Scuttle

Scuttle (pronounced skuht-l)

(1) In nautical use, a small hatch or port in the deck, side, or bottom of a vessel; a cover for such a hatch; small opening in a boat or ship for draining water from open deck.

(2) A small hatch-like opening in a roof or ceiling that provides access to the roof from the interior of a building.

(3) In nautical use, deliberately to sink one's ship or boat by any means (eg by opening the sea-cocks), usually by order of the vessel's commander or owner.

(4) To abandon, withdraw from, or cause to be abandoned or destroyed (plans, hopes, rumors etc).

(5) To run with quick, hasty steps; scurry; a quick pace; a short, hurried run.

(6) A deep bucket for carrying coal.

(7) In northern British dialectal use, a broad, shallow basket, especially for carrying vegetables; a dish, platter or a trencher (sometimes called scuttle dish).

(8) The part of a motor-car body lying immediately behind the bonnet (hood), called the cowl in the US.

Pre 1050: From the Middle English scutel & scutelle (trencher) and scuttel (dish, basket, winnowing fan), from the Old English scutel (dish, trencher, platter), from the Latin scutella (serving platter; bowl), diminutive of scutra (shallow dish, pan) and (perhaps) the Latin scūtum (shield).  The Latin scutella was the source also of the French écuelle, the Spanish escudilla, the Italian scudella.  It was also a source of much Germanic borrowing, the source of the Old Norse skutill, the Middle Dutch schotel, the Old High German scuzzila and the German Schüssel (a dish).  The Meaning "basket for sifting grain" is attested from the mid-fourteenth century and as a "bucket for holding coal", use dates from 1849.

The sense of a “hole cut in a ship for some purpose” dates from 1490–1500, firstly as “skottell”: Of obscure origin, possibly from the Middle French escoutille, or from the Spanish escotar (to cut out) & escotilla (hatchway), the construct of which was escot & escote (a cutting of cloth) + -illa (a diminutive suffix of Germanic origin).  In the Gothic skaut meant “hem or seam).  Another possible link is to the Middle English scottlynge (scampering), a variant of scuddle and frequentative of scud.  The idea of hatches and holes in ships later extended to automobiles, the scuttle (cowl in the US) the space between the windscreen and bonnet (hood).  The sense of "cutting a hole in a ship to sink it" was first attested in the 1640s, an extension of use from the late-fifteenth century skottell (opening in a ship's deck), either from the French escoutille (which in Modern French is écoutille) or directly from the Spanish escotilla (hatchway), a diminutive of escota (opening in a garment), from escotar (cut out).  Scuttle & scuttling are nouns & verbs, scuttleful is a noun and scuttled is a verb; the noun plural is scuttles.

You're wrong.—He was the mildest manner'd man
That ever scuttled ship or cut a throat:
With such true breeding of a gentleman,
You never could divine his real thought;
No courtier could, and scarcely woman can
Gird more deceit within a petticoat;
Pity he loved adventurous life's variety,
He was so great a loss to good society.

Don Juan (1819–24) canto III, stanza XLI, by Lord Byron (1788–1824)

The figurative use to describe the sense of abandonment or destruction of the planning etc of something is recorded from 1888.  In military use this can be combined with the use of scuttle to describe a rapid, sometimes erratic crab-like walk suggestive of panic; the recent US evacuation from Kabul, would, in more robust times, have been called a scuttle.  The sense of "scamper; scurry" emerged in the mid-fifteenth century, probably related to the verb scud and perhaps influenced by the odd imperfect echoic.

A variation of the scuttle as a hole in the deck was scuttlebutt to describe a "cask of drinking water kept on a ship's deck, having a hole (scuttle) cut in it for a cup or dipper" is from 1805, supplanting the earlier (1777) “scuttle cask”.  Scuttlebutt is first recorded as meaning “rumor; gossip" in 1901 and was nautical slang before coming into general use late in World War I (1914-1918).  The modern corporate form, analogous with “gathering around the scuttlebutt” is the office “water-cooler” conversation.  The idea of information (accurate or otherwise) being associated with drinking water is doubtless as old as prehistoric people gathering at a drinking place and there’s the World War One era “furphy”, a descriptor of a rumor proved wrong, based on its origin being talk exchanged between soldiers having a yarn at one of the army’s Furphy brand water tanks.

Scuttle shake

The term scuttle shake is used to describe the shuddering displayed in many convertible cars, especially when traversing rough or uneven surfaces.   The vibrations happen because, without the strength provided by a fixed-roof, open-top automobiles generally are less structurally rigid than closed vehicles.  It’s called scuttle-shake because, although the scuttle (the area between the bonnet (hood) and the windscreen) is not the only place where the shuddering happens, it’s there where it’s usually most severe, often to the point where other vibrations tend not to be noticed.  The scuttle is affected because the erratic forces are generated through the tyres, to the chassis or frame to the point of the least structural rigidity: the bulkhead atop which sits the scuttle.  There is a transatlantic difference in that what most of the English-speaking world calls a scuttle is a cowl in US use.  Despite that, the term scuttle shake and cowl shake are both used in the US, probably because cars made there were always less susceptible to the phenomenon because the body-engineering standards were higher, Detroit always willing to add more bracing even at the cost of increasing overall weight.  It's speculative but perhaps it became so associated with foreign cars it was just natural to think scuttle and not cowl.

