Delivery

Delivery (pronounced dih-liv-uh-ree (U) or dee-liv-er-ree (non-U))

(1) The carrying and turning over of letters, goods, etc to a designated recipient or recipients.

(2) A giving up or handing over; surrender.

(3) The utterance or enunciation of words.

(4) Vocal and bodily behavior during the presentation of a speech.

(5) The act or manner of giving or sending forth.

(6) The state of being delivered of or giving birth to a child; parturition.

(7) Something delivered.

(8) In commerce, a shipment of goods from the seller to the buyer.

(9) In law, a formal act performed to make a transfer of property legally effective.

(10) In printing, the part of a printing press where the paper emerges in printed form (also called delivery end).

(11) The act of rescuing or state of being rescued; liberation.

(12) In various ball sports, the act or manner of bowling or throwing a ball

(13) In machinery design, the discharge rate of a compressor or pump.

1400–1450: From the late Middle English delyvere & delyvery from the Anglo-Norman delivrée, from the Old French delivrer, from the Latin līberō, from līber (free), from the Old Latin loeber, from the Proto-Italic louðeros, from the primitive Indo-European hléwdheros, from hlewdh- (people) + the prefix de- (from the Latin dē-, from the preposition dē (of, from).  It was cognate with the Ancient Greek ἐλεύθερος (eleútheros), the Sanskrit रोधति (ródhati), the Dutch lieden, the German Leute and the Russian люди (ljudi) (people); the Old English æf- was a similar prefix.  The word was a noun use of the feminine past participle of delivrer (to deliver) with the suffix assimilated to –ery.  Delivery, deliverer, deliveree, deliverance & deliverability are nouns, deliver & delivered are verbs & adjectives, deliverable is a noun & adjective, delivering is a noun & verb; the noun plural is deliveries. 

Delivery systems

The definition of delivery systems tends to be elastic, ranging from simple, single-se devices to entire trans-national human and industrial processes.  A hypodermic syringe can be thought a delivery system for a vaccine yet that vital machine is just one, small, inexpensive part in the delivery system for a vaccination programme in response to a pandemic.  Such a global programme demands a delivery system with many human and mechanical components: research, development, testing, multi-jurisdiction legal & regulatory compliance, production, distribution, software, hardware, refrigeration, storage and administration, all before the first nurse has delivered even one injection.

The Manhattan Project's uranium-based Little Boy (left & dropped on Hiroshima) and the plutonium implosion-type Fat Man (right & dropped on Nagasaki).  So confident was the project team in the reliability of the uranium bomb it wasn't tested prior to use while the worlds first nuclear explosion was the "Trinity Test" conducted in the New Mexico desert on 16 July 1945 when a plutonium device was detonated.  For decades, as a uranium device, the Hiroshima was a genuine one-off, all the nuclear weapons built using plutonium but it's possible that more recent entrants to the club such as the DPRK (North Korea) and Pakistan may have been attracted to uranium because of the speed and simplicity of construction. 

Delivery systems can thus be very expensive and it's not uncommon for the cost vastly to exceed whatever it is they were created to deliver.  The Manhattan Project (1942-1947) which produced the first nuclear weapons officially cost some two billion dollars ($US2,000.000,000) at a time when a billion dollars was a lot of money.  Expressed as pre-pandemic (2018-2019) money, the A-bomb project probably cost the equivalent of some US$30 billion and somewhat more once adjusted for recent inflation.  Given the physics and engineering involved, the cost seems not unexceptional but remarkably, the development of the best-known component of the bomb's delivery system was more expensive still.  Between the first studies in 1938 and its eventual commissioning in 1944, Boeing’s B29 Superfortress absorbed over three billion dollars even though, unlike the bomb which was revolutionary and startlingly new, conceptually, the bomber was an evolution of the existing B17.  It was however a collection of challenges in engineering which grew in extent and complexity as the project progressed and it was soon realized the initial specifications would need significantly to be upgraded to produce a machine which reliably could carry the desired bomb-load at the necessary altitude over the vast distances missions in the Pacific would demand.

The Boeing B29 (Enola Gay) used to deliver "Little Boy" to Hiroshima.  It was one of the "Silverplate" run which integrated a number of weight-saving measures and aerodynamic improvements as well as the modified bomb-bay.

It was the B29's engines which were the cause of much of the effort.  Early modelling suggested the use of six or even eight engines was viable in terms of a flyable airframe but the approach would so compromise the range and load capacity it would render the thing useless for the intended purpose so the four-engine configuration had to be maintained.  Jet engines would have been the answer but at that stage of their development, they lacked power, reliability and their fuel consumption was too high so a new piston engine was needed and that it would need to be of larger capacity was obvious.  However, it needed also to be of a design which didn't significantly increase frontal area so the only solution was effectively to couple two engines, one sitting behind the other.  That delivered the necessary power and the weight increase could be tolerated but induced a tendency to overheat because the rearward components received so much less of the cooling air-flow.  What made the consequences of that worse was the use of so much weight-saving but highly combustible magnesium and although ameliorated during development and in service, the inherent problem was never entirely solved and it was only in the post-war years when a different engine was fitted that the issue vanished.  As a quirk of history, although now thought of as the A-bomb's delivery system, the B29 was obviously never designed with it in mind and when the time came, it was found it didn't fit in the bomb-bay.  The Royal Air Force's (RAF) Avro Lancaster could have carried it but the US military declined to consider that option and a special run (the "Silverplates") of B29s was constructed with the necessary modifications.

The 18-cylinder, two-row Wright R-3350 Duplex-Cyclone radial used in the war-time B-29s (left) and the 28-cylinder four-row Pratt & Whitney R-4360 Wasp Major radial adopted post-war.    

