Monocoque

Monocoque (pronounced mon-uh-kohk or mon-oh-kok (non-U))

(1) A type of boat, aircraft, or rocket construction in which the shell carries most of the stresses.

(2) A type of automotive construction in which the body is combined with the chassis as a single unit.

(3) A unit of this type.

1911: From the French monocoque (best translated as “single shell” or “single hull” depending on application), the construct being mono- + coque.  Mono was from the Ancient Greek μόνος (monos) (alone, only, sole, single), from the primitive Indo-European root men (small, isolated).  Coque was from the Old French coque (shell) & concha (conch, shell), from the Latin coccum (berry) and concha (conch, shell) from the Ancient Greek κόκκος (kókkos) (grain, seed, berry).  In the early twentieth century, it was the French who were most dominant in the development of aviation.  Words like “monocoque”, “aileron”, “fuselage” and “empennage” are of French origin and endure in English because it’s a vacuum-cleaner of a language which sucks in anything from anywhere which is handy and manageable.  Monocoque is a noun; the noun plural is monocoques.

Noted monocoques

Deperdussin Monocoque, 1912.

A monocoque (sometime referred to as structural skin) is a form of structural engineering where loads and stresses are distributed through an object's external skin rather than a frame; concept is most analogous with an egg shell. Early airplanes were built using wood or steel tubes covered with starched fabric, the fabric rendering contributing only a small part to rigidity.  A monocoque construction integrates skin and frame into a single load-bearing shell, reducing weight and adding strength.  Although examples flew as early as 1911, airframes built as aluminium-alloy monocoques would not become common until the mid 1930s.  In a pure design where only function matters, almost anything can be made a stressed component, even engine blocks and windscreens.

Lotus 25, 1962.

In automotive design, the word monocoque is often misused, treated as a descriptor for anything built without a separate chassis.  In fact, most road vehicles, apart from a handful of expensive exotics, are built either with a separate chassis (trucks and some SUVs) or are of unibody/unitary construction where box sections, bulkheads and tubes to provide most of the structural integrity, the outer-skin adding little or no strength or stiffness.  Monocoque construction was first seen in Formula one in 1962, rendered always in aluminium alloys until 1981 when McLaren adopted carbon-fibre.  A year later, the McLaren F1 followed the same principles, becoming the first road car built as a carbon-fibre monocoque.

BRM P83 (H16), 1966.

In 1966, there was nothing revolutionary about the BRM P83’s monocoque chassis.  Four years earlier, in the second season of the voiturette era, that revolution had been triggered by the Lotus 25, built with the first fully stressed monocoque chassis, an epoch still unfolding as materials engineering evolves; the carbon-fibre monocoques seen first in the 1981 McLaren MP4/1 becoming soon ubiquitous.  The P83 used a monocoque made from riveted Duralumin (the word a portmanteau of durable and aluminium), an orthodox construction for the time.  Additionally, although it had been done before and would soon become an orthodoxy, what was unusual was that the engine was a stressed part of the monocoque.

BRM Type 15 (V16), 1949.

The innovation was born of necessity.  Not discouraged by the glorious failure of the extraordinary V16 BRM had built (with much much fanfare and precious little success) shortly after the war, the decision was taken again to join together two V8s in one sixteen cylinder unit.  Whereas in 1949, the V8s had been coupled at the centre to create a V16, for 1966, the engines were re-cast as 180^o flat 8s with one mounted atop another in an H configuration, a two-crankshaft arrangement not seen since the big Napier-Sabre H24 aero-engines used in the last days of the war.  The design yielded the advantage that it was short, affording designers some flexibility in lineal placement, but little else.  It was heavy and tall, exacerbating further the high centre of gravity already created by the need to raise the engine location so the lower exhaust systems would clear the ground.  Just as significantly, it was wide, too wide to fit into a monocoque socket and thus was taken the decision to make the engine an integral, load-bearing element of the chassis.  There was no other choice.

BRM H16 engine and gearbox, 1966.

 

Structurally, it worked, the monocoque was strong and stable and despite the weight and height, the P83 might have worked if the H16 had delivered the promised horsepower but the numbers were never realised.  The early power output was higher than the opposition but it wasn’t enough to compensate for the drawbacks inherent in the design and, these being so fundamental they couldn’t be corrected, the only hope was even more power.  The path to power was followed and modest increases were gained but it was never enough and time ran out before the plan to go from 32 to 64 valves could come to fruition, an endeavour some suggested would merely have “compounded the existing error on an even grander scale.”  Additionally, with every increase in power and weight, the already high fuel consumption worsened.

