Roadster

Roadster (pronounced rohd-ster)

(1) An early automobile having an open body, a single seat for two or three persons, and a large trunk or a rumble seat.

(2) A horse for riding or driving on the road (archaic).

(3) A two-seater, convertible sports car.

(4) A sea-going vessel riding at anchor in a road or bay.

(5) In coastal navigation, a clumsy vessel that works its way from one anchorage to another by means of the tides.

(6) A bicycle, or tricycle, adapted for common roads, rather than for the racing track, usually of classic style and steel-framed construction (archaic).

(7) Slang for one who drives much or one who lives along the road (UK (8) archaic).

(8) Slang for a hunter who keeps to the roads instead of following the hounds across country (archaic).

(9) The pre-modern class of racing car most associated with the classic era of the Indianapolis 500 (1952-1964).

1735–1745: A compound word, road + -ster.  Road was from the Middle English rode & rade (ride, journey) from the Old English rād (riding, hostile incursion) from the Proto-Germanic raidō (a ride), from the primitive Indo-European reydh (to ride). It was cognate with raid, a doublet acquired from the Scots, and the West Frisian reed (paved trail/road, driveway).  The –ster suffix is applied to someone (or something) associated with an act or characteristic, or does something specified.  It’s from the Middle English –ster & -estere from the Old English -estre (-ster, the feminine agent suffix), from the Proto-Germanic –istrijǭ &, -astrijǭ from the primitive Indo-European -is-ter- (suffix).  It was cognate with the Old High German -astria, the Middle Low German –ester and the Dutch -ster.  Roadster is a noun; the noun plural is roadsters.

Roadsters, gullwings and courtesans

1920 Stutz Bearcat, the classic American roadster of the early inter-war years.  Such was its allure, it was (apocryphally) claimed that should anyone die at the wheel of a Stutz Bearcat, they were granted an obituary in the New York Times (NYT).

In the United States of the mid-nineteenth century, a roadster was a horse suitable for travelling and by the early 1900s, the definition had expanded to include bicycles and tricycles.  In 1916, the US Society of Automobile Engineers (SAE) defined a roadster as "an open car seating two or three”, a meaning which endures to this day.  Despite the origins, use was patchy in the US with the word applied to vehicles as diverse as the front-engined USAC (Indy) racing cars of the 1950s, a variety of 1930s convertibles and the custom post-war creations otherwise known as hot-rods.

Two of the 1963 Kurtis Kraft Roadsters which ran at the 1963 Indianapolis 500.  Car 56 (Jim Hurtubise (1932–1989)) qualified 3^rd (150.257 mph (241.815 km/h)) but retired on lap 102 after suffering an oil leak.  Car 75 (Art Malone (1936–2013)) qualified 25^th (148.343 (238.735 km/h)) but retired on lap 18 with clutch failure.

Both Kurtis Kraft Roadsters used the supercharged, double overhead camshaft (DOHC) Novi V8 (167–183 cubic inch (2.7–3.0 litres)) which appeared on the Indy 500 grid between 1941-1966.  The Novi was famous for the howl it produced at full cry but it never achieved its potential because chassis and tyre technology didn’t advance to the point its prodigious power could successfully be handled, the adoption of an all-wheel-drive (AWD) platform (then still referred to as four-wheel-drive (4WD) which now is usually reserved for vehicles which claim some off-road capability) coming too late.  The Novi V8 and is sometimes compared to the 1.5 litre (91 cubic inch) BRM V16, another charismatic, supercharged, small displacement engine with a narrow power band.  The unusual fin on car 75 was an attempt to improve straight-line stability, an approach often used in the era before the implications of down-force fully were understood.

The Indy folklore is the adoption of the term “roadster” to describe the final era of the front-engined cars was the result of an act of subterfuge.  What defined the “Indy Roadster” was the engine and drive shaft being offset from the center-line of the car, something which allowed the driver to sit lower in the chassis thereby optimizing the weight distribution for use on (anti-clockwise) oval tracks.  It was in 1952 quite an innovation and the legend is that whenever there were visitors in their workshop, the Kurtis team covered the chassis with a tarpaulin and if asked, casually dismissed what lay beneath as “just our roadster” (then a common term for a “hot rod”, a hobby which became popular in the post-war years).  The name stuck when the car appeared, the design for a decade the dominant configuration in open-wheel oval racing although the writing was on the wall in 1961 when Jack Brabham (1926–2014) appeared at the brickyard in an under-powered mid-engined Cooper Climax which, although out-paced by the roadsters on the straights, posted competitive times because of its superior speed in the curves.  After that, the end of the roadster era came quickly and by 1965 one could manage to finish only as high as fifth, the last appearance at Indianapolis coming in 1968 when Jim Hurtubise’s Mallard retired after nine laps with a dropped piston (something as serious as it sounds).

1954 Jaguar XK120s: Roadster (open two-seater (OTS) in the UK and certain export markets; left) and Drop Head Coupé (DHC; right).  The roadsters were lighter and intended as dual-purpose vehicles which could be road-registered, driven to circuits and with relatively few changes be immediately competitive in racing.  The DHCs were based on the heavier, more luxuriously trimmed Fixed Head Coupé (FHC) coachwork while the roadsters featured cutaway doors without external handles or side windows and a removable windscreen.  Variations on this pre-war pattern was common in the British and parts of the European industry; even the early Chevrolet Corvettes were true roadsters.  

In pre-war Europe (though less so in the UK where “sports-car” or “open two seater” tended to be preferred), roadsters were often those with most rakish or flamboyant bodies, offered either by the factory or outside coachbuilders.  After the war, the term came to be restricted to what were once known as sports cars, the smaller, lighter and most overtly sporty of the line.  British manufacturers also distinguished, within a line of convertible two-seaters between lightweight roadsters and the more lavishly equipped drop-head coupés (DHC) which had features such a full-doors and side windows, neither always fitted to roadsters.  Interestingly, the early Jaguar XK120s and 140s (1949-1957) were marketed as open two-seaters (OTS) in UK and roadsters in the US, the home market not adopting the export nomenclature until the XK150 in 1958.