However, although a wartime necessity, the big piston engines were a military cul-de-sac but an innovation in the B-29 which was influential was the use of what would now be understood as a "computer-directed" (not "computer-controlled" as is sometimes stated) fire control systems which allowed two crew remotely to operate the four-turret defensive armament.  Systems like that, of which there were a few, were a reason the B-29 venture was so expensive but there have been analysts who have looked at the records of both it and the Manhattan Project and concluded the costs of the latter were probably understated because, as something for years top-secret until the bombing of Hiroshima was announced in August 1945, a significant proportion of the real expenses were charged elsewhere (notably distributed among the military's many other activities) to hide things from congressional view, everyone involved knowing that if something needs to be kept secret, the last people who should be told are politicians.  Estimates of the extent of the accounting slight-of-hand have varied but it has been suggested it may have been as high as 25%.  In industry, such thing are far from unknown.  It's long amused some that the failure of Ford's doomed Edsel (1958-1960) could be attributed to it being little more than a superficial variation of existing Ford & Mercury models (sharing engines, transmissions, platforms & assembly plants) yet when the brand was dumped Ford booked a loss of US$250 million (US$2.6 billion in 2023 dollars).  There were all sorts of corporate advantages in stating the loss as it was done and it involved things like charging the cost of developing one of the engines used wholly against the Edsel programme, even though it would serve in millions of Fords and Mercury models until 1976.

Beware of imitations: The US Boeing B-29 and the Soviet Tupolev Tu-4 clone.

One unintended beneficiary of the huge investment in the B29 was the Soviet Air Force.  Three B29s had fallen into Russian hands after emergency landing on Soviet territory and these, despite repeated requests, Moscow declined to return to their rightful owners, instead taking one apart and meticulously, part-by-part, duplicating every piece and from this, assembled their own which was released as the Tupolev Tu-4 (NATO reporting name: Bull).  In production between 1949-1952, the reverse-engineered clone remained on the active list of the Soviet military until 1964 and some were still in service with the Chinese PLA (People's Liberation Army) in 1987.  Although the Tupolev lacked some of the Boeing's advanced electronics, the Russian engineers managed to deliver an aircraft close in weight to the original despite not have access to some of the more exotic metals although it was later admitted to achieve that there were some compromises in the structural redundancies fitted.

The German V2 (one of the Vergeltungswaffen ("retaliatory weapons" or "reprisal weapons")), the worlds first ballistic missile.  As a delivery system, although inaccurate, even in 1945 it would have been effective had a nuclear warhead been available but its small payload limited its application as a strategic weapon and it was able to be produced at scale only because of the use of expendable slave labor. 

In a more conventional use of the spoils of war, the Americans were also the beneficiaries of the development of someone else's delivery system.  Nazi Germany’s big V2 (A4) rockets were (more-or-less) perfected at a cost which after the war was revealed to be higher even than the official number booked against the Manhattan project and that was not surprising given it was in its way just as ambitious.  In what was a hastily organised effort, the Allied occupation forces in 1945 rushed to grab as much of the material associated with the V2 as they could lay their hands on, train-loads of components, drawings, machine tools and test rigs sent westward from territory which, under the terms agreed at the Yalta Conference (February 1945) were to be handed to the Russian.  Just as significantly, there was a major round-up of German scientists, engineers and technicians who has worked on the V2, most of whom were anxious to be "rounded-up" by the Americans, the alternative being a career in Russian "employment".  The round-up (operation paperclip) remains controversial because matters like a Nazi past or complicity in the use of slave labor were often overlooked if an individual's contribution to the Cold War was thought to be of value and the V2 certainly saved the US from having to spend much money and perhaps a decade or more developing its own delivery system for nuclear warheads and not only were the ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles) lineal V2 descendents, so was the Saturn V delivery system for the Apollo missions which enabled a dozen men to walk on the moon.

Post delivery: Lindsay Lohan's nursery in a theme of aquatic blue & white.

In humans, the female of the species is final component of the delivery system and on 17 Jul 2023 Lindsay Lohan announced she had delivered a baby boy, named Luai (an Arabic name which can be translated as “shield” or “protector”).  The child’s career in commerce has already begun, Ms Lohan partnering with Nestig to design not only her nautically-flavored nursery, but also a collection of baby products inspired by the imagery of the sea.  The nursery is a functional space in that the brand’s Wave dresser is adaptable to dual-use as a changing table and Nestig's cloud crib is modular and may later be converted into a toddler bed.

Lindsay Lohan with Nestig Aviator Mobile.  The aviator mobile was said to be “designed in partnership with Lindsay Lohan” and “handcrafted and hand-assembled by artisans in Brazil from wood, felt and locally-sourced wool” each “thoughtfully packaged in a Nestig gift box” (US$85; attachment arm sold separately).

Googly

Googly (pronounced goo-glee)

(1) In cricket, a bowled ball that swerves in one direction and breaks in the other; an off-break bowled with a leg break action.  The delivery was once also known as the bosie or bosie-ball and is now commonly referred to as the wrong'un.

(2) Something protruding; exophthalmic (rare).

(3) A slang term for bulging eyes (archaic).

Circa 1880s: Apparently an invention of modern English but the origin is uncertain.  It may have been from the mid-nineteenth century use of goggle (to stare at admiringly or amorously'' although google was during the same era used to describe the Adam's apple, derived presumably from the sense of eyes which are thought similarly protruding, either literally or figuratively, a meaning alluded to by a popular hero in a contemporary comic strip being named “Goo” (suggesting ''sentimental, amorous'').  Googly (and a number of variant spellings) does appear around the turn of the twentieth century to have been in common use as an adjective applied to the eyes.  The numerical value of googly in Chaldean numerology is 2 and in Pythagorean numerology, 5.  Googly is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is googlies.

Bernard Bosanquet sending down a googly.