The H16 did win one grand prix, albeit in a Lotus rather than a BRM monocoque, but that was a rare success; of the forty times it started a race, twenty-seven ended prematurely.  The irony of the tale is that in the two seasons BRM ran the 440 horsepower H16 with its sixteen cylinders, two crankshafts, eight camshafts and thirty-two valves, the championship in both years was won by the Repco-Brabham, its engine with 320 horsepower, eight cylinders, one crankshaft, two camshafts and sixteen valves.  Adding insult to the exquisitely bespoke H16’s injury, the Repco engine was based on an old Oldsmobile block which General Motors had abandoned.  After two seasons the H16 venture was retired, replaced by a conventional V12.

The Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren

Mercedes-Benz McLaren SLR Coupé (left), Roadster (centre) and Speedster (right).

The monocoque Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren (C199 / R199 / Z199) was a joint development with McLaren Automotive and was available as a coupé (2003-2010), roadster (2007-2009) & speedster (2009).  Visually, the car was something of an evocation of the 300 SLR gullwing coupé, two of which were built in 1955 for use in competition but never used, one of the consequences of the disaster that year during the Le Mans 24 hour endurance classic when a 300 SLR crashed into the crowd, killing 84 and injuring dozens of others.  Footage of that event is widely available and to a modern audience it will seem extraordinary the race was allowed to continue.

Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears and Paris Hilton in Ms Hilton's Mercedes-Benz McLaren SLR, outside the Beverley Hills Hotel, Los Angeles.  This was the occasion which produced the photograph which appeared on the infamous “Bimbo Summit” front page of Rupert Murdoch’s (b 1931) New York Post, 29 November 2006.

The 300 SLR (Sport Leicht Rennsport (Sport Light Racing)) which crashed was an open version and the model name was a little opportunistic because it was essentially the W196R Formula One car with a 3.0 litre straight-8 (the F1 rules demanded a 2.5) so the SLR, built to contest the World Sports Car Championship, was technically the W196S; it became the 300 SLR to cross-associate it and the 300 SL gullwing (W198, 1954-1957).  Nine were built, two of which were converted to SLR gullwings and, although never raced, they came to be dubbed the “Uhlenhaut coupés” because they were co-opted by racing team manager Rudolf Uhlenhaut (1906–1989) as high-speed personal transport, tales of his rapid trips between German cities soon the stuff of legend and even if a few myths developed, the cars could exceed 290 km/h (180 mph) so some at least were probably true.  That what was essentially a Grand Prix race car with a body and headlights could be registered for road use is as illustrative as safety standards at Le Mans of how different was the world of the 1950s.  In 2022, one of the Uhlenhaut coupés was sold at auction to an unknown buyer (presumed to be Middle Eastern) for US$142 million, becoming by some margin the world’s most expensive used car.

As a footnote (one to be noted only by the subset of word nerds who delight in the details of nomenclature), for decades, it was said by many, even normally reliable sources, that SL stood for sports Sports Leicht (sports light) and the history of the Mercedes-Benz alphabet soup was such that it could have gone either way (the SSKL (1929) was the Super Sports Kurz (short) Leicht (light) and from the 1950s on, for the SL, even the factory variously used Sports Leicht and Super Leicht.  It was only in 2017 it published a 1952 paper (unearthed from the corporate archive) confirming the correct abbreviation is Super Leicht.  Sports Leicht Rennsport (Sport Light Racing) seems to be used for the the SLRs because they were built as pure race cars, the W198 and later SLs being road cars but there are references also to Super Leicht Rennsport.  By implication, that would suggest the original 300SL (the 1951 W194) should have been a Sport Leicht because it was built only for competition but given the relevant document dates from 1952, it must have been a reference to the W194 which is thus also a Sport Leicht.  Further to muddy the waters, in 1957 the factory prepared two lightweight cars based on the new 300 SL Roadster (1957-1963) for use in US road racing and these were (at the time) designated 300 SLS (Sports Leicht Sport), the occasional reference (in translation) as "Sports Light Special" not supported by any evidence.  The best quirk of the SLS tale however is the machine which inspired the model was a one-off race-car built by Californian coachbuilder ("body-man" in the vernacular of the West Coast hot rod community) Chuck Porter (1915-1982).  Porter's SLS was built on the space-fame of a wrecked 300 SL gullwing (purchased for a reputed US$500) and followed the lines of the 300 SLR roadsters as closely as the W198 frame (taller than that of the W196S) allowed.  Although it was never an "official" designation, Porter referred to his creation as SL-S, the appended "S" standing for "scrap".      