300 SL gullwing (1954-1957)

Although the public found them glamorous, the engineers at Mercedes-Benz had never been enamored by the 300 SL’s gullwing doors, regarding them a necessary compromise imposed by the high side-structure of the spaceframe which supported the body.  Indeed, the doors had never been intended for use on road-cars, appearing first on the original (W194) 300SL, ten of which were built to contest sports-car racing in 1952.  The W194 had a good season, the most famous victory a 1-2 finish in the 24 Heures du Mans (24 Hours of Le Mans) and this success, along with the exotic lines, attracted the interest of the factory’s US importer who guaranteed the sale of a thousand coupés, essentially underwriting the profitability of full-scale road-car production.  The sales predictions proved accurate and between 1954-1957, 1400 (W198) 300 SL gullwings were built, some eighty percent of which were delivered to North American buyers.  Curiously, at the time, Mercedes-Benz never publicly disclosed what the abbreviation "SL" stood for.  The assumption had long been it meant Sport Light (Sport Leicht), based presumably on the SSKL of 1929-1931 (Super Sport Kurz (short) Leicht) but the factory documentation for decades used both Sport Leicht and Super Leicht.  It was only in 2017 it published a 1952 paper discovered in the corporate archive confirming the correct name is Super Leicht.

300 SL Roadster (1957-1963)

 

That the sales reached the numbers hoped was good because the gullwing was expensive to produce and a certain volume was required to achieve profitability but by 1956, sales were falling.  At that time the US distributer was suggesting there was greater demand for a convertible so the decision was taken to replace the gullwing with a roadster, production of which began in 1957, lasting until 1963 by which time 1858 had been built.  Now with conventional front-hinged doors made possible by a re-design of the tubular frame, the opportunity was taken also to include some improvements, most notably a more powerful engine and the incorporation of low-pivot swing axles in the rear suspension.  The rear axle changes, lowering the pivot-point to 87mm (3.4 inches) below the differential centre-line did reduce the camber changes which could be extreme if cornering was undertaken in an inexpert manner but the tendency was never entirely overcome.  The swing axles, much criticized in later years, need to be understood in the context of their times, the tyres of the 1950s offering nothing like the grip of more modern rubber although it is remains regrettable the factory didn't, for its high-performance road cars, adopt the de Dion rear suspension it used on both road and competition cars during the 1930s.  Although manageable in expert hands, as the Mercedes-Benz Formula One drivers in 1954-1955 proved, the more predictable de Dion would likely have been better suited to most drivers on the roads.  In fairness, the gullwing’s rear suspension did behave better than many of the more primitive swing-axle systems used by other manufacturers but it needed to given that in any given situation, the Mercedes would likely be travelling a deal faster.  Remarkably, the Mercedes-Benz swing-axle arrangement lasted well into the age of the radial-ply tyre, in volume production until 1972 and used until 1981 on the handful of 600 Grossers built every year.

300 SLS (1957)

Less costly to build than the gullwing, a few hundred 300 SL roadsters were sold annually, the price tag reaching even higher in the stratospheric realm.  Unlike the lighter gullwing, the emphasis shifted from a dual-purpose vehicle suited to both road and track to one that was more of a grand-tourer.  The factory however managed to give the car one last fling at competition.  The SCCA (Sports Car Club of America), tired of the gullwing’s domination in the production sports car category, changed the rules to render it uncompetitive and, as the new roadster hadn’t yet achieved the volume needed to qualify for homologation, Mercedes-Benz built a new model: called the 300 SLS (Super Light Sport), two built to contest the SCCA’s modified production class.  Lighter, more powerful and with a few aerodynamic tweaks, the SLS won the trophy.

Job done, the factory withdrew from circuit racing although private teams would continue to campaign 300 SLs into the 1970s.  The road-going version continued with little visual change until 1963 although the engineering refinements continued as running changes, disk brakes adopted in 1961, the last few dozen built with a lighter aluminum engine block replacing the cast-iron casting.  When retired, it wasn’t replaced, the W113 (pagoda) and their successors (R107) roadsters a different interpretation of the genre.  It would be decades before Mercedes-Benz would again offer anything like the 300 SL.

190 SL (1955-1963)

The reception afforded the 300 SL prompted the US distributor to suggest a lower cost sports car would also be well-received.  The economics of that dictated the exotic features of the gullwing (dry-sump lubrication, the doors, fuel-injection) couldn’t be used so the factory instead grafted attractive roadster coachwork atop a shortened saloon car platform, the pedestrian four-cylinder engine barely more powerful than when found in its prosaic donor.  Still, the 190 SL (W121) looked the part and could be sold for well under half the price of a gullwing though even then it was hardly cheap, costing a third more than a Chevrolet Corvette and by then the Corvette had been transformed into a most estimable roadster with the addition of the new Chevrolet 265 cubic inch (4.3 litre) small-block V8.  Pleasingly profitable, nearly twenty-six thousand 190 SLs were built over an eight-year run beginning in 1955 and there were even plans for a 220 SL, using the 2.2 litre (134 cubic inch) straight-six from the “pontoon” saloon range (W120-121-105-128-180; 1953-1963) which had provided the roadster's platform.  Prototypes were built and testing confirmed they were production-ready but the continuing success of the 190 SL and capacity constraints first postponed and finally doomed the project.  After production ceased in 1962 (none were built in 1963 but the factory listed the final 104 cars as 1963 models), it wouldn’t be until the 1990s that the concept of a smaller roadster (the R170 SLK) to run alongside the (R129) SL was revived although, since the early 1970s, the SL (R107) had simultaneously been available with engines of different sizes and accordingly placed price-points.

190 SL Rennsport, Macau Grand Prix, 1957.

Though never designed with competition in mind, the factory did construct half a dozen higher-performance Rennsport (motor-racing) packages (referred to internally as the 190 SLR), the most important aspect of which was diet, the weight-reduction achieved with aluminium doors, a smaller Perspex windscreen and the deletion of non-essential items such as the soft top, sound insulation, the heater (they're surprisingly weighty devices) and bumpers.  Although never part of a major racing campaign, it did enjoy success including a class win in a sports car event at Morocco and victory in the 1957 Macau Grand Prix.

Last of the Adenauers: 300d (W189, 1957-1962) Cabriolet D (upper) & the "standard" 300d saloon (four-door hardtop).