The archetypical scuttle shakers were the Triumph TR roadsters (TR2-TR6 1952-1976), the reputation gained because of the platform’s long life; although the TR6 bore no external resemblance to its earliest antecedents, much the same chassis and body structure underlay them all.  Many contemporaries of the TR2 and TR3 also suffered the problem but most manufacturers went through three or four generations in the quarter century the separate chassis TRs were produced, benefitting from the improvements in design and body engineering which passed by Triumph's aging roadster.  By the time the TR6 entered production in 1969, none of the competition still shook so much; that doesn’t mean that by the late twentieth century the problem went away but it was much ameliorated.  Notably, in the 1980s, generational shift, an improving economy and the non-appearance of the rumored US legislation which would have outlawed convertibles enticed some manufacturers back into the drop-top market so new models appears to demonstrate the difference.  Because volumes would be small, the development costs associated with new models was thought prohibitive so these were usually modified coupés.  Cutting the roof of a closed car is the classic recipe for scuttle shake but the techniques to strengthen structures had much improved over the years and the basic bodies were anyway inherently stronger because of the regulations imposed to improve crashworthiness.  Drivers could certainly tell the difference in body-rigidity but few were anything like a Triumph TR6 (unless it was a Saab 900; the Swedish car's convertible body was famously flexible).

Triumph TR2 (1953-1955)

After a similar looking prototype based on a pre-war platform was rejected, a redesign produced the TR2.  The specification was unpromising for a sports car; a hardly innovative ladder frame chassis, a two litre (122 cubic inch) engine based on one used in tractors (!), rudimentary weather protection and an already dated body but it was a success on both sides of the Atlantic.  On the road, it turned out to be greater than the sum of its parts, easily exceeding 100 mph (162 km/h) when that was something rare and, in the UK, it was the cheapest car which could make the claim.  Not delicate or in any way exquisite to drive ("agricultural" the usual description, perhaps a nod to the tractor engine), its characteristics were predictable by the standards of the time and it was soon effective in competition.  Over eight-thousand were built.

Triumph TR3 (1955-1962)

Essentially an updated TR2, the TR3 would be upgraded throughout its life in three identifiable generations although the factory regarded the changes as normal product development and never used different designations to distinguish between them (in the collector car market they're known as TR3, TR3A (1957) & TR3B (1962)).  Although still lacking many of the civilizing accruements buyers would soon expect, in its time the TR3 was a great sales hit and was campaigned successfully both by the factory teams and privateers in just about every category of competition for which it was eligible.  The advantages of using the tractor engine had become apparent in the TR2: the thing was both tuneable and close to indestructible if run by the book.  In the TR3, the usual English route to power (bigger carburetors, bigger valves, bigger ports and a more radical camshaft) was followed and 100 bhp (75 kw) was achieved.  Disk brakes, first used on the Factory Le Mans TR2s, were added to all but the earliest TR3s and the driving experience, despite the addition of rack and pinion steering, though offering nothing like the precision of the Italian competition, was rewarding if a little brutish (although the thing had gained respect and was now rarely called "agricultural").  Almost seventy-five thousand were built.

Triumph TR4 (1962-1965).

Although the chassis and drive-train of the TR3 was substantially carried over, the TR4 received a new body, designed in Italy by Michelotti, continuing what would prove a lucrative association for both the Italians and the British.  Modernised in function as well as form, the TR for the first time enjoyed wind-up windows and much improved ventilation as well as the novelty of the option of a kind of targa top, the first on the market although it was Porsche which decided to copyright the name.  To compensate for the increased weight, the engine was bored out to 2.1 litres (128 cubic inches) but the smaller version remained a factory option for those wished to run in competitions under the FIA’s 2.0 litre (122 cubic inch) rules, although, being a tractor engine and thus using wet cylinder liners, it wasn’t difficult for owners of a 2.1 to revert. 

Lindsay Lohan with Triumph TR4A during filming of Netflix's Irish Wish, scheduled for release in 2024.

This time Triumph did create versions as the specification changed.  In 1965, the TR4A was released, marked by a small power increase but, more significantly, independent rear suspension (IRS) which necessitated a change to the rear of the chassis frame.  Improvements in tyre technology had increasingly exposed the limitations of the TR4’s live axle which, mounted on such a low chassis, offered only limited wheel travel, something disguised by the grip of the TR2-era tyres which tended predictably to slide but with the modern radials on the TR4, the loss of grip could be sudden and unexpected.  It greatly improved the ride and raised the limits of adhesion, making for a safer road car but those using a TR4 in competition still opted for the live axle which offered more in the hands of experts who preferred to steer with the throttle.  Many TR4As were actually fitted with the live axle, re-designed to accommodate the changes to the chassis.  Facing competition from much improved MG and Austin-Healy roadsters, sales suffered somewhat with around forty-thousand built.

Triumph TR5 (TR-250 in North America) (1967-1968)

Visually almost identical to the TR4, the TR5 benefited from being powered by a 2.5 litre (153 cubic inch) version of Triumph’s (again almost indestructible) straight-six and in a first for a volume British manufacturer, it used Lucas mechanical fuel injection, tuned to a healthy 150 bhp (112 kw) (although even at the time many thought this seemed a little optimistic).  Again available with the clever targa (usually called the “Surrey Top” although the factory insisted the “surrey” was merely a the roof part of the whole system), the bigger engine meant the TR5 was a genuine 120 mph (195 km/h) car.

For the first time, and a harbinger of the future, TR5s built for the North American market differed significantly from those destined for the rest of the world.  Instead of fuel-injection, the US-bound car breathed through a pair of Zenith-Stromberg carburetors and, to mark the debut of the 2.5 litre six, was named TR-250.  The loss of the fuel injection did sacrifice power, the TR-250 rated at 111 bhp (81 kW) but performance was still slightly better than the TR4, the feeling being the US car’s official power was likely a more accurate number than the 150 bhp claimed for the TR5.  The TR5 was in production for only a short time and fewer than three-thousand were built, the importance of the US market illustrated by the fact that over the same period, almost eight and a half thousand TR-250s were shipped.