The SLR and its antecedents.

A Uhlenhaut coupé and a 300 SLR of course appeared for the photo sessions when in 2003 the factory staged the official release of the SLR McLaren and to may explicit the link with the past, the phrase “gullwing doors” appeared in the press kit documents no less than seven times.  Presumably, journalists got the message but they weren’t fooled and the doors have always, correctly, been called “butterflies”.  Unlike the machines of the 1950s which were built with an aluminium skin atop a space-frame, the twenty-first century SLRs were a monocoque (engineers say the sometimes heard “monocoque shell” is tautological) of reinforced carbon fibre.  Although the dynamic qualities were acknowledged and it was, by all but the measure of hyper-cars, very fast indeed, the reception it has enjoyed has always been strangely muted, testers seeming to find the thing rather “soulless”.  That seemed to imply a lack of “character” which really seems to suggest an absence of obvious flaws, the quirks and idiosyncrasies which can at once enrage and endear.

The nature of monocoque.

The monocoque construction offered one obvious advantage in that the inherent stiffness was such that the creation of the roadster version required few modifications, the integrity of the structure such that not even the absence of a roof compromised things.  Notably, the butterfly doors were able to be hinged along the windscreen (A) pillars, such was the rigidity offered by carbon fibre, a material for which the monocoque may have been invented.  McLaren would later use a variation of this idea when it released the McLaren MP4-12C (2011-2014), omitting the top hinge which allowed the use of frameless windows even on the roadster (spider) version.

The SLR Speedster (right) was named the Stirling Moss edition and was a homage to the 300 SLR (left) which in the hands of Sir Stirling Moss (1929–2020) and navigator Denis Jenkinson (1920–1996), won the 1955 Mille Miglia (an event run on public roads in Italy over a distance of 1597 km (992 miles)) at an average speed of 157.65 km/h (97.96 mph).

However, the minimalist (though very expensive) Speedster had never been envisaged when the monocoque was designed and to ensure structural integrity, changes had to be made to strengthen what would have become points of potential failure, the removal of the windscreen fame and assembly having previously contributed much to rigidity.  Door sills were raised (recalling the space frame which in 1951 had necessitated the adoption of the original gullwing doors on the first 300 SL (W194)) and cross-members were added across the cockpit, integrated with a pair of rollover protection bars.  Designed for speed, the Speedster eschewed niceties such as air-conditioning, an audio system, side windows and sound insulation; this was not a car for Paris Hilton.  All told, despite the additional bracing, the Speedster weighed 140 kg (310 lb) less than the coupé while the supercharged 5.5 litre V8 was carried over from the earlier 722 edition but the reduction in frontal area added a little to top speed, now claimed to be 350 km/h (217 mph) although the factory did caution that above 160 km/h (100 mph), the dainty wind deflectors would no longer contain the wind and a crash helmet would be required so even if the lack of air-conditioning might have been overlooked, that alone would have been enough for Paris Hilton to cross the Speedster off her list; she wouldn't want "helmet hair".  Only 75 were built, none apparently ever driven, all spending their time on display or the auction block, exchanged between collectors.

Elite

Elite (pronounced ay-leet (U) or e-leet (non-U))

(1) The choice or best of anything considered collectively, as of a group or class of persons (often used with a plural verb).

(2) Historically, persons of the highest class (used with a plural verb).  Once associated mostly with high birth or social position (the aristocratic or patrician), it’s now a much applied and contested concept.

(3) A group of persons exercising the major share of authority or influence within a larger group.

(4) A typeface, approximately 10-point in printing-type size, widely used in typewriters and having 12 characters to the inch and now included in many digital font sets.