Although some of its customers during the mid-twentieth-century (notably between 1933-1945) are understandably neglected in their otherwise comprehensive attention to history, Mercedes-Benz has always acknowledged and publicized the drivers and clients of the 1950s.  Their Formula One drivers (especially Juan Manuel Fangio (1911–1995) & Stirling Moss (1929–2020) were honored for decades after their retirements and Konrad Adenauer, the first chancellor of the Federal Republic, was even afforded the unique distinction of being the nickname for the 300 (W186 & W189, 1951-1962), the big limousine of the era which used a substantially similar engine to the 300 SL's unit.  Note that although the top image is of a convertible, it's a "cabriolet" and not a roadster.  According to Mercedes-Benz, a roadster is a two door, two seater convertible although, since the 1960s, the factory has sometimes offered the option of single (transverse) or conventional rear seat for occasional (and sometimes uncomfortable) use.  Small, these seats were really suitable only for very young children and no pretence was made that they make a roadster into a true four-seater, 2+2 the usual (generous) description.  Being Germans, during the 1930s, Daimler-Benz decided there were sufficient detail differences between the coachwork and hood (in the sense of folding roof) assemblies offered and formalized definitions of five distinct flavors of Mercedes-Benz cabriolets.

Fraulein Rosemarie Nitribitt with 190 SL and Joe der Hund.

However, in a fate shared with some of the most valued clients of the three-pointed star between 1933-1945, nor does the factory’s historic literature dwell on someone perhaps the 190SL’s best known owners, Rosemarie Nitribitt (1933-1957).  Fraulein Nitribitt was, by 1957, Frankfurt’s most illustrious (and reputedly most expensive) prostitute, a profession to which she seems to have been drawn by necessity but at which she proved more than proficient and, as the reports of the time attest, there was nothing furtive in the way she practiced her trade.  Something of a celebrity in Frankfurt, the republic’s financial centre, her black roadster became so associated with her business model that the 190SL was at the time often referred to as the “Nitribitt-Mercedes”, her car seen frequently, if briefly, parked in the forecourts of the city’s better hotels.  Unlike the contemporary connection with Herr Adenauer, the factory never acknowledged this nickname.

190 SL sales breakdown

The lives of prostitutes, even the more highly priced, can descend to their conclusion along a Hobbesian path and in 1957, aged twenty-four, she was murdered in her smart apartment, strangled with a silk stocking, the body not found for several days.  Given Fraulein Nitribitt operated at the upper end of the market, her clients tended variously to be rich, famous & powerful and that attracted the raft of inevitable conspiracy theories there had been a cover-up to protect their interests, a rather botched police investigation encouraging such rumors.  The murder remains unsolved.  It has been suggested sales of the 190 SL suffered because of the connection, the little roadster briefly attracting the moniker “whore’s taxi” and indeed, there was a decline in the period.  However, 1956 was the first year of full-production and a second-year drop-off in sales is not unknown, gullwing production for example dropped to 308 in 1956, quite a fall from the 855 achieved the previous year and while, at least in Germany, the association with the dead courtesan may have been off-putting, without qualitative data, one really can’t say.  There was a precipitous decline in 1958 but that was the year of the worst US recession of the post-war boom where most of the drop was booked and sales anyway quickly recovered on both sides of the Atlantic.

Frankfurt police officers examining Helga Matura's 220 SE cabriolet.  Note the jackboots.

In a coincidence of circumstances, a decade later, Fraulein Helga Sofie Matura (1933-1966) was another high-end prostitute murdered in Frankfurt, the weapon this time a stiletto (the stylish shoe rather than the slender blade).  Never subject to the same rumors the Nitribtt case attracted, it too remains unsolved.  In another coincidence, Fraulein Matura’s car was a convertible Mercedes, a white (W111) 220 SE Cabriolet.  Despite the connection, the W111 never picked up any prurient nicknames and nor did its reputation suffer, the most valuable of the W111 cabriolets now attracting prices in excess of US$300,000 for original examples while German turning houses which update the drive-trains to modern standards list them at twice that.

Helga Matura (1966) by Gerhard Richter

Gerhard Richter (b 1932) is a German visual artist whose work encompasses glass as well as aspects of both photography and painting.  Although most noted for working in illusionistic space, some of his output has belonged to various schools of realism and he seems to place himself in many of the traditions of modernism, acknowledging surrealism, the primacy of the object and the purpose of art.  Of particular interest was his 1988 series of fifteen photo-paintings (18 October 1977) depicting four members of the Red Army Faction (RAF) (better, if a little misleadingly, known in the English-speaking world as the Baader-Meinhof Gang).  Created using monochrome photographs taken mostly before their deaths, the work was an interesting exploration of time, meaning and form.

His portrait of the late Helga Matura is representative of his technique in photo-paintings, applying the practices of the Fluxus movement to material not originally created as art.  Blurred and variously in and out of focus, it takes the entirely representational image of a photograph which is then disrupted; disruptions may be for the purposes of the artist, the subject or the viewer and indeed time, the nature of the work changing whether viewed with or without knowledge of her life and death.

Crashed, California, 2005.

In 2005, Lindsay Lohan went for a drive in her Mercedes-Benz SL 65 AMG roadster.  It didn’t end well.  Based on the R230 (2001-2011) platform, the SL 65 AMG was produced between 2004-2012, all versions rated in excess of 600 horsepower, something perhaps not a wise choice for someone with no background handling such machinery though it could have been worse, the factory building 350 of the even more powerful SL 65 Black Series, the third occasion an SL was offered without a soft-top and the second time one had been configured with a permanent fixed-roof.

Fixed, Texas, 2007.

However, by 2007, the car (California registration 5LZF057), repaired, detailed & simonized, was being offered for sale in Texas, the mileage stated as 6207.  Bidding was said to be “healthy” so all's well that ends well.

Dart

Dart (pronounced dahrt)

(1) A small, slender missile, sharply pointed at one end, typically feathered (or with the shape emulated in plastic) at the other and (1) propelled by hand, as in the game of darts (2) by a blowgun when used as a weapon or (3) by some form of mechanical device such as a dart-gun.

(2) Something similar in function to such a missile.

(3) In zoology, a slender pointed structure, as in snails for aiding copulation or in nematodes for penetrating the host's tissues; used generally to describe the stinging members of insects.

(4) Any of various tropical and semitropical fish, notably the dace (Leuciscus leuciscus).