Triumph TR6 (1968-1976)

Like its predecessor, the TR6 was built with both fuel injection and carburetors but all were labelled TR6 regardless of destination, the US market and those with less developed infrastructure missing out on the newer system.  The car itself was almost unchanged underneath but new front and rear styling was grafted onto the TR4/TR5 centre section, styled this time by Karmann of Germany so it was English underneath, Italian in the middle and German to the front and rear.  The targa top was retired, replaced by a hardtop designed in-house and the restyle, universally praised as ruggedly handsome, was well received.

Although the factory labelled the whole run as TR6, such were the variations over the years that Triumph nerds differentiate several (informal) versions, some based on detail differences and some on significant changes in specification.  All models produced for the North-American market used carburetors (the fuel-injected engine unable to apply with the more onerous emission rules), delivering 104 bhp (78 kw) and this configuration was used also in some export markets because of anticipated difficulties in servicing the Lucas equipment in countries with a less developed infrastructure.  The home market and most other export cars used fuel injection which, again rated at 150 bhp, delivered almost identical performance to the TR5.  In 1972, the fuel-injected cars were re-tuned with a milder camshaft, lower compression ratio and smaller inlet valves, the factory revising the claimed power to 125 bhp (94 kw) although performance barely suffered, hinting the new claim might be more accurate than the old.  The engine revisions suited the motoring conditions of the day, traffic volumes now much heavier and the re-tuned engine delivered its power over a wider range, the slight sacrifice in top-end performance noticed by few.

Compared with genuinely modern sports cars like the Datsun 240Z or even the flawed Jensen-Healy, the TR6 was antiquated but so immensely satisfying to drive, buyers seemed not to mind and sales remained strong, the end coming only because it was clear it soon would no longer be possible to modify the thing to meet upcoming US legislation.  At the end of its seven year run, it was the most successful of the traditional TRs, well over ninety-thousand made of which over eighty-three thousand were exported.  Although the TR6 was not visually recognizable as a descendent of the TR2, one thing remained constant throughout: scuttle shake.

Viceroy

Viceroy (pronounced vahys-roi)

(1) A person appointed to rule a country or province as the deputy of the sovereign and exercising the powers of the sovereign.

(2) A brightly marked American butterfly (Limenitis archippus), closely mimicking the monarch butterfly in coloration but slightly smaller, hence the analogy with a sovereign and their representative.

1515–1525: From the Middle French, the construct being vice- + roy.  Vice was from the Old French vice (deputy), from the Latin vice (in place of), an ablative form of vicis.  In English (and other languages) the vice prefix was used to indicate an office in a subordinate position including air vice-marshal, vice-admiral, vice-captain, vice-chair, vice-chairman, vice-chancellor, vice-consul, vice-director, vice president, vice-president, vice-regent & vice-principal.  Roy was from the Middle English roy & roye, from the Old French roi (king), from the Latin rēgem, accusative of rēx (king) and related to regere (to keep straight, guide, lead, rule), from the primitive Indo-European root reg- (move in a straight line) with derivatives meaning “to direct in a straight line" thus the notion of "to lead, rule".  It was a doublet of loa, rajah, Rex, rex and rich.  The noun plurals was roys.  The wife of a viceroy was a vicereine, the word also used for female viceroys of whom there have been a few.  The American butterfly was named in 1881.  Viceroy and viceroy are nouns and viceregal is a noun and adjective; the noun plural is viceroys.

The noun viceregent (the official administrative deputy of a regent) attracted the attention of critics because it was so frequently confused with vicegerent (the official administrative deputy of a ruler, head of state, or church official).  Despite the perceived grandiosity of vicegerent, gained from association with offices such as the Pope as Vicar of Christ on Earth or the regent of a sovereign state, it’s merely generally descriptive of one person substituting for another and can be as well-applied to the shop assistant minding the store while the grocer has lunch.  The area of regency can be a linguistic tangle because a regent is a particular kind of viceregent and there was a time when viceregent was used instead of the correct vicegerent and was sometimes used pleonastically for regent.  The grammar Nazis never liked this and attributed the frequency of occurrence to the preference of viceregal rather than vicereoyal as the adjective of viceroy.

Under the Raj, under the pith helmets: King George V, Emperor of India with Lord Hardinge, Viceroy of India, Government House, Calcutta 1911.

In the rather haphazard way British rule in India evolved, the office of Governor-General of India was created by the Charter Act of 1833 and in an early example of the public-private partnership (PPP), the post was essentially administrative and was both appointed by and reported to the directors of the East India Company, functioning also as an informal conduit between the company and government.  The system lasted until 1858 when, in reaction to the Indian Mutiny (1857), the parliament passed the Government of India Act, creating the role of Viceroy (wholly assuming the office of Governor General), the new office having both executive and diplomatic authority and reporting (through the newly-established India Office) to the British Crown.  The viceroy was appointed by the sovereign on the advice of the parliament (ie the prime-minister) and it is this structure which is remembered as the British Raj (from the Hindi rāj (state, nation, empire, realm etc), the rule of the British Crown on the subcontinent although the maps of empire which covered the whole region as pink to indicate control were at least a bit misleading.

Viceroy butterfly.