(5) Representing the most choice or select; best; of, relating to, or suitable for an elite; exclusive

1350–1400: From the Middle English (in the sense of "a person elected to office"), from the Middle French e(s)lit (chosen), feminine past participle of e(s)lisre & e(s)lire (to choose), from the Latin ēligere (to elect), the past participle electus; the source of the modern elect, election & related forms.  Variations are created as required such as anti-elite, global-elite, non-elite, power-elite & super-elite.  Words in a similar sense include exclusive, silk-stocking, aristocracy, celebrity, establishment, society, choice, cool, crack, elect, noble, pick, super, top, best, cream & gentility.  The alternative spelling is the French élite and use of the French pronunciation the "U" ay-leet rather than the "non-U" e-leet is one of the "class-identifiers" on which readers of publications like Country Life focus when meeting folk.

Use in English became more frequent after 1823 in the sense of "a choice or select body, the best part".  Earlier, in fourteenth century Middle English it had been borrowed from French with the meaning "chosen person" (and was used much in ecclesiastical documents to describe a bishop-elect) but had died out by the middle of the next century.  Elite was re-introduced to general use when it appeared by in Lord Byron's (1788-1824) epic poem Don Juan (1819-1824); it caught on and was by 1852 an adjective.  The noun elitism (advocacy of or preference for rule or social domination by an elite element in a system or society; attitude or behavior of persons who are or deem themselves among the elite) dates from 1951 and is an early example of the development of the language of critical theory which emerged, encouraged by the vast increase in the social sciences in the expanded universities of the post-war years.

IBM 12 Point Pitch 96 character "Golf Ball" Prestige Elite font for Selectric III Typewriter.

Introduced in 1961, the IBM Selectric (a portmanteau of select(ive) + (elect)ric)) was a landmark of modern industrial design and the last major advance in desktop document production before the word processor.  Built to the high standard for which IBM was once renowned, it allowed users to change font sets within seconds, simply by swapping the "element" which everybody except IBM staff (always in blue suits and white shirts) called "golf balls".  At the time the concept of a swappable character set was actually decades old and systems using flat, rotating "wheels" were the usual alternative approach but the Selectric did it best and in the 1960s there was still a enticing allure to the IBM name.  The most popular of the early fonts were Elite, Gothic & Courier (all available in several variations.  The first Elite typeface was released in 1920 and used by both typewriters and hot metal typesetting.  Prestige Elite (usually referred to as “Prestige” or “Elite”), was a monospaced typeface, created in 1953 for IBM and among the most popular of those available for the Selectric.  Optimized for the particular technology of the typewriter, Prestige Elite was characterized by the large x-height and moderate stroke thickness suitable for ribbon-based impact printing.  Unlike the similar Courier, the Elite sets did not transition to the digital age although TrueType, PostScript and other formats of variations of Elite are commercially available.

The rise in use of the adjective elitist (advocating or preferring rule or social domination by an elite element in a system or society; deeming oneself to be among the elite) is noted from the same era, the original adjectival examples including Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), and Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881).  The nous use quickly followed although some dictionaries insist it’s not attested until 1961.  The concept attracted much attention from sociologists exploring structures of power and the relationships between them, much discussed in Michael Young’s (1915-2002) The Rise of the Meritocracy (1958) although, while intended as a critique of a society increasingly divided between a skilled power-holding elite and a disenfranchised underclass of the less qualified, meritocracy, to the author’s disquiet, meritocracy (and meritocratic) evolved into a word with at least neutral and often positive connotations.

Shoes for elite feet: Lindsay Lohan in Isabel Marant Poppy Elite Suede Pumps in beige, New York City, August 2015.  Jeans for the elite now can affect the look of the tatterdemalion ("distressed" the industry term) which once was a mark of the clothing of the poor but they should include a label confirming their US$800 + cost, a particular art of "implied price-taggery". 

Charles Wright Mills (1916–1962 and usually styled C Wright Mills) was an American sociologist who published the much criticized but also influential The Power Elite (1956) which appears to have introduced the term to political criticism.  Mills took a structuralist approach and explored the clusters of elites and how their relationships and interactions works to enable them to exert (whether overtly or organically) an essentially dictatorial control over US society and its economy.  Mills, while acknowledging some overlap between the groups, identified six clusters of elites: (1) those who ran the large corporations, (2) those who owned the corporations, (3) popular culture celebrities including the news media, (4) the upper-strata of wealth-owning families, (5) the military establishment (centred on the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff) and (6), the upper echelons of government (the executives, the legislatures the judges, the senior bureaucracy and the duopoly of the two established political parties.  The overlaps he noted did not in any way diminish the value of his description, instead illustrating its operation.