(5) Any of various species of the hesperiid butterfly notably the dingy dart (of the species Suniana lascivia, endemic to Australia).

(6) In the plural (as darts (used with a singular verb), a game in which darts are thrown at a target usually marked with concentric circles divided into segments and with a bull's-eye in the center.

(7) In tailoring, a tapered seam of fabric for adjusting the fit of a garment (a tapered tuck).

(8) In military use, a dart-shaped target towed behind an aircraft to train shooters (a specific shape of what was once called a target drone).

(9) An act of darting; a sudden swift movement; swiftly to move; to thrust, spring or start suddenly and run swiftly.

(10) To shoot with a dart, especially a tranquilizer dart.

(11) To throw with a sudden effort or thrust; to hurl or launch.

(12) To send forth suddenly or rapidly; to emit; to shoot.

(13) In genetics, as the acronym DarT, Diversity arrays technology (a genetic marker technique).

(14) Figuratively, words which wound or hurt feelings.

(15) In slang, a cigarette (Canada & Australia; dated).  The idea was a “lung dart”.

(16) In slang, a plan, plot or scheme (Australia, obsolete).

(17) In disaster management, as the acronym DART, variously: Disaster Assistance Response Team, Disaster Animal Response Team, Disaster Area Response Team, Disaster Assistance & Rescue Team and Disaster Response Team

1275–1325: From the Middle English dart & darce, from the Anglo-French & Old French dart & dard (dart), from the Late Latin dardus (dart, javelin), from the Old Low Franconian darōþu (dart, spear), from the Proto-Germanic darōþuz (dart, spear), from the primitive Indo-European dherh- (to leap, spring);.  It was related to the Old English daroth (spear), daroþ & dearod (javelin, spear, dart), the Swedish dart (dart, dagger), the Icelandic darraður, darr & dör (dart, spear), the Old High German tart (dart) and the Old Norse darrathr (spear, lance).  The Italian and Spanish dardo are believed to be of Germanic origin via Old Provençal.  The word dart can be quite specific but depending on context the synonyms can include arrow or barb (noun), dash, bolt or shoot (verb) or cigarette (slang).  Dart & darting are nouns & verbs, darted & dartle are verbs, darter is a noun, verb & adjective, dartingness is a noun, darty is a verb & adjective, dartingly is an adverb; the noun plural is darts.

Between the eyeballs: Crooked Hillary Clinton dart board.

The late fourteenth century darten (to pierce with a dart) was from the noun and is long obsolete while the sense of “throw with a sudden thrust" dates from the 1570s.  The intransitive meaning “to move swiftly” emerged in the 1610s, as did that of “spring or start suddenly and run or move quickly” (ie “as a dart does”).  The name was first applied to the small European freshwater fish in the mid-fifteenth century, based on the creature’s rapid, sudden (darting) movements (other names included dars, dase & dare, from the Old French darz (a dace), the nominative or plural of dart, all uses based on the fish’s swiftness.  The alternative etymology in this context was a link with the Medieval Latin darsus (a dart), said to be of Gaulish origin.  The name dart is now also used of various (similar or related) various tropical and semitropical fish.  It was in Middle English Cupid's love-arrows were first referred to as Cupid's dart (Catananche caerulea).  The modern dart-board was unknown until 1901 although similar games (the idea of archery with hand-thrown arrows) long predated this.  In zoology, the marvelously named “dart sac” describes a sac connected with the reproductive organs of certain land snails; it contains the “love dart” the synonyms of which are bursa telae & stylophore.  In archaeology, the term “fairy dart” describes a prehistoric stone arrowhead (an elf arrow).  A “poison dart” may be fired either from a dart gun or a blow-pipe (the term “dart-pipe” seems never to have been current) while a tranquilizer dart (often used in the management of large or dangerous animals) is always loaded into a dart gun.  The terms “javelin dart”, “lawn jart”, “jart” & “yard dart” are terms which refer to the large darts used in certain lawn games.  In the hobby of model aircraft, a “lawn dart” is an airframe with a noted propensity to crash (although it’s noted “pilot error” is sometimes a factor in this).  In military history, the “rope dart” was a weapon from ancient China which consisted of a long rope with a metal dart at the end, used to attack targets from long-range.

Making smoking sexy: Lindsay Lohan enjoying the odd dart.

The Dodge Dart

The original Dodge Dart was one of Chrysler's show cars which debuted in 1956, an era in which Detroit's designers were encouraged to let their imaginations wander among supersonic aircraft, rockets and the vehicles which SF (science fiction) authors speculated would be used for the interplanetary travel some tried to convince their readers was not far off.  The Dart was first shown with a retractable hardtop but when the 1956 show season was over, it was shipped back to Carrozzeria Ghia in Turin to be fitted with a more conventional convertible soft top.  After another trans-Atlantic crossing after the end of the 1957 show circuit (where it'd been displayed as the Dart II), it was again updated by Ghia and re-named Diablo (from the Spanish diablo (devil)).

1957 Dodge Diablo, the third and final version of the 1956 Dodge Dart show car.

Although a length of 218 inches (5.5 m) now sounds extravagant, by the standards of US designs in the 1950s it fitted in and among the weird and wonderful designs of the time (the regular production models as well as the show cars) the lines and detailing were actually quite restrained and compared with many, the Darts have aged well, some of the styling motifs re-surfacing in subsequent decades, notably the wedge-look.  Underneath, the Diablo’s mechanicals were familiar, a 392 cubic inch Chrysler Hemi V8 with dual four-barrel carburetors delivering power to the rear wheels through a push-button TorqueFlite automatic transmission.  Rated at 375 horsepower, the Hemi ensured the performance matched the looks, something aided by the exceptional aerodynamic efficiency, the CD (coefficient of drag) of 0.17 state of the art even in 2023.  Some engineers doubt it would return such a low number under modern testing but it doubtlessly was slippery and (with less hyperbole than usual), Chrysler promoted the Diablo as the “Hydroplane on Wheels”,  During Chrysler’s ownership of Lamborghini (1987-1994), the name was revived for the Lamborghini Diablo 1990-2001 which replaced the Countach (1974-1990).  Visually, both the Italian cars own something of a debt to the Darts of the 1950s although neither represented quite the advance in aerodynamics Chrysler had achieved all those years ago although the Lamborghini Diablo was good enough finally to achieve 200 mph (320 km/h), something which in the 1970s & 1980s, the Countach and the contemporary Ferrari 365 GT4 BB (Berlinetta Boxer) never quite managed, disappointing some.