The best-known viceroys were probably those who headed the executive government of India under the Raj although other less conspicuous appointments were also made including to Ireland when the whole island was a constituent part of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1801-1922).  As a general principle (and there were exceptions), in British constitutional law, the Dominions and colonies that were held in the name of the parliament of Great Britain were administered by Governors-General while colonies held in the name of the British Crown were governed by viceroys.  Between 1858-1947, there were twenty viceroys of India including some notable names in British politics such as Lord Lansdowne (1888–1894) who introduced the Indian Councils Act and raised the age of consent for girls from ten to twelve, Lord Curzon (1899–1905) who introduced the Indian Universities Act and presided over the partition of Bengal, Lord Hardinge (1910-1916) who was in office during the Mesopotamian Campaign, Lord Irwin (1926–1931) (better known as Lord Halifax) who summoned the first round table conference and Lord Mountbatten (1947), the last Viceroy of India who, reflecting the change in constitutional status upon independence, was between 1947-1948 briefly the new nation's first Governor-General.  He was also the second-last, the office abolished in 1950 when the Republic of India was proclaimed.

Lindsay Lohan’s NFT for Lullaby with viceroy butterflies.

In 2021, it was announced Lindsay Lohan's non-fungible token (NFT) electronic music single Lullaby had sold for 1,000,001 in Tron (TRX) cryptocurrency (US$85,484.09).   Lullaby featured a vocal track over a beat produced by Manuel Riva and was the first NFT by a woman to be sold on #fansForever, a marketplace created for dealing in celebrity NFTs.  The graphics of the NFT Tron had a viceroy butterfly flapping its wings in unison with Ms Lohan’s eyelids to the beat of Lullaby.  Because of the underlying robustness, the blockchain and the NFT concept has an assured future for many purposes but to date the performance of celebrity items as stores of value has been patchy.

1936 Rolls-Royce Phantom III (7.7 litre (447 cubic inch) V12; chassis 3AZ47, engine Z24B, body 8594 in style 6419) by Hooper, built for the Marquess of Linlithgow (1887-1952) who served as Viceroy of India (1936-1944), seen in its original configuration with a chauffeur (left) and as re-bodied during 1952-1953 (right).  In the centre is a British plumed helmet, circa 1920, this one with a skull in gilt metal, mounted with unusually elaborate gilt ornamentation including helmet-plate (itself mounted with a white metal hobnail star bearing gilt Royal Arms), ornate gilt chins-scales with claw ends and an untypically extravagant white swan's feather plume, notably longer than regulation length.  It was used by the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at Arms, a body formed in 1539 and staffed by former army officers as the “nearest guard” to the sovereign. The helmet is based on the “Albert” pattern for Household Cavalry, a style in use for some 150 years.

Viceroys of India were always rather exalted creatures, their status reflecting India’s allure as the glittering prize of the empire and upon recall to London, were usually raised to (or in) the peerage as marquesses while a retiring prime-minister might expect at most an earldom, one notch down.  Their special needs (and some were quite needy) in office also had to be accommodated, an example of which is Lord Linlithgow’s 1937 Rolls-Royce Phantom III, built with a capacity for seven passengers (although no luggage which was always carried separately).  The coachwork by Hooper was most unusual, the engine’s side-panels being 1½ inches taller than standard, a variation required to somewhat balance the very tall passenger compartment, the dimensions of which were dictated by the viceroy’s height of 6’ 7” (2.0 m), the plumed hats of his role elongating things further.  Such high-roof-lines were not uncommon on state limousines and have been seen on Mercedes-Benz built for the Holy See and the Daimlers & Rolls-Royces in the British Royal Mews.  Delivered in dark blue with orange picking out lines and coronets on the rear doors, the interior was trimmed in dark blue leather with two sets of loose beige covers, the woodwork in solid figured walnut rather than veneer.  Signed-off 21 July 1936 and shipped to Bombay (now Mubai) on the SS Bhutan on 24 July, Hooper’s invoice to the India Office listed the price of the chassis at Stg£1405, the coachwork at Stg£725 and a total cost of Stg£2130.

After the Raj, the car passed into private hands and in 1952 was returned to the Hooper works in Westminster for re-modeling, the most obvious aspects of which were the lowering of the roof-line and a re-finishing in grey.  The high cowl (scuttle) and hood (bonnet) line were however retained so the re-configuration actually replaced one discontinuity with another but the changes certainly made it an interesting period piece and its now one of three Phantom IIIs in the collection assembled by Pranlal Bhogilal (1937-2011), displayed in his Auto World Vintage Car Museum in Kathwada, on the outskirts of Ahmedabad.

Spat

Spat (pronounced spat)

(1) A petty quarrel; a dispute.

(2) A light blow; a slap or smack (now rare).

(3) A classic footwear accessory for outdoor wear (technically an ankle-length gaiter), covering the instep and ankle, designed to protect these areas from mud & stones etc which might be splattered (almost always in the plural).

(4) In automotive design, a piece of bodywork on a car's fender encapsulating the aperture of the wheel-arch, covering the upper portion of the wheel & tyre (almost always on the rear) and used variously to reduce drag or as a aesthetic choice.

(5) In aviation, on aircraft with fixed under-carriages, a partial enclosure covering the upper portion of the wheel & tyre, designed to reduce drag.

(6) In zoology, a larval oyster or similar bivalve mollusc, applied particularly when one settles to the sea bottom and starts to develop a shell; young oysters collectively, especially seed oysters.

1350-1400: From the Middle English spat (argument, minor scuffle), from the Anglo-Norman spat, of unknown origin but presumed related either to (1) being the simple past tense & past participle of spit or (2) something vaguely imitative of the sound of a dispute in progress.  In use, a spat implies a dispute which is minor and brief.  That doesn’t preclude violence being involved but the word does tend to be applied to matters with few serious consequences but a spat can of course escalate to something severe at which point it ceases to be a spat and becomes a brawl, a fight, a murder, a massacre or whatever the circumstances suggest is appropriate.  Otherwise, a spat is synonymous with words like bickering, brouhaha, disagreement, discord, falling-out, feud, squabble, tiff or argument.

