.

A predecessor: 1930 Lancia Omicron.

Famous as it became, the Scenicruiser, 1001 of which were built by General Motors (GM) between 1954-1956, was to cause many problems for both manufacturer and operator, the first of which caused by the decision to use twin-diesel engines to provide the necessary power for the new, heavy platform.  The big gas (petrol) units available certainly would have provided that but their fuel consumption would not only have made their operation ruinously expensive (both the fuel burn and the time lost by needing frequently to re-fill) and the volume of gas which would have to be carried would have both added to weight and reduced freight capacity.  Bigger GM diesel units weren’t produced in the early 1950s so the twin engines were a rational choice and the advantages were real, tests confirming that even when fully loaded, the coupled power-train would be sufficient for hill climbing while on the plains, the Scenicruiser happily would cruise using just a single engine.  However, as many discovered (on land, sea and in the air), running two engines coupled together is fraught with difficulties and these never went away, the busses eventually adopting one of GM’s new generation of big-displacement diesels as part of the major re-building of the fleet in 1961, a programme which also (mostly) rectified some structural issues which had been recognized.  Despite all that, by 1975 when Greyhound retired the model, the company still had hundreds in daily service and many of those auctioned off were subsequently used by other operators and in private hands, some are still running, often as motor homes or (mostly) static commercial displays or museum exhibits.

1951 Pegaso Z-403 (left) and 1949 Brill Continental (right).

GM’s Scenicruiser was influential and clerestory windscreens soon proliferated on North American roads although the idea wasn’t new.  The Spanish manufacturer Pegaso (a creation of Generalissimo Francisco Franco’s (1892-1975; Caudillo of Spain 1939-1975) industrial policy) between 1951-1957 produced the Z-403 (1951-1957) which used the same design and before even that a bus with an almost identical profile had been sold in the US by the JG Brill Company, albeit with a conspicuous lack of success.  As early as 1930 the Italian concern Lancia offered the Omicron bus with a 2½ half deck arrangement with a clerestoried upper windscreen.  The Omicron’s third deck was configured usually as a first-class compartment but at least three which operated in Italy were advertised as “smoking rooms”, the implication presumably that the rest of the passenger compartment was smoke-free.  History doesn't record if the bus operators were any more successful in enforcing smoking bans than the usual Italian experience.

1968 Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser.

One quirky offering which picked up the Scenicruiser’s clerestoried windscreen was the Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser (1964-1977), a station wagon which, until the release of the third series in 1973 featured one at the leading edge of a raised roof section, the glass ending midway over the backseat, the shape meaning it functioned also as a “skylight”.  Above the rear side windows were matching clerestories which might sound a strange thing to add above a luggage compartment but during those years, a “third seat” was a popular option to install in the space, transforming the things into eight or nine seat vehicles; families were bigger then.  The Vista Cruiser sold well and Buick later adopted the idea for some of its range until the concept was abandoned in 1972 because of concerns about upcoming safety regulations.  Such rules were however never imposed and both manufacturers revived the idea in the 1990s for their (frankly ugly) station wagons and when the Buick was discontinued in 1996, it was the last full-sized station wagon to be made in the US, the once popular market segment cannibalized to the point of un-viability by the mini-van (people-mover) and the sports utility vehicle (SUV).

The arrangement of a series of windows in a high-mounted row, borrowed from architecture, became familiar on train carriages and buses, especially those which plied scenic routes.  Usually these were added to the coachwork of buses built on existing full-sized commercial chassis which could seat 40-60 passengers but in the 1950s, there emerged the niche of the smaller group tour, either curated to suit a narrower market or created ad-hoc by hotels or operators; smaller vehicles were required and these offered the additional advantage of being able sometimes to go where big buses could not.  In places like the Alps, where those on the trip liked to look up as well as out, rows of clerestoried windows were desirable.