The memorable 1957 Chrysler 300C (left) showed the influence of the Diablo but a more rococo sensibility had afflicted the corporation which the 1960 Dart Phoenix D500 Convertible (right) illustrates.  Things would get worse. 

Dodge began production of the Dart in late 1959 as a lower-priced full-sized car, something necessitated by a corporate decision to withdraw the availability of Plymouths from Dodge dealerships.  Dodge benefited from this more than Plymouth but the model ranges of both were adjusted, along with those sold as Chryslers, resulting in the companion DeSoto brand (notionally positioned between Dodge & Chrysler) being squeezed to death; the last DeSotos left the factory in 1960 and the operation was closed the next year.  Unlike its namesake from the show circuit, the 1959 Dodge Dart was hardly exceptional and it would barely have been noticed by the press had it not been for an unexpected corporate squabble between Chrysler and Daimler, a low volume English manufacturer of luxury vehicles which was branching out into the sports car market.  Their sports car was called the Dart.

Using one of his trademark outdoor settings, Norman Parkinson (1913-1990) photographed model Suzanne Kinnear (b 1935) adorning a Daimler Dart (SP250), wearing a Kashmoor coat and Otto Lucas beret with jewels by Cartier.  The image was published on the cover of Vogue's UK edition in November 1959.

With great expectations, Daimler put the Dart on show at the 1959 New York Motor Show and there the problems began.  Aware the little sports car was quite a departure from the luxurious but rather staid lineup Daimler had for years offered, the company had chosen the pleasingly alliterative “Dart” as its name, hoping it would convey the sense of something agile and fast.  Unfortunately for them, Chrysler’s lawyers were faster still, objecting that they had already registered Dart as the name for a full-sized Dodge so Daimler needed a new name and quickly; the big Dodge would never be confused with the little Daimler but the lawyers insisted.  Imagination apparently exhausted, Daimler’s management reverted to the engineering project name and thus the car became the SP250 which was innocuous enough even for Chrysler's attorneys and it could have been worse.  Dodge had submitted their Dart proposal to Chrysler for approval and while the car found favor, the name did not and the marketing department was told to conduct research and come up with something the public would like.  From this the marketing types gleaned that “Dodge Zipp” would be popular and to be fair, dart and zip(p) do imply much the same thing but ultimately the original was preferred.

Things get worse: The 1962 Dodge Dart looked truly bizarre; things would sometimes be stranger than this but not often.

Dodge got it right with the 1967-1976 Darts which could be criticized for blandness but the design was simple, balanced and enjoyed international appeal.  Two Australian versions are pictured, a 1971 VG VIP sedan (left) and a 1970 VG Regal 770 Hardtop (right).  

If Daimler had their problems with the Dart, so did Dodge.  For the 1961 model year, Dodge actually down-sized the “big” range, a consequence of some industrial espionage which misinterpreted Chevrolet’s plans.  Sales suffered because the new Darts were perceived as a class smaller than the competition, thus offering “less metal for the money”.  This compelled Chrysler to create some quick and dirty solutions to plug the gap but the damage was done and it was another model cycle before the ranges successfully were re-aligned.  However, one long-lasting benefit was the decision to take advantage of the public perception “Dart” now meant something smaller and Dodge in 1963 shifted the name to its compact line, enjoying much success.  It was the generation built for a decade between 1967-1976 which was most lucrative for the corporation, the cheap-to-produce platform providing the basis for vehicles as diverse as taxi-cabs, pick-ups, convertibles, remarkably effective muscle cars and even some crazy machines almost ready for the drag strip.  Being a compact-sized car in the US, the Dart also proved a handy export to markets where it could be sold as a “big” car and the Dart (sometimes locally assembled or wholly or partially manufactured) was sold in Mexico, Australia & New Zealand, the UK, Europe East Asia, South Africa and South America.  In a form little different the Dart lasted until 1980 in South America and in Australia until 1981 although there the body-shape had in 1971 switched to the “fuselage” style although the platform remained the same.

How a Dodge Hemi Dart would have appeared in 1968 (left) and Hemi Darts ready for collection or dispatch in the yard of the Detroit production facility.

The most highly regarded of the 1967-1976 US Darts were those fitted with the 340 cubic inch (5.6 litre) small-block (LA) V8 which created a much better all-round package than those using the 383 (6.3) and 7.2 (7.2) big-block V8s which tended to be inferior in just about every way unless travelling in a straight line on a very smooth surface (preferably over a distance of about a ¼ mile (400 m) and even there the 340 over-delivered.  The wildest of all the Darts were the 80 (built in 1968) equipped with a version of the 426 cubic inch (7.0 litre) Hemi V8 tuned to a specification closer to race-ready than that used in the “Street Hemi” which was the corporation’s highest-performance option.  Except for the drive-train, the Hemi Darts were an extreme example of what the industry called a “strippers”, cars “stripped” of all but the essentials.  There was thus no radio and no carpeting, common enough in strippers but the Hemi Darts lacked even armrests, external rear-view mirrors, window winding mechanisms or even a back seat.  Nor was the appearance of these shockingly single-purpose machines anything like what was usually seen in a showroom, most of the body painted only in primer while the hood (bonnet) and front fenders, rendered in lightweight black fibreglass, were left unpainted.  Seeking to avoid any legal difficulties, Dodge had purchasers sign an addendum to the sales contract acknowledging Hemi Darts were not intended not as road cars but for use in “supervised acceleration trials” (ie drag racing).  Despite that, 1968 was probably about the last time in the US one could find a jurisdiction prepared to register such things for street use and some owners did that, apparently taking Dodge’s disclaimer about as seriously as those in the prohibition era (1920-1933) observed the warning on packets of “concentrated grape blocks” not add certain things to the mix, “otherwise fermentation sets in”.

The warning: What not to do, lest one's grape block should turn to wine.

Magnum

Magnum (pronounced mag-nuhm)

(1) A large wine bottle having a capacity of two ordinary bottles or 1.5 liters (1.6 quarts).