As a descriptor of the short gaiter covering the ankle (which except in technical and commercial use is used only in the plural), use dates from 1779 as an invention of American English and a shortening of the trade-terms spatterdash (or splatterguard) (long gaiter to keep trousers or stockings from being spattered with mud), the construct being spatter + dash (or guard), the former the same idea as the noun dashboard which was a timber construction attached to the front of horse-drawn carriages to protect the passengers from mud or stones thrown up when the beasts were at a dash.  In cars, the use of the term dashboard persisted although the device both shifted rearward (aligned with the cowl (scuttle) & windscreen) and changed in function.  In aircraft where the link to horse-drawn transport didn’t exist, the preferred equivalent term became “instrument panel”.

Stanley Melbourne Bruce (front row, second from left) in spats, official photograph of his first cabinet, Melbourne, 1923.

Spats date from a time when walking in cities could be a messy business, paved surfaces far from universal.  As asphalt and concrete became commonplace in the twentieth century, spats fell from frequent use though there were those who clung to them as a fashion accessory.  Stanley Melbourne Bruce (1883–1967; prime minister of Australia 1923-1929) liked spats and wore them as late as the 1940s but historians of fashion note it's said nothing was more influential in their demise than George V (1865–1936; King of the United Kingdom 1910-1936) eschewing them after 1926.  They days, they're seen only in places like the Royal Enclosure at Ascot or smart weddings although variations are still part of some ceremonial full-dress military uniforms.  Technically, a spat probably can be called a “short” or “ankle-length” gaiter but it’s wise to use “spat” because gaiters are understood as extending higher towards the knee.

On the Jaguar 2.4 & 3.4 (1955-1959, top row; later retrospectively named Mark 1), full-sized spats were standard equipment when the standard wheels were fitted but some owners used the cut-down versions (available in at least two designs) fitted when the optional wire wheels were chosen.  For use in competition, almost all drivers removed the spats.  The Mark 2 (bottom row;1959-1969) was never fitted with the full-size units but many used slimmer version available from both the factory and third-party suppliers; again, in competition, spats in any shape were usually discarded.  On the big Jaguars, spats (which had already been scalloped) disappeared after production of the Mark IX ended in 1961.    

On cars, it wasn’t until the 1930s that spats (which some English manufacturers called "aprons" and in the US they came to be called “fender-skirts” though the original slang was “pants”) began to appear as the interest in streamlining and aerodynamic efficiency grew and it was in this era they became also a styling fad which, for better and worse, would last half a century.  They’d first been seen in the 1920s as aerodynamic enhancements on speed record vehicles and some avant-garde designers experimented with enveloping bodywork but it was only late in the decade that the original style of separate mudguards (later called cycle-fenders) gave way to more integrated coachwork where the wheel-arch was an identifiable feature in the modern sense.  Another issue was that the early tyres were prone to wear and damage and needed frequently to be changed, hence the advantage of making access to the wheels un-restricted.  In the 1930s, as streamlining evolved as both a means to reduce drag (thus increasing performance and reducing fuel consumption) and as a styling device, the latter doubtlessly influenced by the former.  On road cars, spats tended to be used only at the rear because of the need to provide sufficient clearance for the front wheels to turn although there were manufacturers (Delahaye, Nash and others) which extended use to the front and while this necessitated compromise (notably the turning circle and cooling of the brakes), there were some memorable art-deco creations.

The aerodynamic advantages were certainly real, attested by the tests conducted during the 1930s by Mercedes-Benz and Auto-Union, both factories using spats front and rear on their land-speed record vehicles, extending the use to road cars although later Mercedes-Benz would admit the 10% improvement claimed for the 1937 540K Autobahn-kurier (highway cruiser) was just “a calculation” and it’s suspected even this was more guesswork than math.  Later, Jaguar’s evaluation of the ideal configuration to use when testing the 1949 XK120 on Belgium roads revealed the rear spats added about 3-4 mph to top speed though they precluded the use of the lighter wire wheels and did increase the tendency of the brakes to overheat in severe use so, like many things in engineering, it was a trade-off.

1958, 1959 & 1960 Chevrolet Impalas.  Not actually wildly popular when new, accessory spats now often appear on restored cars as a “period accessory”.

In the post-war years, concerns with style rather than specific aerodynamic outcomes probably prevailed.  In the US especially, the design motifs borrowed from aircraft and missiles (where aerodynamic efficiency was important and verified in wind tunnels) were liberally applied to automobiles but in some cases, although they actually increased drag, they anyway appeared on production cars because they lent the desired look.  Because they added to the cost of production, spats tended often to be used on the more expensive ranges, this association encouraging after-market accessory makers to produce them, often for models where they’d never been available as a factory fitting or option.  Although now usually regarded as naff (at least), there’s still some demand because they are fitted sometimes (often in conjunction with that other acquired taste period-accessory, the "Continental" spare-tyre kit) by those restoring cars from the era although the photographic record does suggest that when the vehicles were new, such things were vanishingly rare.