In cricket, a googly is a type of delivery bowled by a right-arm leg spin bowler.  It differs from the classic leg spin type delivery, in that the ball is propelled from the bowler's hand in a way that upon hitting the pitch, it deviates in a direction opposite from that the batter expects (ie towards the leg rather than the off stump).  Usually now called the wrong'un, it was once also called the bosie, the eponym referring to English cricketer Bernard Bosanquet (1877-1936) who is believed to have invented the action.  That the googly is Bosanquet’s creation is probably true in the sense that he was the one who practiced the delivery, learning to control and disguise it so it could be deployed when most useful.  However, cricket being what it is, it’s certain that prior to Bosanquet, many bowlers would occasionally (and perhaps unintentionally have bowled deliveries that behaved as googlies but, being something difficult to perfect, few would have been able to produce it on demand.  What Bosanquet, uniquely at the time, did was add it to his stock repertoire which inspired other bowlers to practice.

The “googly problem” also exists in “twister theory”, one of the many esoteric branches of theoretical physics understood only by a chosen few.  In twister theory, the “googly problem” is nerd shorthand for what’s properly known as “the gravitational problem”, an allusion to certain observed behavior differing from that which would be predicted by the mysterious twister theory, rather the same experience suffered by the batter in cricket who finds his leg stump disturbed by a ball he had every reasonable expectation would harmlessly go through to the keeper down the off side.  As one might expect of a work which involves a "googly problem", the author was an English mathematician, the Nobel laureate in physics, Sir Roger Penrose (b 1931).  It's presumed one of his pleasures has been explaining the googly reference to physicists from places not well acquainted with the charms of cricket.

Bosanquet appears to have perfected his googly between 1897-1901 and, as a noun, the word has been attached to it since shortly afterwards, documented in publications in England, Australia and New Zealand from circa 1903.  However, that was just the point at which a certain delivery which was so distinctive to demand an identifier came to be regarded as the definitive googly, a word which had long been used to describe cricket balls which behaved erratically off the pitch, a use perhaps based on the long use of “google-eyed” to refer to a surprised expression (ie those of the bamboozled batter).  Some etymologists have pondered whether the construct might thus be the phonetic goo + guile but few have ever supported this.  Googly was by the late-nineteenth century a well-known word used adjectively to describe spin-bowling which proved effective but there’s no suggestion it implied a particular type of delivery.  Googly and the odd variant seem to have been a way of refereeing to balls which relied on a slow delivery and spin through the air to turn off the pitch as opposed to those bowled fast or at medium pace, using the seam on the ball to achieve any movement.  All the evidence suggests the word was used to convey some unusual behavior.

Match report, day three of the second test of the 1891-1892 Ashes series, published in the Australian Star (Sydney), 1 February 1, 1892.

Here, in the one match report are deliveries described both as being googly (ie used as an adjective) and the googler (a noun) but there’s nothing here or anywhere else to suggest either is anything more specific than a reference to beguiling slow bowling.  Everything suggests the existence of both the noun and adjective was deliberate rather than some sloppy antipodean sub-editing.  Whatever the nuances of Briggs' bowling however, it must have been effective because in the same match he took what was then only the third hat-trick (a bowler taking wickets with three successive balls in the one innings) in Test cricket.  There has been the suggestion the adjectival use (apparently an Australian invention) as "googly ones" was an allusion to the idea of how a cricket ball might behave if egg-shaped, this based on the then widely-used local slang "googie" used for eggs.  Googie was from the Irish and Scottish Gaelic gugaí, gogaí & gogaidh (a nursery word for an egg).  Although wholly speculative, the notion has received support but more popular is the idea it was based on the use of googly in the manner of "googly-eyed", slang for eyes which bulged or were in some way irregular.

Match report of a club game, the Australian Star (Sydney), 1 February 1, 1892.

The report of the test match in 1892 isn’t the first known reference to the googly, the word appearing (again adjectively) in The Leader (Melbourne) on 19 December 1885 in a match report of a club game although, despite noting the bowler’s success in taking two wickets, the writer seemed less than impressed with the bowling.  Although googly is now less common ("wrong'un" now often preferred), it is at least gender-neutral and therefore unlikely to fall foul of the language police and be banned; the fate of batsman, fieldsman and all the positional variations of third man (though "silly point" and other "sillies" are still with us).  Nor is there any hint of the ethnic insensitivity which doomed the “chinaman” (a left-arm unorthodox spin), now dumped in the bin of of words linked with colonial oppression.

Legside

Legside (pronounced leg-sahyd)

(1) In the terminology of cricket (also as onside), in conjunction with “offside”, the half of the cricket field behind the batter in their normal batting stance.

(2) In the terminology of horse racing, in conjunction with “offside”, the sides of the horse relative to the rider.

Pre 1800s: The construct was leg + side.  Leg was from the Middle English leg & legge, from the Old Norse leggr (leg, calf, bone of the arm or leg, hollow tube, stalk), from the Proto-Germanic lagjaz & lagwijaz (leg, thigh).  Although the source is uncertain, the Scandinavian forms may have come from a primitive Indo-European root used to mean “to bend” which would likely also have been linked with the Old High German Bein (bone, leg).  It was cognate with the Scots leg (leg), the Icelandic leggur (leg, limb), the Norwegian Bokmål legg (leg), the Norwegian Nynorsk legg (leg), the Swedish lägg (leg, shank, shaft), the Danish læg (leg), the Lombardic lagi (thigh, shank, leg), the Latin lacertus (limb, arm), and the Persian لنگ (leng).  After it entered the language, it mostly displaced the native Old English term sċanca (from which Modern English ultimately gained “shank”) which was probably from a root meaning “crooked” (in the literal sense of “bent” rather than the figurative used of crooked Hillary Clinton).  Side was from the Middle English side, from the Old English sīde (flanks of a person, the long part or aspect of anything), from the Proto-Germanic sīdǭ (side, flank, edge, shore), from the primitive Indo-European sēy- (to send, throw, drop, sow, deposit).  It was cognate with the Saterland Frisian Siede (side), the West Frisian side (side), the Dutch zijde & zij (side), the German Low German Sied (side), the German Seite (side), the Danish & Norwegian side (side) and the Swedish sida (side).  The Proto-Germanic sīdō was productive, being the source also of the Old Saxon sida, the Old Norse siða (flank; side of meat; coast), the Danish & Middle Dutch side, the Old High German sita and the German Seite.  Legside is an adjective.