1959 Volkswagen Microbus Deluxe (23 Window Samba). 

The best known of these vehicles was the Volkswagen “Samba”, a variation of the Microbus, one of the range of more than a dozen a models built on the platform of the Type 2, introduced in 1950 after a chance sighting by a European distributer of a VW Beetle (Type 1) chassis which had been converted by the factory into a general-purpose utility vehicle.  The company accepted the suggestion a market for such a thing existed and in its original, air-cooled, rear-engined configuration, it remained in production well into the twenty-first century.  Between 1951-1966, the Microbus was available in a “Deluxe” version which featured both a folding fabric sunroof and rows of rows of clerestoried windows which followed the curve of the sides of the roof.  Available in 21 & 23 window versions, these are now highly collectable and such is the attraction there’s something of a cottage industry in converting Microbuses to the clerestoried specification but it’s difficult exactly to emulate the originals, the best of which can command several times the price of a fake (a perfectly restored genuine Samba in 2017 selling at auction in the US for US$302,000).  Such was the susceptibility to rust, the survival rate wasn’t high and many led a hard life when new, popular with the tour guides who would conduct bus-loads of visitors on (slow) tours of the Alps, the sunroof & clerestory windows ideal for gazing at the peaks.  To add to the mood, a dashboard-mounted valve radio was available as an option, something still for many a novelty in the early 1950s.  The Microbus Deluxe is rarely referred to as such, being almost universally called the “Samba” and the origin of that in uncertain.  One theory is it’s a borrowing from the Brazilian dance and musical genre that is associated with things lively, colorful, and celebratory, the link being that as well as the sunroof and windows, the Deluxe had more luxurious interior appointments, came usually in bright two-tone paint (other Type 2s were usually more drably finished) and featured lashings of external chrome.  It’s an attractive story but some prefer something more Germanic: Samba as the acronym for the business-like phrase Sonnendach-Ausführung mit besonderem Armaturenbrett (sunroof version with special dashboard).  However it happened, Samba was in colloquial use by at least 1952 and became semi official in 1954 when the distributers in the Netherlands added the word to their brochures.  Production ended in July 1967 after almost 100,000 had been built.

1966 Volkswagen Samba (21 Window, Left) and 1962 Volkswagen Samba (23 Window, Right).  The 23 Window van is a conversion of a Microbus and experts (of which there seem to be many, such is the following these things have gained) say it's close to impossible exactly to replicate a factory original.  In theory, the approach would be to take the parts with serial numbers (tags, engine, gearbox etc) from a real Samba which has rusted into oblivion (something not uncommon) and interpolate these into the sound body of a Microbus with as close a build date as possible.  Even then, such are the detail differences that an exact replication would be a challenge.  Because the Sambas received the same running changes and updates as the rest of the Microbus range, there was much variation in the details of the specification over the years but the primary distinction is between the “21” & “23” window vans, the difference accounted for by the latter’s pair of side-corner windows to the left & right of the rear top gate opening.  In 1964, when the rear doors were widened, the curved windows in the roof were eliminated because there would no longer be sufficient metal in the coachwork to guarantee structural integrity.

Decker

Decker (pronounced dek-er)

(1) Something (typically a bus, ship, aircraft, bed, sandwich et al), having a specified number of decks, floors, levels, layers and such (used usually in combination with a numerical or other expression indicating the number in the construction (double decker, triple decker, upper decker, five decker etc (sometimes hyphenated).

(2) As “table decker” an employee who “decks” (ie sets or adorns) a table used for entertaining (used also as a “coverer”) (archaic).  The idea lives on in the verb “bedeck” (to adorn).

(3) In boxing slang, a fighter with a famously powerful punch, able to “deck” an opponent (ie knock them to the canvas with a single punch).

(4) In historic naval slang, as “quarter-decker”, a label applied to officers known more for their attention to matters of etiquette or trivial regulations than competent seamanship or ability in battle.  It was an allusion to a warship’s “quarter deck” (the part of the spar-deck of a man-of-war (warship) between the poop deck and main-mast (and originally (dating from the 1620s), a smaller deck above the half-deck, covering about a quarter of the vessel’s LOA (length overall)).  In many navies, the quarter-deck was reserved as “a promenade for officers only”.