(2) In ballistics, a magnum cartridge or firearm (a loaded with a larger charge than other cartridges of the same calibre).

(3) A firearm using such a cartridge.

(4) Used generally, unusually great in power or size:

1788:  From the Latin magnum (“great, large, big" (of size), "great, considerable" (of value), "strong, powerful" (of force); of persons, "elder, aged"), neuter of magnus (large), from a suffixed form of the primitive Indo-European root meg- (great).  The original use in English was to describe the large wine-bottle, then usually containing two quarts.  As the name of a powerful type of handgun, it was first registered in 1935 by the US company, Smith & Wesson of Springfield, Massachusetts.  Outside of ballistics, the most common use is now probably “magnum opus" (masterpiece, a person's greatest work, literally "great work", applied, in literature, music, art and (sometime a little liberally) popular culture.  The noun plural is magnums or magna.

Magnum ammunition

Lindsay Lohan in habit with Smith & Wesson .500 Magnum, Machete (2010).

Released in September 2010 at the Venice Film Festival and distributed internationally by Sony Pictures, Machete would probably be more highly regarded if the full-length feature had lived up to the promise created by the artfully-edited trailer.  Probably about twenty minutes too long, the critical consensus suggests Machete was a violent, shallow, repetitive and probably unnecessary addition to whatever was the sub-genre of exploitation it inhabited.  That said, the production values were thought high enough for those who like this sort of thing to be able to look forward to it as one of the more enjoyable movies of the summer of 2010.

Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum.

A magnum cartridge is one with a larger case size than the standard cartridge of the same calibre and case shoulder shape.  The now generic term is derived from Smith & Wesson’s Original .357 S&W Magnum, introduced in 1934; magnum ammunition containing either or both additional propellant or a heavier projectile but the term is a bit of an anomaly in the business of ballistics.  Although in the terminology of firearms, most jargon is explicitly defined, “magnum ammunition” has no precise codified set of standards, instead being just an indication of the possession of more powerful characteristics than other loads of the same calibre and shape.

Smith & Wesson .500 Magnum.

Smith & Wesson’s original .357 Magnum was introduced in 1934 in response to the growing availability of bullet-proofing technology in both automobiles and the ballistics vests used for personal protection.  It was an attempt to provide greater penetrative power without the need to increase the bore with the consequential increase in the size and weight of weapons.  Predictably though, the arms race had begun, and in the decades which followed, magnum loads would become available for a wide range of calibres, hand guns and long arms as well as shotguns, the classic .44 Magnum, later made famous in popular culture, released in 1954.  It didn’t stop there, increasing demand for the .44 convincing Smith & Wesson to develop the .500 Magnum, currently the most powerful handgun load generally available and one marketed, in addition to its other attractions, to those who might find it more convenient than a rifle for hunting big game.  The size, weight and recoil however mean it’s not suitable for all and in the US, .500 is anyway the legal limit for handgun loads.  In US law, it’s a rare restriction.

.460 Weatherby Magnum.

For that reason, even Smith and Wesson do recommend that unless one plans to hunt elephant at close range or expect to confront a charging wild boar, loads like the .357 Magnum are better for what most people do most of the time.  The same caution applies to the Magnum loads for rifles, the .375 Magnum often nominated by experts as the perfect compromise for all but the most extreme applications.  Indeed, it was loads like the .375 Magnum which eliminated most of the need for the famous old-style “elephant guns” like Holland & Holland’s .600 Nitro and the .458 and .460 Magnum cartridges of the 1950s were necessitated only by regulations governing big-game hunting in Africa mandating a load above .400.  Despite that, demand for the heavy calibres remains strong, Holland and Holland, after introducing a canon-like .700 Nitro found demand so unexpectedly strong that they resumed production of the long retired .600.  While it seems unlikely heavier loads will be thought practical, that may not matter, there being some evidence many of the .700 Nitros are sold to collectors, never to be fired.

That said, Austria’s Pfeifer firearms created supply to meet what demand there may be.  The Pfeifer .600 Nitro Express Zeliska single-action revolver weighs over 13 lb (4.85 kg) and is  22 inches (.56 m) in length, the cylinder section alone weighing 4.5 lb (17 kg).  Although generating a muzzle energy of 7,591 foot pounds (33.7 kn), paradoxically, the weight of the gun actually limits the recoil, making controlled shooting possible although, practice is essential.  With a cylinder capacity of either five .600 Nitro or .458 Winchester Magnum rounds, it's able to fire a 900 grain, .600 some 2000 feet (600+ m).  At release, Zeliska listed the revolver at US$17,316 and because each .600 Nitro Express round costs about US$45, it’s an expensive hobby.

The Magnum Concilium

Dating from Norman times, the Magnum Concilium (Great Council) was an English assembly eventually composed of senior ecclesiastics, noblemen and representatives of the counties of England and Wales (and later of the boroughs too) which was from time-to-time convened to discuss matter of state with the king and his advisors (sitting as the Curia Regis (King's Court; a kind of predecessor to the Privy Council and later the cabinet).  The Magnum Concilium evolved into the Concilium Regis in Parliamento (the parliament of England), the first generally thought to be the so-called "Model Parliament" of 1295, which included archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, barons, and representatives of the shires and boroughs.  The evolution wasn’t linear, power in the land a constant struggle between king and parliament, the authority of both fluctuating as the politics of the day effed and flowed.  Nor was the parliament a united force, shrewd kings knowing how to exploit divisions between the parliamentary factions but by the reign of Edward II (1284-1327; as Edward of Caernarfon, King of England 1307-1327), the nobility was ascendant, the Crown compliant and the rest essentially irrelevant.

Execution Of Charles I, 1649 (circa 1850) by an unknown artist.

Under Edward III (1312–1377; as Edward of Windsor, King of England 1327-1377), the modern bicameral structure (a House of Commons & a House of Lords), became clear and the authority of Parliament grew although the Lords remained by far the most powerful because that was where the economic resources were concentrated.  That reality was reflected by the practice, under the Plantagenet kings, of the summoning of the Magnum Concilium being something exclusively ecclesiastical & aristocratic, the representatives of the commons rarely in attendance.  After Henry VII (1457–1509; King of England 1485-1509) convened the Magnum Concilium on several occasions in the late 1400s, for various reasons, its participation in the governance of England went into abeyance until, in 1640, Charles I was advised to summon the Magnum Concilium after he’d dissolved the Short Parliament in order to raise money because his misrule and wars of adventure had bankrupted the state.  The king got his money but his private army was soon at war with the parliamentary forces of both Scotland and England and those wars did not for him go well.  Before the decade was over, he would be beheaded.