A cricket field as described with a right-hander at the crease (batting); the batter will be standing with their bat held to the offside (there’s no confusion with the concept of “offside” used in football and the rugby codes because in cricket there’s no such rule).

In cricket, the term “legside” (used also as “leg side” or “on side”) is used to refer to the half of the field corresponding to a batter’s non-dominant hand (viewed from their perspective); the legside can thus be thought of as the half of the ground “behind” the while the “offside” is that in front.  This means that what is legside and what is offside is dynamic depending on whether the batter is left or right-handed and because in a match it’s not unusual for one of each to be batting during an over (the basic component of a match, each over now consisting of six deliveries of the ball directed sequentially at the batters), as they change ends, legside and offside can swap.  This has no practical significance except that because many of the fielding positions differ according to whether a left or right-hander is the striker.  That’s not the sole determinate of where a fielding captain will choose to set his field because what’s referred to as a “legside” or “offside” field will often be used in deference to the batter’s tendencies of play.  It is though the main structural component of field settings.  The only exception to this is when cricket is played in unusual conditions such as on the deck of an aircraft carrier (remarkably, it’s been done quite often) but there’s still a legside & offside, shifting as required between port & starboard just as left & right are swapped ashore.

The weird world of cricket's fielding positions.

Quite when legside & offside first came to be used in cricket isn't known but they’ve been part of the terminology of the sport since the rules of the game became formalized when the MCC (Marylebone Cricket Club) first codified the "Laws of Cricket" in what now seem a remarkably slim volume published in 1788, the year following the club’s founding.  There had earlier been rule books, the earliest known to have existed in the 1730s (although no copies appear to have survived) but whether the terms were then is use isn’t known.  What is suspected is legside and offside were borrowed from the turf where, in horse racing jargon, they describe the sides of the horse relative to the rider.  The use of the terms to split the field is reflected also in the names of some of the fielding positions, many of which are self-explanatory while some remain mysterious although presumably they must have seemed a good idea at the time.  One curious survivor of the culture wars which banished "batsman" & "fieldsman" to the shame of being microaggressions is "third man" which continues to be used in the men's game although in women's competition, all seem to have settled on "third", a similar clipping to that which saw "nightwatch" replace "nightwatchman"; third man surely can't last.  The ones which follow the dichotomous description of the field (although curiously “leg” is an element of some and “on” for others) including the pairings “silly mid on” & silly mid off” and “long on & long off”, while in other cases the “leg” is a modifier, thus “slip & leg slip” and “gully & leg gully”.  Some positions use different terminology depending on which side of the field they’re positioned, “point” on the offside being “square leg” on the other while fractional variations in positioning means there is lexicon of terms such as “deep backward square leg” and “wide long off” (which experts will distinguish from a “wideish long off”).

Leg theory

Leg theory was a polite term for what came to be known as the infamous “bodyline” tactic.  In cricket, when bowling, the basic idea is to hit the stumps (the three upright timbers behind the batter), the object being to dislodge the bails (the pair of small wooden pieces which sit in grooves, atop the three).  That done, the batter is “dismissed” and the batting side has to send a replacement, this going on until ten batters have been dismissed, ending the innings.  In essence therefore, the core idea is to aim at the stumps but there are other ways to secure a dismissal such as a shot by the batter being caught on the full by a fielder, thus the attraction of bowling “wide of the off-stump” (the one of the three closest to the off side) to entice the batter to hit a ball in the air to be caught or have one come "off the edge" of the bat to be “caught behind”.  It was realized early on there was little to be gained by bowling down the legside except restricting the scoring because the batter safely could ignore the delivery, content they couldn’t be dismissed LBW (leg before wicket, where but for the intervention of the protective pads on the legs, the ball would have hit the wicket) because, under the rules, if the ball hits the pitch outside the line of the leg stump, the LBW rule can’t be invoked.

A batter can however be caught from a legside delivery and as early as the nineteenth century this was known as leg theory, practiced mostly the slow bowlers who relied on flight in the air and spin of the pitch to beguile the batter.  Many had some success with the approach, the batters unable to resist the temptation of playing a shot to the legside field where the fielders tended often to be fewer.  On the slower, damper pitches of places like England or New Zealand, the technique offered little prospect for the fast bowlers who were usually more effective the faster they bowled but on the generally fast, true decks in Australia, there was an opportunity because a fast, short-pitched (one which hits the pitch first in the bowlers half of the pitch before searing up towards the batter) delivery with a legside line would, disconcertingly, tend at upwards of 90 mph (145 km/h) towards the batter’s head.  The idea was that in attempting to avoid injury by fending off the ball with the bat, the batter would be dismissed, caught by one of the many fielders “packed” on the legside, the other component of leg theory.

Leg theory: Lindsay Lohan’s legs.

For this reason it came to be called “fast leg theory” and it was used off and on by many sides (in Australia and England) during the 1920s but it gained its infamy (and the more evocative “bodyline” label) during the MCC’s (the designation touring England teams used until the 1970s) 1932-1933 Ashes tour of Australia.  Adopted as a tactic against the Australian batter Donald Bradman (1908–2001) against whom nothing else seemed effective (the English noting on the 1930 tour of England he’d once scored 300 runs in a day off his own bat at Leeds), bodyline became controversial after a number of batters were struck high on the body, one suffering a skull fracture (this an era in which helmets and other upper-body protection were unknown).  Such was the reaction the matter was a diplomatic incident, discussed by the respective cabinets in London and Canberra while acerbic cables were exchanged between the ACBC (Australian Cricket Board of Control) and the MCC.