1785–1795: The construct was deck + -er.  Deck in this context was from the Middle English dekke (covering extending from side to side over part of a ship), from a nautical use of the Middle Dutch decke & dec (roof, covering), from the Middle Dutch decken, from the Proto-Germanic thakam (source also of the noun “thatch” and from the primitive Indo-European root steg & teg- (to cover) and the Old Dutch thecken, from the Proto-West Germanic þakkjan, from the Proto-Germanic þakjaną and related to the German Decke (covering, blanket).  The –er suffix was from the Middle English –er & -ere, from the Old English -ere, from the Proto-Germanic -ārijaz, thought most likely to have been borrowed from the Latin –ārius where, as a suffix, it was used to form adjectives from nouns or numerals.  In English, the –er suffix, when added to a verb, created an agent noun: the person or thing that doing the action indicated by the root verb.   The use in English was reinforced by the synonymous but unrelated Old French –or & -eor (the Anglo-Norman variant -our), from the Latin -ātor & -tor, from the primitive Indo-European -tōr.  When appended to a noun, it created the noun denoting an occupation or describing the person whose occupation is the noun.  The noun double-decker was first used in 1835 of ships with two decks above the water line and this extended to land transport (trains) in 1867.  Decker is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is deckers.

Flight deck of the US Navy's Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70).

The reason ships, trains, buses, aircraft and such have "decks" while buildings have "floors” or “stories (or storeys)” is traceable to nautical history and the nomenclature used in shipbuilding.  English picked up “deck” from the Middle Dutch decke & dec (roof, covering) where the use had been influenced by the Old Norse þekja (to cover) and in early shipbuilding, a “deck” was the structure which covered the hull of the ship, providing both a horizontal “working surface” and enclosing the vessel, creating a space for stores, cargo or accommodation which was protected from the elements.  In that sense the first nautical decks acted as a “roof”.  As ships became larger, the nautical architects began to include multiple decks, analogous with the floors of buildings in that they fulfilled a similar function, providing segregated layers (ie the storeys in buildings) used for cannons, crew quarters, storage and such.  As the terminology of shipbuilding became standardized, each deck came to have a specific name depending on its purpose or position (main deck, flight deck, poop deck, gun deck etc).

Ford Mustang convertible (1965–1973) replacement floor pan (complete, part number 3648B) by Moonlight Drive Sheet Metal.

Until the nineteenth century, although the vehicles used on land became larger, they tended to get longer rather than higher but the advent of steam propulsion made possible trains which ran on railways and these could pull carriages carrying freight or passengers.  The first “double decker” versions appeared in France in 1867 and were described as voitures à imperial, (imperial cars) were used on the Chemin de Fer de l'Ouest (Western Railway), the upper deck roofless and thus an “open-air experience”,  Rapidly, the idea spread and double-deck carriages became common for both long-distance and commuter services.  An outlier in the terminology is car design; cars have a floor (sometimes called the “floor pan”) rather than a deck, presumably because there’s only ever one.  In the narrow technical sense there have been cars with “two floors” but they were better understood as a “double-skinned” single floor and they were used for armor or to provide a space for something specialized such as hydrogen fuel-cells, the technique often called “sandwich construction”.

Boeing 314 Clipper flying boat cutaway (left) and front schematics of Boeing 747-300 (right).  Re-using some of an earlier design for a bomber which failed to meet the military’s performance criteria, between 1938-1941, Boeing built twelve 314 Clippers, long-range flying boats with the range to cross both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.  Although used by the military during World War II, most of their service was with the two commercial operators Pan Am (originally Pan American Airways) and BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation).  Very much a machine of the pre-war age, the last Clippers were retired from service between 1946-1948, the advances in aviation and ground infrastructure built during war-time rendering them obsolete and prohibitively expensive to maintain.

Because train designers adopted the nautical terminology, it naturally came to be used also in buses, and aircraft, the term “flight deck” (where the pilot(s) sat) common even before multiple decks appeared on flying boats and other long-distance airframes.  The famous “bubble” of the Boeing 747 (1968-2023) remains one of the best known decks and although most associated with the glamour of first-class international travel, was designed originally as a freight compartment.  The multi-deck evolution continued and the Airbus A380 (2005-2021) was the first “double decker” with two passenger decks extending the full length of the fuselage (with cargo & baggage) carried in the space beneath hence the frequent description of the thing as a “triple decker”.

Lindsay Lohan contemplating three decker sandwich, now usually called a “club sandwich”.  Many menus do specify the number of decks in the clubs.