Spats vanished from cars made in the UK and Europe except among manufacturers (such as Citroën) which made a fetish of conspicuous aerodynamics and in the US, where they endured, increasingly they appeared in cut-down form, exposing most of the wheel with only the upper part of the tyre concealed.  By the mid 1990s spats appeared only on some of the larger US cars (those by then also down-sized from their mid-seventies peak) and none survived into the new century, the swansong the 1996 Cadillac DeVille.  However, the new age of efficiency did see a resurgence of interest with spats (some actually integrated into the bodywork rather than being detachable) used on some electric and hybrid vehicles where every possible way of optimizing the use of energy is deployed.

1 1937 Mercedes-Benz W125 Rekordwagen

2 1937 Mercedes-Benz 540K Autobahn-kurier

3 1937 Auto-Union Type C Stromlinie

4 1939 Mercedes-Benz W154 Rekordwagen

5 1939 Mercedes-Benz T-80

6 1940 Mercedes-Benz 770K Cabriolet B

9 1970 Porsche 917 LH

8 1988 Jaguar Jaguar XJR9

Pioneered by Mercedes-Benz and Auto-Union during the 1930s when the factory racing programmes were being subsidized by the Nazi regime as a national prestige project, spats were used on the specially tuned cars used for land-speed record attempts though not on the circuits where the air-flow was needed for brake cooling.  The use on the road cars was sometimes an overt allusion to the quest for aerodynamic efficiency such as those added to the streamlined 540K Autobahn-kurier (highway cruiser) but their use on big machines like the 770K was simply as a styling tool.  The highest evolution of the 1930’s theme was the aero-engined T-80, intended to lay siege to the world Land-Speed Record (LSR).  Powered by a 3,500 hp (2,600 kW), 44.5 litre (2,716 cubic inch) Daimler-Benz DB 603 inverted V12 (most of which were supplied to the Luftwaffe), calculations (all then by slide-rule) suggested it should reach 750 km/h (466 mph) on a 10 kilometre (6 mile) stretch of the Autobahn, closed to other traffic for the occasion.  Scheduled for January 1940, the outbreak of war meant the T-80 never ran.  In the years since, partial or complete spats have often been used on high-speed vehicles in competition.

1970 Chaparral 2J. 

The most extraordinary vindication of the concept was probably the 1970 Chaparral 2J, built for the Canadian-American Challenge Cup (the Can-Am, a series for unlimited displacement sports cars under the FIA’s minimalist Group 7 rules).  Although using a similar frame and power-plant (the all aluminum, 427 cubic inch (7.0 litre) Chevrolet V8 (ZL1)) as most of its competition, it differed in that the bodywork was rather more rectilinear, the transmission was semi-automatic and, most intriguingly, the use of two small auxiliary engines (Rockwell JLO 247 cm³ two-stroke, two-cylinder units which usually powered snowmobiles).  Unlike the auxiliary engines used in modern hybrids which provide additional or alternative power, what the Rockwells did was drive two fans (borrowed from the M-109 Howitzer, the US Army’s self-propelled 155 mm (6 inch) cannon) which pumped air from underneath at 9650 cfm (cubic feet per minute) (273 m3 per minute), literally sucking the 2J to the road, the technique enhanced by a Lexan (a thermoplastic polymer) skirt which partially sealed the gap between the shell and the road.  The rear spats (integrated into the body-shell) were part of the system, offering not only their usual contribution to reduced drag but increasing the extent of the suction generated by the extractor fans.  The 2J was immediately faster than the competition but the suction system proved fragile although, as a proof of concept it worked and it was clear that only development was needed to debug things.  Unfortunately, innovation and high speeds have always appalled the FIA (the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile which has for decades been international sport’s dopiest regulatory body) and they banned the 2J.  Really, the FIA should give up on motorsport and offer their services to competitive crochet where they can focus on things like pins and needles not being too sharp.

1949 Delahaye 175-S Saoutchik roadster (left), 1967 Cadillac Fleetwood Sixty Special  (centre) & 2016 Rolls-Royce Vision Next 100 (electric) (right).

Fashions change and spats in the post-war years became unfashionable except in the odd market segment which appealed to an older demographic and even there, as the years were by, they were cut-away, revealing more of the wheel & tyre but they never entirely went away and designers with big computers now don’t even need even bigger wind tunnels to optimize airflow and spats have been displayed which are mounted vertically, some even responding to dynamic need by shifting location or direction.

Flown first in 1938 and named after the Spartan admiral Lysander (circa 467-395 BC), the Westland Lysander was a British army co-operation and communications aircraft used extensively during the Second World War (1939-1945).  Although it couldn’t match the extraordinary STOL (short Take-Off & Landing) performance of the its German contemporary the Fieseler Fi 156 Storch, it was capable, robust and had a good enough short-field capability to perform valuable service throughout the conflict.  Like many aircraft with a fixed undercarriage, partially enveloping spats were fitted to reduce drag but those on the Lysander had the unusual feature of being fitted with their own removable spats (similar to those used on automobiles).  Once these were dismounted, assemblies could be fitted to mount either Browning machine guns or stub wings which could carry light bombs or supply canisters.  The arrangement was popular with ground crew because the accessibility made servicing easy and pilots appreciated the low placement because the change in weight distribution had little adverse effect on handling characteristics.

Buffer

Buffer (pronounced buhf-er)

(1) A static apparatus at the end of a railroad car, railroad track etc, for absorbing shock during coupling, collisions etc with the contact section made usually from spring-loaded steel pads or (in areas of low-speed activity such as shunting yards) timber.

(2) Any device, material, or apparatus used as a shield, cushion, or bumper, especially on machinery.

(3) Any intermediate or intervening shield or device reducing the danger of interaction between two machines, chemicals, electronic components etc.

(4) A person or thing that shields and protects against annoyance, harm, hostile forces etc, or that lessens the impact of a shock or reversal.