Japanese leg theory: Zettai ryōiki (絶対領域) is a Japanese term which translates literally as “absolute territory” and is used variously in anime gaming and the surrounding cultural milieu.  In fashion, it refers to that area of visible bare skin above the socks (classically the above-the-knee variety) but below the hemline of a miniskirt, shorts or top.

Japanese schoolgirls, long the trend-setters of the nation's fashions, like to pair zettai ryouiki with solid fluffy (also called "plushies") leg warmers.  So influential are they that the roaming pack in this image, although they've picked up the aesthetic, are not actually real school girls.  So, beware of imitations: Tokyo, April 2024.

High-level interventions calmed thing sufficiently for the tour to continue which ended with the tourists winning the series (and thus the Ashes) 4-1.  The tour remains the high-water mark of fast leg theory because although it continued to be used when conditions were suitable, the effectiveness was stunted by batters adjusting their techniques and, later in the decade, the MCC updated their rule book explicitly to proscribe “direct attack” (ie deliveries designed to hit the batter rather than the stumps) bowling, leaving the judgment of what constituted that to the umpires.  Although unrelated and an attempt to counter the “negative” legside techniques which had evolved in the 1950s to limit scoring, further rule changes in 1957 banned the placement of more than two fielders behind square on the leg side, thus rendering impossible the setting of a leg theory field.  Despite all this, what came to be called “intimidatory short pitched bowling” continued, one of the reasons helmets began to appear in the 1970s and the rule which now applies is that only one such delivery is permitted per over.  It has never been a matter entirely about sportsmanship and within the past decade, the Australian test player Phillip Hughes (1988-2014) was killed when struck on the neck (while wearing a helmet) by a short-pitched delivery which severed an artery.

Breadvan

Breadvan (pronounced bred-vann)

(1) A delivery vehicle adapted for carrying loaves of bread or other bakery items for delivery to retail outlets, hotels, cafés etc.

(2) As the Ferrari 250 GT SWB (short wheelbase) “Breadvan”, a one-off vehicle produced in 1962.

(3) As a descriptor of the “breadvan” style applied to the rear of vehicles to seek aerodynamic advantages in competition, variously applied, mostly during the 1960s & 1970s.

1840s: A compound word, the construct being bread + van.  Bread was from the Middle English bred & breed (kind of food made from flour or the meal of some grain, kneaded into a dough, fermented, and baked), from the Old English brēad (fragment, bit, morsel, crumb), from the Proto-West Germanic braud, from the Proto-Germanic braudą (cooked food, leavened bread), from the primitive Indo-European berw- & brew- (to boil, to see).  Etymologists note also the Proto-Germanic braudaz & brauþaz (broken piece, fragment), from the primitive Indo-European bera- (to split, beat, hew, struggle) and suggest bread may have been a conflation of both influences.  It was cognate with the Old Norse brauð (bread), the Old Frisian brad (bread), the Middle Dutch brot (bread), the German Brot (bread), the Scots breid (bread), the Saterland Frisian Brad (bread), the West Frisian brea (bread), the Dutch brood (bread), the Danish & Norwegian brød (bread), the Swedish bröd (bread), the Icelandic brauð (bread), the Albanian brydh (I make crumbly, friable, soft) and the Latin frustum (crumb).  It displaced the non-native Middle English payn (bread), from the Old French pain (bread), having in the twelfth century replaced the usual Old English word for "bread" (hlaf).  Van was short for caravan, from the Middle French caravane, from the French caravane, from the Old French carvane & carevane, (or the Medieval Latin caravana), from the Persian کاروان‎ (kârvân), from the Middle Persian (kārawān) (group of desert travelers), from the Old Persian, ultimately from the primitive Indo-European ker- (army).  Most famously, the word was used to designate a group of people who were travelling by camel or horse on the variety of routes referred to as the Silk Road and it reached the West after being picked up during the Crusades, from the Persian forms via the Arabic qairawan and connected ultimately to the Sanskrit karabhah (camel).  Breadvan (also as bread-van) is a noun; the noun plural is breadvans.

Breadvans various

Progress: Horse-drawn breadvan (left) and Austin (left) & Morris (right), breadvans, Melbourne, Australia, 1959 (right).  The Morris Commercial J-type was produced between 1949 and 1961 and between 1957 and 1960s there was also a “badge-engineered” (and mechanically identical) Austin version.  The BMC (British Motor Corporation) conglomerate (that ultimately would be absorbed into the doomed British Leyland (1968-1986) became notorious for “badge-engineering” (one model produced under six different brands) their passenger cars but their light commercial vehicles often were produced as both an Austin and Morris, the original rationale being to provide products to sometimes separate dealer networks.

The breadvans were first horse-drawn and came into use in the in the 1840s.  These vans were used to transport freshly baked bread from bakeries to homes and businesses in cities and towns in the UK, Europe, North America and Australasia.  The breadvan was adopted as an efficiency measure, being a significant improvement on the traditional system of delivery which was usually a “baker’s boy” carrying baskets of bread on foot to customers.  The horse-drawn breadvans allowed bakers increase production and expand their customer base.  The construction of the vehicles was not particularly specialized but they did need to be (1) waterproof to protect the goods from the elements and (2) secure enough that the bread was not accessible by opportunistic birds, dogs or thieves.  Enzo Ferrari (1898-1988) became famous for the cars carrying his name (though never much associated with breadvans) but his imperious attitude to customers and employees alike led to a number of them storming out of Maranello and creating their own machines.  Some, like Lamborghini endured through many ups & downs, others like Bizzarrini survived for a while and ATS (Automobili Turismo Sport) produced a dozen exquisite creations before succumbing to commercial reality.  Another curious product of a dispute with il Commendatore was the Ferrari 250 GT SWB “Breadvan”.