Deck widely was used of many raised flat surface which people could walk or stand upon (balcony, porch, patio, flat rooftop etc) and came to be used of the floor-like covering of the horizontal sections or compartments, of a ship, a use later extended to land transport (trains, busses etc) and in the twentieth century, to aircraft.  A pack or set of playing cards can be called a deck as (less commonly), can the dealt cards which constitute the “hand” of each player and the notion was extended to sets of just about anything vaguely similar (such as a collection of photographic slides). , Because slides tended to be called a “deck” only when in their magazine, this influenced the later use in IT when certain objects digitally were assemble for storage or use and in audio and video use when cartridges or cassettes were loaded into “tape decks”.  In print journalism, a deck is a headline consisting of one or more full lines of text (applied especially to a sub-headline).  The slang use in the trade of illicit narcotics to describe the folded paper used for distributing drugs was a US regionalism.  There are dozens of idiomatic and other uses of deck, the best known including “all hands on deck”, “swab the decks”, “hit the deck” “clear the decks”, “deck-chair”, “deckhand”, “deck shoes”, “flight deck”, “gun deck”, “observation deck”, “play with a full deck”, “promenade deck”, “re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic”, “decked out”, “stack the deck”, “sun deck”, “top deck” & “to deck someone”.

Schematic of the Royal Navy’s HMS Victory, a 104-gun first-rate ship of the line, laid down in 1759 and launched in 1765, most famous as the flagship of Admiral Lord Nelson’s (1758-1805) flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October 1805; it was on her Nelson was killed in battle.  Uniquely, after 246 years on the active list, she is the world's oldest naval vessel still in commission.  Although the term wasn’t in use until the 1830s, Victory was a “five decker” configured thus:

Orlop Deck: The lowest deck, mainly used for storage and ship's equipment.
Lower Gun Deck: The deck housing the heaviest cannons.
Middle Gun Deck: This deck contained another set of guns, slightly lighter than those on the lower gun deck.
Upper Gun Deck: The third level of guns, with even lighter cannons.
Quarterdeck and Forecastle: The uppermost decks, where the captain and officers usually directed the ship during battle.

The early meanings in English evolved from “covering” to “platform of a ship” because of the visual similarity and it’s thought the idea of a deck being a “pack of cards” (noted in the 1590s) was based on them being stacked like the decks of a multi-deck man-of-war (warship).  The tape-deck was first so described in 1949 an was a reference to the flat surface of the old reel-to-reel tape recorders.  The first deck chairs were advertised in 1844, an allusion to the use of such thing on the decks of passenger ocean liners and deck shoes were those with sturdy rubber soles suitable for use on slippery surfaces; the modern “boat shoes” are a descendent.  The old admiralty phrase “clear the decks” dated from the days of the tall-masted warships (the best known of which was the big “ship-of-the-line”) and was a reference to the need to remove from the main deck the wreckage resulting from an attack (dislodged masts, sails, spas etc) to enable the battle to be rejoined without the obstructions.  Being made of wood, the ships were hard to sink but highly susceptible to damage, especially to the rigging which, upon fragmentation, tended to fall to the deck.  It may have been a adaptation of the French army slang débarasser le pont (clear the bridge).

Ford 302 cubic inch (4.9 litre) Windsor V8 with the standard deck (left) and the raised deck 351 (5.8) (right).  In production in various displacements between 1961-2000, the 221 (3.6), 255 (4.2), 260 (4.3), 289 (4.7) & 302 (4.9) all used what came retrospectively to be called the “standard deck” while the 351 (5.8) was the sole “raised deck” version.

For decades, it was common for US manufacturers to increase the displacement of their V8 engines but means of creating a “raised deck” version, the process involving raising the height of the engine block's deck surface (the surface where the cylinder heads bolt on).  What this allowed was the use of longer connecting rods while using the original heads and pistons which in combination with a “longer stroke crankshaft” increases the displacement (the aggregate volume of all cylinders).  The industry slang for such things was “decker” and the technique was used with other block configurations but is best known from the use in the 1960s & 1970s for V8s because it’s those which tend to be fetishized.  The path to greater displacement lay either in lengthening the stroke or increasing the bore (or a combination of the two) and while there were general engineering principles (longer stroke=emphasis on more torque at the cost of reducing maximum engine speed and bigger bore=more power and higher engine speeds) but there were limitations in how much a bore could safely be increased including the available metal.  A bigger bore (ie increasing the internal diameter of the cylinder) reduces the thickness of the cylinder walls and if they become too thing, there can be problems with cooling, durability or even the structural integrity of the block.  The piston size also increases which means the weight increases and thus so too does the reciprocating mass, increasing friction, wear and has the potential to compromise reliability, especially at high engine speeds.