The Magnum Concilium has not since met but experts in English constitutional law have confirmed it still exists and can, at any time, be summoned by the Crown.

Chrysler’s 440 Magnum Six-Pack

383 Magnum V8 with cross-ram induction in in 1960 Dodge Dart Phoenix D-500.

Chrysler’s family of big-block wedge V8s lasted from 1958 until 1978 but, although the label is often commonly applied, not all were designated “Magnum”.  The first Magnum was a high-performance version of the B-series 383 cubic inch (6.3 litre) V8 (which differs from the later RB 383), the highlight being the option of a (long) cross-ram inlet manifold with two four-barrel carburetors.  It was only Dodge which used the Magnum label; the equivalent power-plant in a Plymouth was called a Commando (there were adjectives sometimes added) and in a Chrysler, a TNT.

1970 Dodge 440 Magnum Six-Pack.

Introduced in 1969, the highest evolution of the RB Magnum were the 440 cubic inch (7.2 litre) versions built with three Holley 2300 series two-barrel carburetors instead of the more commonly seen single carburetor induction (which were on the 440 almost exclusively in four-barrel form).  The early versions used an Edelbrock manifold cast in aluminum but supply difficulties forced Chrysler also to cast their own in cast-iron to meet demand.  Although obviously a high-performance variation, marketed by Dodge as the 440 Magnum Six-Pack, the engine was engineered to use only the centre 250 cubic feet per minute (7 m³) carburetor under normal throttle loads, the outer two 370 cfm (10.4 m³) units used only if summoned.  If one could resist the temptation of the sudden onrush of power, the Magnum Six-Pack could be quite economical by the admittedly slight standards of the time.

440 Magnum Six-Pack in 1970 Dodge Challenger.

Internally, the Six-Pack Magnums differed from the single carburetor engines in the use of stiffer valve springs borrowed from the 426 Street Hemi, stronger rocker arms (strengthened connecting rods were added in 1970), molybdenum-filled piston rings and flash chromed valves.  Better to cope with the additional stresses imposed by those high-tension springs, the camshaft lobes and lifter faces were blueprinted to equalise the loads, the lifters rotating to distribute wear equally across the surfaces subject to friction.  With its compression ratio upped from 10.1:1 to 10.5:1, upon release, the Magnum Six-Pack was rated at 390 bhp (290 kw), dropping slightly to 385 (287) when some minor anti-emission adjustments were made in 1971.  At around half the price of Chrysler’s much-vaunted Street-Hemi adaptation of the race engine, the Magnum Six-Pack was a bargain, at least matching the Hemi in most aspects of performance until speeds above 120 mph (190 km/h) were attained, along with a longer manufacturer’s warranty and lower insurance costs, at least for some.  It was good while it lasted but 1971 was the swansong for both the Magnum Six-Pack and the Street-Hemi, emission regulations and an astonishing increase in the cost of insuring the things crushing demand.

1972 Jensen FF Series III.

Across the Atlantic however, the Six-Pack Magnum did enjoy a brief afterlife after being driven extinct in the US.  Jensen, in the throes of phasing out their acclaimed but unprofitable all-wheel-drive FF, were looking for a flagship which could be created quickly and cheaply, ruling out the mooted convertible which wouldn’t appear for some years.  With their planned new F-Type unlikely to be on sale before 1973, the need was for something which demanded neither much development time nor an onerous budget.

The much admired louvers on 1972 Jensen SP.

Jensen had for years been building their Interceptor & FF models with the Chrysler RB engines and had even flirted with the idea of doing a run with the Street Hemi, a project aborted when the costs of adaptation became apparent.  In late 1970, Jensen’s need for something was communicated to Chrysler which, by happy coincidence, had a batch of Magnum Six-Pack engines which had been gathering dust in a Canadian warehouse since being effectively orphaned by the new US emission control legislation.  Within days, agreement was reached, Jensen taking delivery of the first tranche of the batch which, although unable to be sold in the US, were legal just about everywhere else.  The mechanical specification settled, discussions then turned to other features which could be included to enhance the car’s status as a premium product.  Because it was the 1970s (and there's really no other excuse), without much discussion, it was agreed to glue on a vinyl roof; that many others did the same thing is no defense.  More defensible was the inclusion of a high-quality and very expensive Learjet eight-track cartridge stereo system and, to provide some continuity with the FF, it was decided to use that model’s blue-themed badges rather than the red used on the Interceptor.  Also, interestingly, it was during these initial discussions that a fully louvered hood (bonnet) would be included in the coachwork but there’s no indication there was any concern about additional engine-bay heat, the louvers apparently just a styling device to evoke memories of earlier eras when they were common on high-performance machinery.  There was little debate about the name; several people had suggested SP was the obvious choice.  In December 1970, the first prototype SP was built although the intricacies of the triple carburetor engine weren’t entirely new to Jensen’s engineers, having a few months earlier fitted one to an Interceptor to fulfil a customer request.  Assessment of the prototype proved the adaptation was as straight-forward as expected, the minor issue of the additional clearance demanded by the big air-filter effected by a quick fix to the filter housing.

1971 Jensen SP at the Geneva Motor Show, March 1972.  Just fifteen were built in left-hand drive configuration because the SP engine couldn't meet the new US emission standards, thereby precluding sales in the market most receptive to thirsty machines.

Scheduled for release in the northern autumn of 1971, Jensen’s original plan had been to announce the SP as part of their new range including the Mark III versions of both the Interceptor and FF but the realities of the future made apparent the mixed-messaging was a bad idea.  The SP was intended to be the new top-of-the line model so announcing it with an updated version of the doomed yet still more expensive FF made little sense, the Mark III FF created only as a way to ensure the last fifteen FF body-shells (the all-wheel drive configuration necessitated a longer wheelbase) could be utilised.  Almost all FF marketing was thus terminated and the emphasis switched to the new two-model range with the SP sitting atop which meant the Mark III FF, which would become one of the Jensens most prized by collectors, went at the time almost unnoticed.