Ferrari 250 GT SWB “Breadvan” in profile (left) and leading a 250 GT SWB, the car on which it was based.

Ferrari’s 250 GTO became available to customers in 1962 and one with his name on the list was Count Giovanni Volpi di Misurata (b 1938), principal of the Scuderia Serenissima (Scuderia SSS Republica di Venezia) operation but when Enzo Ferrari found out Volpi was one of the financial backers of the ATS project, he scratched the count’s name from the order book.  Through one of the back channel deals still a feature of Italian commerce, Volpi did obtain a GTO but he decided he’d like to make a point to il Commendatore so opted to make something even better for his team’s assault on the 1962 Le Mans 24 hour endurance classic.  In the Scuderia Serenissima stable was what was reputed to be the world’s fastest Ferrari GT SWB (serial number 2819 GT) and it was decided to update this to a specification beyond even that of the GTO, a task entrusted to Giotto Bizzarrini (1926-2023) who, with remarkable alacrity, performed the task in the workshops of noted coachbuilder Piero Drogo (1926–1973).  The changes wrought were radical indeed.  To obtain the ideal centre of gravity, the 3.0 litre (180 cubic inch) V12 engine was shifted 4¾ inches (120 mm) rearward, sitting entirely behind the front axle and mounted lower, something permitted by the installation of a dry sump lubrication system.  Emulating the factory GTO, six downdraft, twin choke Weber carburetors sat atop the inlet manifold, the tuned engine generating a healthy 300 HP (horsepower).  Given the re-engineering, on paper, the car was at least a match for the GTO except it lacked the factory machine’s five-speed gearbox, running instead the standard four-speed.  

Ferrari 250 GT SWB “Breadvan”.  It's not known if anyone has ever calculated the rear compartment's capacity but it would have held a few loaves and they'd likely have been delivered more quickly than most.

What really caught the eye however was Bizzarrini’s striking bodywork, the sharp nose so low a Perspex cover had to be fabricated to shield the cluster of a dozen velocity stacks of the Webers protruding above the hood (bonnet) line.  Most extraordinary however was the roofline that extended from the top of the windscreen to the rear where it was sharply cut-off to create what remains perhaps the most extreme Kammtail ever executed.  The count was impressed, the creation matching the GTO for power while being 100 kg (220 lb) lighter and aerodynamically more efficient.  Accordingly he included it in the three-car Ferrari team he assembled for Le Mans along with the GTO and a 250 TR/61; it's appearance caused a sensation, the French dubbing it la camionnette (little truck) but it was the English nickname “Breadvan” that really caught on.  To a degree the count proved his point.  Under pressure from Ferrari the organizers forced the Breadvan to run in the prototype class against pure racing cars rather than the GTOs in the granturismo category but in the race, it outpaced the whole GT field until, after four hours, a broken driveshaft forced its retirement.  Subsequently, it was entered that season in a further four events, scoring two GT class victories and a class track record before being retired.  Count Volpi sold the car in 1965 for US$2,800 (it was then just another no longer competitive, "clapped-out" race car) but it has survived to be a popular entrant on the historic racing circuit.

2021 Ferrari Breadvan homage by Niels van Roij Design.

Dutch designer Niels van Roij (b 1984) runs a specialist design house and in 2019 was commissioned to built a one-off “Ferrari Breadvan homage”.  Two years in the making, the project was based on a 550 Maranello (tipo F133, 1996-2002), the model chosen because it was the company’s last front-engined, V12 built with the classic open-gate manual transmission.  With the increase in the money supply (most of which went to the upper few percent of the population), the market for bespoke creations (thought effectively extinct since the demise in the 1960s of most of the coach-building business) has grown and for those not content with the long and expensive option lists now offered by some manufacturers, true exclusivity can be obtained by commissioning a one-off creation.  Typically, the things cost at least US$2 million.  

Breadvans, crashed and fixed.

Breadvans ancient and (slightly more) modern can crash or otherwise be damaged and while some will be written off (typically if replacement is economically more viable than repair), if the vehicle is sufficiently valuable, it will be repaired.  The Ferrari Breadvan hasn’t been sold in a public exchange since the mid-1960s although it has shifted between collections on a number of occasions but always via private treaties.  A current market valuation is thus speculative but as a unique Ferrari 250 SWB of historical significance, it will be a big number and current estimates are between US$25-30 million, a reasonable increase from the US$2,800 realized in 1965.  So, the dented Ferrari Breadvan gets fixed and England’s RS Panels, based in Attleborough Fields Industrial Estate, Nuneaton was entrusted with the task after one “prang”.  Specialists in the aluminum and steel panels forming the usually curvaceous but occasionally brutalist lines of classic-era Ferraris, Maseratis, Jaguars, Aston Martins and such, as many owners discovered after RS returned their repaired or restored cars, they found the fit and finish was of a higher standard than when they left the factory, all those years ago.  Ferraris especially were notorious for looking gorgeous but if one looked too closely at the welds and joins not usually seen, the impression could be a little dented.  After emerging from RS Panels, it’s likely the Breadvan is in its finest ever condition.