Increasing the stroke will usually enhance the torque output, something of greater benefit to most drivers, most of the time than the “top end power” most characteristic of the “big bore” approach.  In street use, most engines spend most time at low or mid-range speed and it’s here a longer stroke tends to produce more torque so it has been a popular approach and the advantage for manufacturers is that creating a “decker” almost always is easier, faster and cheaper than arranging one which will tolerate a bigger bore, something which can demand a new block casting and sometimes changes to the physical assembly line.  With a raised deck, there can be the need to use different intake and exhaust manifolds and some other peripheral components but it’s still usually a cheaper solution than a new block casting.  Ford’s “thinwall” Windsor V8 was one of the longest-serving deckers (although the raised-deck version didn’t see out the platform’s life, the 351 (introduced in 1969) retired in 1997).  Confusingly, during the Windsor era, Ford also produced other 351s which belonged to a different engine family.  Ford didn’t acknowledge the biggest Windsor's raised deck in its designation but when Chrysler released a decker version of the “B Series” big-block V8 (1958-1978), it was designated “RB” (Raised B) and produced between 1959-1979.

1964 AEC Routemaster double decker Bus RM1941 (ALD941B) (left), two sightseeing AEC Routemasters in Christchurch, New Zealand (centre) and one of the "new" Routemasters, London 2023 (right).

London’s red, double-decker busses are one of the symbols most associated with the city and a fixture in literature, art and films needing something with which to capture the verisimilitude.  The classic example of the breed was the long-running AEC Routemaster, designed by the London Transport Board and built by the Associated Equipment Company (AEC) and Park Royal Vehicles.  The Routemaster entered service in 1956 and remained in production until 1968, changed over those years in many details but visually there was such continuity that it takes an expert (and buses are a thing so experts there are) to pick the model year.  They entered service in 1956 and remained in regular service until 2005 although some were retained as “nostalgia pieces” on designated “tourist” routes until COVID-19 finally saw their retirement; since then, many have been repurposed for service around the world on sightseeing duties and other tourist projects.

Boris Johnson (b 1964; UK prime-minister 2019-2022) will leave an extraordinary political legacy which in time may came to be remembered more fondly than it now may appear but one of his most enduring achievements is likely to be the “New Routemaster” which had the typically bureaucratic project name “New Bus for London” but came to be known generally as the “Boris Bus”, the honor accorded by virtue of him championing the idea while serving as Lord Mayor of London (2008-2016).  In truth, the original Routemaster, whatever its period charm, was antiquated years before it was withdrawn from service and although the doorless design made ingress and egress convenient, it was also dangerous and apparently a dozen passenger fatalities annually was not uncommon.  The Borisbus entered service in 2012 and by 2024 almost 1200 were in service.

1930 Lancia Omicron with 2½ deck coachwork and a clerestoried upper windscreen (left) and a “three decker” bus in Pakistan (right).

The Lancia Omicron was a bus chassis produced between 1927-1936; over 600 were built in different wheelbase lengths with both two and three-axle configurations.  Most used Lancia's long-serving, six-cylinder commercial engine but, as early as 1933, some had been equipped with diesel engines which were tested in North Africa where they proved durable and, in the Sudan, Ethiopia, Libya and Algeria, once petrol powered Omicron chassis were being re-powered with diesel power-plants from a variety of manufacturers as late as the 1960s.  Typically of bus use, coachbuilders fabricated many different styles of body but, in addition to the usual single and double deck arrangements, the Omicron is noted for a number of two and a half deck models, the third deck configured usually as a first-class compartment but in at least three which operated in Italy, they were advertised as “smoking rooms”, the implication presumably that the rest of the passenger compartment was smoke-free.  History doesn't record if the bus operators were any more enthusiastic about or successful in enforcing smoking bans than the usual Italian experience.  For a variety of reasons, busses with more than 2.something decks were rare and the Lancias and Alfa Romeos which first emerged in the 1920s were unusual.  However, the famously imaginative and inventive world of Pakistani commerce has produced a genuine “three decker” bus, marketed as the “limousine bus”.  What the designer did was take a long-distance, double decker coach and use the space allocated usually as a luggage compartment to configure as the interior of a long wheelbase (LWB) limousine, thereby creating a “first class” section, the four rows of seating accessible via six car-like (ie limousine) doors.