Although criticized as being more a left-wing polemic than conventional academic research (something from which Mills really didn’t demur), The Power Elite aged well and influenced many, the famous caution President Eisenhower (1890–1969; president of the US 1953-1961) issued in his valedictory address warning of the “military-industrial complex” was quite Millsian and a helpful contribution to the library of structuralism.  Generations of sociologists and others would develop his idea of the new and shifting construct of a ruling class and culture.  In recent years, elite has become a term used (usually between elites) as an accusation; elite populists finding their base responsive to the label being applied to those of whom they're anyway most suspicious: journalists, scientists, academics etc. 

The Lotus Elite

1959 Lotus Elite S1.

The design of the Lotus Elite (Type 14, 1957-1963) was a catalogue of innovation, some of which would have an immediate effect on the industry though some would proved too difficult to implement in mass-production and, except for the most expensive, impossible profitably to pursue on a smaller scale.  Most distinctive was a technique borrowed from aviation, the stressed-skin glass-fibre unibody which obviated entirely the need for a chassis or space-frame, the body an integrated, load-bearing structure.  The only substantial steel components were a sub-frame supporting the engine and front suspension and a hoop to which was attached the windscreen, door hinges and jacking points.  In an indication of how much things have changed, the hoop was the extent of passenger protection.

Club sandwich: The Elite's triple-layer monocoque.

Even had all the components been produced in accordance with the specification, many parts of the structure were so close to the point of failure that some revisions to the design would anyway have been necessary but the early cars were far from perfect.  The contact for the fabrication of the bodies had been won by a boat-builder, then one of the few companies with much experience in molding fibreglass.  However, the Elite was a more complex design than a boat hull and fibreglass was still a novel material, even Chevrolet in the United States, with access to the financial and engineering resources of General Motors, found early in the production of the Corvette there were lessons still to be learned.  After the first 250-odd were built, Lotus became aware there were problems, the need for a fix urgent.  Cleverly, the body consisted of three stressed-fiberglass layers which, when joined in a monocoque, created the bulkheads and eight torsion boxes gave the structure its strength and stiffness although the success was something of a surprise.  The designer, working in the pre-CAD era and with no experience of the behavior of fibreglass, had doubted the material would be strong enough so had the first prototype built with some steel and aluminum plates sandwiched between the layers with mounting brackets bonded in points at the rear to support the suspension and differential mountings.  In subsequent tests, these proved unnecessary but so poorly molded were many of the layers that structural failures became common, the resin porings of inconsistent thickness creating weaknesses at critical points, suspension struts and differentials known to punch themselves loose from mountings or even tear away chunks of the supposedly supporting fibreglass.

1962 Lotus Elite S2.

Needing an operation more acquainted with the tight tolerances demanded in precision engineering, Lotus switched suppliers, the molding contract granted to the Bristol Aeroplane Company. This transformed quality control and the remaining 750-odd Elites carried an S2 designation, the early cars retrospectively (but unofficially) dubbed S1.  Even so, despite the improved, lighter and stiffer shell, it would be another generation before the structural implications of fibreglass would fully be understood and the flaws inherent in the design remained, suspension attachment points sometimes still prone to detachment, Lotus content to the extent it now happened only under extreme loading rather than habitually.

Coventry Climax FWE, 1962 Lotus Elite S2 SE.

Improbably, the power-plant was the 1.2 litre Coventry Climax FWE (Fire-Water-Elite), an all-aluminum inline four cylinder engine which began life as the FWA (feather weight automotive), derived from a water-pumping unit for the UK Government’s fleet of fire-trucks but, small, light and robust, when tuned, it proved ideally suited to motorsport.  The first derivative for competition was the FWB, the unexpected fork prompting Coventry-Climax to rename to versions still used on fire-trucks to FWP (P=Pump).  The FWE was produced especially for the Elite but its qualities attracted a number of specialist race-car builders and in historic racing, the little powerhouse remains competitive to this day.

Nürburgring 1000 km, May 1962 (DNF).

The combination of light-weight, a surprisingly powerful engine and a degree of aerodynamic efficiency which few for decades would match delivered a package with a then unrivalled combination of performance and economy.  On the road, point-to-point, it was able to maintain high average speeds under most conditions and only in then unusual places like the German autobahns with their unlimited speeds could heavier, more powerful machines assert their advantage.