1965 Ford GT40 Mark I (left) 1966 Ford J Car (centre) & 1967 Ford GT40 Mark IV (right).

As well as the ATS, Lamborghinis and Bizzarrinis, Enzo Ferrari’s attitude to those who disagreed with him also begat the Ford GT40, a well-known tale recounted (with a little license) in the 20th century Fox film Ford vs Ferrari (2019).  In 7.0 litre (427 cubic inch) form, the GT40 Mark II won at Le Mans in 1966 but Ford’s engineers were aware the thing was overweight and lacked the aerodynamic efficiency of the latest designs so embarked on a development program, choosing the project name “J Car”, an allusion to the “Appendix J” regulations (one of the few genuinely good ideas the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (the International Automobile Federation) came up with before it became world sport's dopiest regulatory body) with which it conformed.  The aluminum honeycomb chassis was commendably light and, noting the speed advantage gained by the Ferrari Breadvan in 1962, a similar rear section was fabricated with tests confirming the reduction in drag.  Unfortunately, the additional speed it enabled exposed the limitation of the breadvanesque lines: above a certain speed the large flat surface acted like an aircraft’s wing and the ensuing lift provoked lethal instability, one fatal crash proving the lightweight chassis also was fragile.  The “J Car” was thus abandoned and a more conventional approach was taken for both the chassis and body of the GT40 Mark IV and it proved successful, in 1967 gaining the second of Ford’s four successive victories at Le Mans (1966-1969).

The modern Ferrari "breadvans"

Ferrari 250 GT SWB “Breadvan” (left) and 2013 Ferrari FF (right).

Rather than the 250 Breadvan, it was probably market research that inspired the Ferrari FF (2011-2016), the Italian factory's first take on the shooting brake concept although in the 1950s there had been some built with opening rear hatches a la the fixed-roof versions of the Jaguar E-Type (1961-1974).  Over the decades, there had been more than a dozen "variations on the theme of a Ferrari station wagon" by a number of coachbuilders, all in their own way distinctive but none improved the lines of the donor car on which they were based, unlike the Jaguar XJS shooting brakes which looked so good it was remarkable one never appeared in the factory's catalogue.  According to the factory, "FF" stood for "Ferrari Four" a reference to the AWD (all wheel drive) configuration although it may also have been intended to remind potential buyers the thing could seat four and the promotional material included pictures of ski-racks and even a roof-mounted “ski-box”, able to hold ski-gear for four.  Clearly, the combination of AWD traction and the carrying capacity was a hint this was a car for those who liked to drive to the ski-fields.  The Ferrari FF "shooting brake" (the factory seems not to have used the term although most journalists seems to thought it best except the better informed who referenced the 250 "Breadvan") was very much in the same vein, its capaciousness closer to that of a “big coupé” rather than any size of station wagon although the factory did circulate photographs of the rear-compartment comfortably (if snugly) packed with a set of golf-clubs and a half dozen-odd travel bags; with folding rear seats, Ferrari claimed a trunk (boot) capacity of 450-800 litres (16-28 cubic feet).

1966 Jensen FF Series 1 (left) and 2017 Ferrari GTC4Lusso (right).

Despite the name, there was apparently no intention to link the car with the Jensen FF (1966-1971) a pioneering machine which featured both all wheel drive (AWD although then still called 4WD (four wheel drive)) and anti-lock brakes (an early, mechanical implementation derived from use in aviation which was most effective).  Anti-lock braking is essentially a form of “pressure modulation” and the modern abbreviation "ABS" doesn’t reference the often quoted  “Anti-Lock Braking System”; the correct source is Anti-Bloc System, the name adopted in 1966 when Daimler-Benz and the Heidelberg electronics company Teldix (later absorbed by Bosch) began a co-development of a hybrid analogue-electronic system.  The system used on the Jensen FF was an early, mechanical implementation derived from use in aviation which have proved effective for aircraft landing on icy runways).

Marketing opportunity for niche players: A Lindsay Lohan breadvan, Reykjavik, Iceland.

The Jensen FF really wasn’t a shooting brake although the huge and distinctive rear window was also a hatch so it did offer some of the advantages.  Despite the high price, the Jensen FF sold remarkably well but its market potential was limited because all Ferguson’s development work had been done in England using RHD (right-hand-drive) vehicles and the system was so specific it wasn’t possible to make a left-hand-drive (LHD) FF without re-engineering the whole mechanism, the apparatus so bulky the passenger's front seat was narrower than that of the driver so much did things intrude.  Consequently, only 320 were built, apparently at a financial loss.  Ferrari did better with their FF, over 2000 sold between 2011–2016 and although the packaging may have been remarkably efficient, with a 6.3 litre (382 cubic inch) V12 it was never going to be economical, listed by the 2013 US Department of Energy as the least fuel-efficient car in the midsize class, sharing that dubious honor with the bigger, heavier (though not as rapid) Bentley Mulsanne.  For owners, the 335 km/h (208 mph) top speed was presumably sufficient compensation.  When production ended, the FF was replaced by the conceptually similiar GTC4Lusso (2016-2020) and, unusually, in 2017 the factory announced the GTC4Lusso T, the appended "T" a reference to it being powered by a twin-turbocharged V8 rather than its older sibling's V12; the V8 was RWD (rear wheel drive) but did retain the 4WS (four-wheel steering) system.  The last of the pair left the factory late in 2020 and were not replaced so there have been no Ferrari Breadvans since.

Homemade breadvans

Ford Anglia, Rallye Monte-Carlo, 1962 (left) & Ford Anglia "breadvans" built for New Zealand Allcomer racing during the 1960s.

In the US, at a time with a million dollars was still a lot of money, Ford spent probably at least a million on the GT40’s abortive breadvan but in New Zealand, it doubtful the amateur racers in the popular “Allcomers” category (a close cousin of the admirable Formula Libre) spent even UD$100 in the development of their “breadvans”.  In the Allcomer category, the “breadvans” (again a nod to the Count Volpi’s 1962 Ferrari) were Ford Anglias with a rear section modified to gain some aerodynamic advantage.  The English Ford Anglia 105E (1959–1968) had an unusual reverse-angle rear-window (borrowed from some of the corporation's US Lincolns & Mercurys), a design chosen to optimize headroom for back-seat passengers and that it did but it also induced additional drag which, while of no great consequence at the speeds attained in rallying or on public roads, did compromise the top speed, something of great concern to those who found the light, agile machines otherwise well-suited to racing.  In the spirit of improvisation for which New Zealand Allcomer racing was renowned, “breadvans” soon proliferated, fabricated variously from fibreglass, aluminum or steel (and reputedly even paper-mache although that may be apocryphal and based on the use of the technique to create molds for a fibreglass structure) and the approach was successful, Anglias competitive in some forms of racing well into the 1970s by which time some had, improbably, been re-powered with V8 engines, an Allcomer solution for just about any problem.