1972 Monteverdi 375/4.

Beginning its tour of the motor show circuit, the new flagship was greeted with subdued interest by the motoring press which viewed the SP as the hot rod Interceptor it was and which, while entertaining in a occasionally brutish (and rather un-Jensen like) sort of way, was not as intriguing as the soon-to-be lamented FF, the prowess of which had so astonished all who drove it, exploring for the first time the revolutionary possibilities of anti-lock braking and all-wheel-drive.  Nevertheless, the performance did impress, a top-speed of 143 mph (230 km/h) being reported although it was noted that Monteverdi’s even bigger and heavier 375/4 limousine had been clocked just a little faster and it used the 440 with only a single four barrel carburetor.  Still it was fast enough and nobody complained the SP lacked pace.

Jensen SP press release, 5 October 1971.

What did elicit complaint was the manner in which that speed sometimes arrived.  The tremendous delivery of power at full-throttle was praised but the lack of predictable response lower in the rev-range attracted criticism, the additional carburetors kicking in sometimes unexpectedly and not always when the car was heading in a straight line.  Issues with hot-starting were also apparent and even the otherwise much admired multi-louvered bonnet was found not the be without fault, the slats apparently changing either the properties of the metal or the reaction of the shape to the fluid dynamics of air-flow; at speed, the bonnet would “slightly shiver, almost as though improperly fastened” and testers, used to the cocoon-like stability of the Interceptor and FF, found it disconcerting.  While none of the reviews were damning, nor were they much more than polite.

1972 Jensen SP engine bay.

Worse was to come as customers started reporting problems, the first being the issue of under-bonnet heat.  Although a big machine by European standards, the engine bay of the Jensen was smaller than anything to which it’d been fitted in the US and, even with the louvers helping to ventilate the space, it got very hot in there and this quickly affected the carburetors which had never before been exposed to such extremes; parts warping as the metal heated and then cooled, causing air-gaps to emerge, making accurate tuning, vital with multiple-carburetion, impossible.  The factory was soon receiving reports of engines which refused to idle and, due to the inherent nature of the Holly 2300 carburetor design, engines would run too rich after a week or so of nothing more than normal driving.

1963 Jensen CV8.

For a small company like Jensen, it was a major setback.  The company had built the Interceptor's reputation on reliability and ease of ownership essentially by piggy-backing on the back of the bullet proof Chrysler V8s and TorqueFlite transmissions it had begun using in the Interceptor's predecessor, the CV8.  The approach, adopted by many in this era, appealed to buyers not sufficiently seduced by the bespoke charm and mechanical intricacies of the continental competition to wish to deal with the cost and inconvenience of the more demanding maintenance schedules listed by Ferrari, Lamborghini & Maserati.  Like the MGA Twin-Cam (and for that matter the later Jensen-Healey), the SP was a classic case of insufficient product development and testing, examples of which littered the post-war UK industry.  Perhaps there was complacency because (1) multiple carburetors were nothing new to British manufacturers and (2) the Six-Pack Magnum had a good record of reliability in the US.  However, three Hollys on a big-block Chrysler turned out to behave differently to three big SUs on a Jaguar XK-six.                  

1970 Dodge Super Bee 440 Magnum Six-Pack with typical girlfriend of typical buyer.

The occasional quirk of the Magnum Six-Pack was not unknown in the US but there the nature of the thing was well-understood; it was a hot-rod engine bought by those who wanted such things, most owners young, male, mechanically adept and often anxious to tinker under the hood (bonnet).  The Jensen buyer was a wholly different demographic, mostly older, affluent men who either had rarely seen under a bonnet or hadn’t looked for many years and their expectations of a car which was twice as expensive as Jaguar’s V12 E-Type were very different to those youthful Californian baby boomers had of their hotted-up taxi cabs.  Used to the effortless, if thirsty, behavior of the Interceptor, some found their SPs, the high-performance of which most could rarely explore, were behaving like brand new, very expensive old clunkers.

Jensen FF with typical mistress of typical buyer.

Weeks of testing and experiments with all sorts of adjustments proved pointless.  In Jensen’s workshops it was always possible to produce a perfectly running SP but, after sometimes as little as a week in the hands of owner, it would be back, displaying the same symptoms and in the end, Jensen admitted defeat and offered the only solution guaranteed to work: remove the triple induction system and replace it with the Interceptor’s faithful Carter Thermoquad four barrel carburetor.  That alleviated all the drivability issues but did mean that having paid their £6,976.87, a premium of a thousand-odd pounds over the anyway expensive Interceptor, the emasculated SP became an Interceptor with a vinyl roof, an eight-track cartridge player and a vibrating bonnet.  The factory’s records suggest between a quarter and a third of buyers opted for the Theromquad fix and some refunds were paid to the especially unhappy.

Last gasp: 1974 Jensen Interceptor convertible.

Although Jensen had known, because the Magnum Six-Pack was out of production, the SP was not going to have a long life, it had been hoped it would fulfil its role until the new F-Type was expected to be released in 1973.  However, having built 208 SPs, Jensen didn’t take up their option on what remained in Chrysler’s Canadian remainder bin and, once the stock already delivered was exhausted, the SP was allowed quietly to die.  Between September 1971 and July 1973, 231 Jensen SPs were completed with one final example built in October, a special order from someone who really wanted one.

1972 Jensen-Healey publicity shot.

It was the start of a run of bad luck that would doom also the Interceptor and the entire company: (1) Development issues would beset the F-Type which would never see the light of day, (2) the Jensen-Healey (1972-1976) sports car which had seemed so promising turned into an expensive flop and (3) the first oil shock in 1973 rendered the Interceptor and many of its ilk suddenly big, thirsty dinosaurs and not even the release in 1974 of a much-admired convertible version could rescue things.  Bankruptcy loomed and by 1976 the end came.  However, in the way flawed but charismatic English cars have often, decades on, enjoyed second acts, the SPs are now much prized and there’s a small industry devoted to restoring them to their six-barreled glory, modern materials and techniques of insulation & cooling now able to transform them into something as well-behaved as any Interceptor.

The magnum’s place in the hierarchy of Champagne bottles.

Lindsay Lohan with Magnum backdrop.