(5) Any reserve moneys, negotiable securities, legal procedures, etc., that protect a person, organization, or country against financial ruin.

(6) In ecology, as buffer state, an animal population that becomes the prey of a predator that usually feeds on a different species.

(7) In computing, a storage device for temporarily holding data until the device is ready to receive or process the data, as when a receiving unit has an operating speed lower (eg a printer) than that of the unit (eg a computer) feeding data to it.

(8) In electronics, a circuit with a single output activated by one or more of several inputs.

(9) In chemistry, any substance or mixture of compounds that, added to a solution, is capable of neutralizing both acids and bases without appreciably changing the original acidity or alkalinity of the solution; also called a buffer solution; any solution containing such a substance.

(10) To treat with a buffer.

(11) To cushion, shield, or protect; to lessen the adverse effect of; ease:

(12) In computing, temporarily to save data before actively accessing it so it may be loaded at a rapid or uniform rate.

(13) A device for polishing or buffing, as a buff stick or buff wheel, often in the form “floor buffer” for polishing floors; a worker who uses such a device.

(14) In admiralty slang, the senior non-commissioned officer serving on a ship or boat.

(15) In (mostly UK) colloquial use, a good-humored, slow-witted fellow, usually an elderly man, thus often as “old buffer” (archaic).

(16) In medicine, a preparation designed to decrease acidity in the stomach.

(17) In geopolitics, as buffer state, a country the land mass of which physically separates two opposing potentially powers and the existence of which is intended to prevent conflict or permit an attacked state a greater time to organize its defense.

(18) In geopolitics as buffer zone, a region separating two areas, often demilitarized, to segregate antagonistic populations: based usually on regional, ethnic or religious lines.

1835: The noun buffer in the sense of "something that absorbs a blow, apparatus for deadening the concussion between a moving body and that against which it strikes" was an agent noun from the obsolete verb buff (make a dull sound when struck), from the mid-sixteenth century Old French buffe & bufe (a blow, slap, punch).  The figurative sense of "anything that prevents impact or neutralizes the shock of impact of opposing forces" is from 1858 and was adopted universally by the railroad industry.  The sense of “one who or that which polishes by buffing” dates from 1854, an agent noun from the verb.  The verb use extended to “lessen the impact of” by 1886.  The use in chemistry began in the mid-nineteenth century, borrowed by analogy from the railroads although the meaning in science was soon extended and was adopted in electrical engineering.  In geopolitics the term wasn’t used until the mid-nineteenth century, the word again picked up from the general use inspired by railroads.  However, the concept had been well-understood for centuries.  The Congress of Vienna (1814-1815) created the United Kingdom of the Netherlands (modern day Belgium & the Netherlands) to remove the means of conflict between the UK, France & Prussia and although it lasted only until the separation of Belgian in 1830, the defined land-mass continued to fulfil the same function.

The derived forms include buffering, buffered & bufferize; the noun plural is buffers.  In the nineteenth century, a number of languages picked up buffer directly from English, including Danish, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese & Romansch, spread apparently by the international growth in railroad construction.

Europe 1945-1989.

The deployment of ten-odd Russian army divisions on the border with Ukraine’s revived interest in the old squabble about whether, in the last days of the USSR, politicians from the West made promises or at least provided assurances to Moscow that NATO would not expand eastwards.  The archivists have for decades been looking for any document which might clarify at least what was at the time discussed but nothing emerged until some material was declassified in 2017.  The conclusion is that the USSR was never offered any formal guarantee about NATO membership but the interpretations of what happened after 1990 vary, the view from the West that the enlargement of NATO was undertaken honorably and in accordance with the rights international law accords to sovereign states whereas Moscow’s narrative is one of Western deception and duplicity. 

Most scholars of the Cold War seem to agree the story begins in February 1990 when James Baker (b 1930; US secretary of state 1989-1992), secretary of state under George HW Bush (1924–2018; US president 1989-1993 (George XLI)) met with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev (b 1931; leader of the USSR 1985-1991) in Moscow.  Only three months after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the matter of immediate interest was whether Germany, divided since 1945 into east and west, would be reunified, something that was most feared, though for different reasons, in the Kremlin and Downing Street.  London’s concern was its traditional fear to the emergence of an overwhelmingly strong Germany; Moscow feared the specter of NATO’s missiles being stationed in the GDR (East Germany). 

What both Russian and US transcripts of the meeting reveal was that the US position was it was in everyone’s interest that a unified Germany existed within NATO's political and military structure but at no point did either side discuss any of the nations aligned with the Warsaw Pact joining NATO.  That was not on the agenda because the thought of the imminent collapse of the USSR had not then occurred to many, none of whom were prominent in the US administration.  Orthodox political thought in the US, across most of the political spectrum, was that the Soviet empire probably was doomed but it’s life was expected to extend for at least decades.  A similar spirit animated the discussion Gorbachev had the next day with the FRG’s (West Germany) Chancellor Helmut Kohl (1930–2017; Chancellor of FRG or Germany 1982 to 1998), most taken up with the matter of German unification, NATO enlargement not even mentioned.  What was agreed was that the US, France, the UK and Germany, agreed not to deploy non-German NATO forces in the former East Germany.