La camionnette: Citroën Baguette Vans

1972 Citroën SM with Michelin's RR “plastic” wheels.

The Citroën SM (1970-1975) was not the success the manufacturer had anticipated in the heady days of the mid 1960s when the design parameters were finalized.  Then, oil was cheap, seemingly limitless and rules about exhaust emissions and safety so minor as to be barely an impediment to the imagination of engineers but, in a very short time much would change, notably US legislators beginning to impose passenger vehicle emission standards in an attempt to reduce the smog that had become a blight upon many cities and the publication in 1965 of Unsafe at Any Speed by crusading lawyer Ralph Nader (b 1934).  Nader’s book was an incitement of the design of US-built cars but what it triggered was an on-rush of legislation that would be imposed on any car sold in that lucrative market and while re-engineering was viable for some imports selling in volume, for niche products, the accountants couldn’t make the economics work; the SM was one of many victims, the last sold in the US leaving the showroom in 1973.  That meant its demise there couldn’t be blamed on the first oil shock (1973-1974) that wrought such a change on the global industry and one of the ironies of the era is that among vehicles sold in the US in its price range and offering such performance (especially were top-speed used as a yardstick), the SM was the one with the lowest fuel consumption, achieved by the use of a relatively small (a V6 of 2.7 or 3.0 litres (163 or 181 cubic inch)) and what were at the time industry-leading aerodynamics.

1974 Citroën HY (1947–1981) breadvan.

Things were however different in Europe where gas (petrol) was more expensive and an engine of that displacement was thought “large”; greatly SM sales were affected although the writing was on the wall even before OAPEC (Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries) on 17 October, 1973 imposed their first oil embargo, the car’s reputation for unreliability and costly maintenance spreading rapidly although that was a product more of infrastructure than design.  While by the standards of the time a complex machine, experience has shown well-maintained SMs are commendably robust but the problem was the Maserati-sourced V6 engine was unusual in using a 90^o configuration (it was essentially a cut-down V8) meaning aspects of the tuning were novel to most mechanics and the hydraulic systems were in some ways different to those used on the DS (1955-1975), the car on which most mechanics had gained their experience of such things.  As it was, sales in Europe dropped precipitously after 1971 (the first year of full-production) and the SM’s future likely anyway would have been bleak had it not been doomed by the rising price of gas and the loss of the lucrative US market.

1988 Citroën 2CV (1948-1990) camionnette.

The SM had been one of the cases of “mission creep” that were a characteristic of the industry in the optimistic and prosperous 1960s.  The origin design brief issued in 1960 had been for a “high-performance DS”, a car that although the lines were upon release in 1955 stunningly modernist (“like a spaceship” a phrase frequently used in press reports), was always hampered by having to use an ancient and rather agricultural four-cylinder power-plant, the funds to develop the planned flat-6 the car deserved never made available.  Even in 1970, the Maserati V6 wasn’t ideal for such a machine but Citroën in 1968 had acquired the Italian concern with the express purpose of gaining an engine powerful enough for a grand-touring car (then a challenging assignment for something with FWD (front-wheel-drive)) and although the V6 delivered the desired power, the compromises inherent in the 90^o layout meant the ultimate smoothness and refinement expected in such cars was never quite achieved.  Still, it was in so many ways unique that many were prepared to overlook the odd foible and the press response generally was enthusiastic, as was that of the public with sales in the first two seasons approaching expectations.  However, the reputation for unreliability and costly repairs quickly quelled demand and the unfortunate “external circumstances” of 1973-1974 ensured the project would be terminated earlier than planned with fewer than 13,000 having been built.  Had the SM been the company’s only disastrous venture in the troubled 1970s, Citroën may have been able to avoid bankruptcy but the mistakes had been many and in 1974 administrators were called in, the company sold to the more stable Peugeot (with a still murky involvement by the French state).

1971 Citroën SM "Breadvan".

Between 1970 and 1975, the factory produced the SM only as a LHD (left-hand drive), two-door coupé but coach-builders saw the possibilities with four-door sedans and two-door cabriolets being constructed along with some even more exotic creations but all were very expensive and production of none of these variants reached double figures.  Most exclusive however were the two SM Présidentielles, four-door cabriolets built for le président’s parades during state occasions, the pair not retired from the Élysée Palace’s fleet until 2009.  Unusually among state limousines built since the 1940s, the Présidentielles used the SM’s five-speed manual transmission, first gear being a “crawler”, enabling the cars to percolate slowly along.  Improbable as the SM may have seemed as a rally car, the factory did enter a number of them in such events and for a couple of seasons there was some success, demonstrating also the strength of the novel “plastic wheels” (the Michelin RR (roues resin (resin wheel)) properly described as “constructed of synthetic resin reinforced with long-strand carbon fibre”) but the most eye-catching were a handful of SWB versions, some of which (it may have been as many as four) used the “breadvan” style kammback, a la the earlier Ferrari.  This further improved the aerodynamics which, combined with lower weight and engines tuned for additional power, delivered a reputed top speed of 285 km/h (177 mph, with rally-car gearing!), some 60 km/h (35 mph) more than the fastest of the production models.  It thus joined the short list of "unlikely rally cars" but it was effective and more might have been achieve had the company's financial problems not curtailed the venture.  More practically, the rear compartment allowed an additional two spare tyres to be carried, a useful asset in long-distant events conducted over rough roads.