However, in the great geopolitical event of the second half of the twentieth century, the USSR did in 1991 collapse, ending the perhaps unhappy but essentially stable post-war arrangement whereby east and west were separated by an array of buffer states, the cordon sanitaire which was built by Comrade Stalin (1878–1953; leader of the USSR, 1924-1953), which constituted the line of the Iron Curtain from “…Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic…”.  They were difficult years for the post-Soviet buffer states but, in 1999, NATO welcomed as members, three nations of the former Warsaw Pact: Hungary, Poland & the Czech Republic.  That sounds now like an event of great significance and of course it was but with all the social and economic disruption happening in Russia, it evoked surprisingly few complaints, the political faction in Moscow which tilted towards Europe and saw their country’s future there, much more influential than today.  Some did however dwell on things.  A decade after the first NATO expansion, Gorbachev complained that the West had tricked Moscow, claiming he’d been assured NATO would not be moving “one centimeter further east."

Gorbachev later retreated from that, in 2014 admitting that in all the discussions which followed the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification Germany, the topic of “NATO expansion” was never raised by either side, adding that not a single Eastern European country brought up the issue, not even after the Warsaw Pact had been dissolved 1991.  Equally sanguine seems to have been the first Russian president, Boris Yeltsin (1931–2007; president of the Russian Federation 1991-1999).  Although hardly enthusiastic about NATO expansion, he raised no objection but did urge caution on the West, warning it was important to take into account public opinion in Russia.  In that he may have had some misplaced faith in realism of those he viewed as his new Western partners, writing later that "the spirit of the treaty on the final settlement...precludes the option of expanding the NATO zone into the East."  None of that was in writing of course, the generous interpretation being inferences were drawn where no implications were intended.  Either that or, in Washington, views changed in the post Cold-War world.

Still, for a time, tensions seemed not great and cooperative structures were created including NATO-Russia Founding Act, a kind of statement of peaceful co-existence and in 2002, a joint consultative council was established as a framework in which differences could be resolved; rather wishy-washy in detail, it was regarded by most as ineffectual but at least harmless.  The real crossing of the Rubicon came in 2004 when NATO undertook its largest expansion, admitting seven more Eastern European countries including, critically, the Baltic states Latvia, Lithuania & Estonia, Latvia, all of which had been republics, unhappily, of the USSR.  It was the closest NATO’s divisions & missiles had ever been to Moscow.

By 2007 with the oil price high and the Russian economy thus buoyant, if rather distorted by its reliance on energy exports, the new Russian president, Vladimir Putin (b 1952; Russian president or prime-minister since 1999) made the official Russian position explicit, accusing NATO (ie the US) of duplicity and threatening Russia:  “I think it is obvious that NATO expansion has no relation with the modernization of the alliance itself or with ensuring security in Europe. On the contrary, it represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust.”  “What happened to the assurances our Western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact? Where are those declarations today?"  There being no documents, it seems Mr Putin might be relying on Mr Yeltsin’s evocation of the “spirit” of the discussions which both he and Mr Gorbachev had earlier confirmed contained no discussion of NATO expansion.  Still, some sense of realism was on display at a summit in Bucharest in 2008 when NATO declined to offer Georgia and Ukraine a fast-track path to membership but assured both they would eventually join the alliance.  No date was mentioned and it seemed a quiet triumph of Realpolitik for the Kremlin.

However, four months later, Russia invaded Georgia, crushing its armed forces and occupying two regions that had already had near complete autonomy.  Then, in 2014, after seizing and then annexing the Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula, Moscow equipped, financed, and provided military support to separatist fighters in eastern Ukraine, stoking the war that continues to this day, the death toll some fourteen-thousand.  NATO and the Kremlin no longer have active anything but emergency channels of communications.

Mr Putin is quite emphatic that assurances were provided NATO would never expand beyond what was necessitated by the unification of Germany and the last US ambassador to the USSR did insist, in his testimony to a congressional enquiry, that Mr Gorbachev had received assurances that if Germany united and remained in NATO, the borders of NATO would not move eastward and declassified documents released in 2017 do suggest Mr Baker may well have said “not one inch eastward” (source or Mr Gorbachev’s “one centimetre”) but that this was subsequently vetoed by Mr Bush who had a different vision of a “new world order”.  In the West, over the years, many seemed to treat all this as hearsay evidence and prefer to cite the 1990 treaty (the 2+4 Treaty) which created the framework by which German unification would be achieved.  There was no mention of NATO enlargement.  Beyond that, also invoked in the West is an argument apparently based on the doctrine of “acceptance by acquiescence” from contract law: Russia accepted enlargement, with detailed conditions, and in writing, when the NATO-Russia Founding Act was agreed.  One can see what they’re getting at but to use an analogy with domestic contract law seems a bit of a stretch but NATO expansion anyway didn’t happen in isolation.  The first expansion, in 1999, came around the time of the NATO’s bombing campaigns in the Balkans, a traditional Russian sphere of influence and aimed at their traditional allies the Serbs.  While sympathetic to the US operation in Afghanistan, the 2003 invasion of Iraq raised Moscow's ire.

Mr Putin’s position has since hardened.  The massing of infantry and cavalry divisions on the border has a nineteenth century feel but the economic and cyber warfare is already being waged and what’s already being called the Ukrainian crisis has attracted speculation from military and political theorists.  All agree (1) Mr Putin wants his buffer states back, (2) this is the first time in history the timing of military action must await the end of the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics and (3), the Kremlin learned certain lessons about the nature of the Biden administration from the scuttle from Afghanistan.  There the consensus seems to end but Mr Putin's ambition, no less than a re-configuration of the architecture of European security arrangements back to the 1992 lines on the map, is breathtaking.  This is not however 1941 and the world isn't (yet) quite holding it's breath.  Mr Putin has gambled before and won and if he can emerge from this round with something tangible, like a land bridge to the Crimea, he'd take it.  He plans anyway to still be Tsar when all the Western leaders facing him are gone and believes Russia's position in the future will only strengthen.