Le Mans 24 Hour, June 1959.  Lotus Elite #41 leads Ferrari 250TR #14. The Ferrari (DNF) retired after overheating, the Elite finishing eighth overall, winning the 1.5 litre GT class.

On the circuits, it enjoyed an illustrious career, notable especially for success in long-distance events at the Nürburgring and Le Mans.  The frugal fuel consumption was an important factor too, as well as claiming five class trophies in the Le Mans 24 hour race, the Elite twice won the mysterious Indice de performance (an index of thermal efficiency), a curious piece of mathematics actually designed to ensure, regardless of other results, a French car would always win something.

Lotus Elite (Leo Geoghegan), Phillip Island, 1960.  That year an Elite would win the Australian GT Championship, contested on the Mount Panorama circuit at Bathurst. 

One problem however was never solved: profitability.  It was something which would plague the UK’s low-volume manufacturers throughout the 1960s, for, whatever the design and engineering prowess available, there was often a lack of financial acumen and accounting skills, many companies never fully evolving from their cottage-industry origins in a back shed, their administrative structures still close to the family business they had once been.  Whether Lotus lost quite as much per Elite as the legend suggests isn’t known but it certainly wasn’t profitable.  Those lessons were learned and the replacement, while less intriguing a design, would be easier to build, more reliable in operation and, compared to the Elite, mass-produced.  The replacement was called the Elan.

1975 Lotus Elite 503 (Type 75).

The Elite name was reprised.  Between 1974-1982, the Elite (Types 75 & 83) was one of a number of the then fashionable wedge-shaped designs which would litter the decade.  Effectively replacing the Elan +2, the new Elite was big and heavy by earlier standards, its performance in some aspects inferior to the Elan but it was a difficult era and many manufacturers with more resources did worse.  Later variations of this were called the Eclat and Excel but, like much of what was done in the 1970s, none are remembered with great fondness.

Lotus Elite Concept, 2010.

More promising was the Elite Concept, shown in 2010.  Hardly original, and actually derivative in just about every way, it nevertheless tantalized all with a specification list including Toyota’s fine 5.0 litre Lexus V8 but any hope of a production version vanished after one of the many corporate restructures undertaken in the wake of the global financial crisis (GFC, 2009-2011).

Sandwich

Sandwich (pronounced sand-wich or san-wich)

(1) Two or more slices of bread or the like with a layer of meat, fish, cheese etc between each pair.

(2) A type of cake with noticeably distinct horizontal layers. 

(3) To insert something between two other things (used figuratively also of ideas, concepts, historic events etc).

(4) In engineering or construction, a technique of assembly in which materials (which need not be flat) are joined in two or more layers.

(5) To eat one or more sandwiches (archaic except in literary or poetic use).

1762: Named after John Montagu (1718-1792), fourth of Earl Sandwich, a bit of a cad and gambler who, during marathon sessions at the tables, would eat slices of cold meat between bread rather than rise for a meal and thus "miss a bet".  However, the earl’s biographer suggested his subject was a serious chap, committed to the navy, politics and the arts and the sandwiches were actually eaten at his desk at the Admiralty but the legend is much preferred.  It was in his honor Captain James Cook (1728-1779) named the Hawaiian Sandwich islands in 1778 when Montagu was First Lord of the Admiralty (then the UK's minister for the Royal Navy).  The family name is from the place in Kent which in the Old English was Sandwicæ (sandy harbor; trading center).  In structural linguistics, a "sandwich" word is one in which two or more syllables have been split (al la slices of bread) and filled with another word.  Use of the technique is common and exemplified by an opinion such as: "Fox News is just Murdoch propafuckinganda".  The term was coined by US lexicographer Dr Harold Wentworth (1904-1965).  A "sandwichery" is a place where sandwiches are sold and the noun sandwichness (the state or quality of being a sandwich) seems only ever used as jocular term food reviews.  Sandwich, sandwichness & sandwichery are nouns, verb & adjective, sandwiched is a verb and sandwichlike, sandwichy & sandwichless are adjectives; the noun plural is sandwiches (the always rare sandwichs probably now extinct).

There are a least dozens and likely more than a hundred recorded descriptions of sandwiches with names drawn variously from the fillings, type of bread, method of preparation, (alleged) regional origin or occasion when served but the word has also appeared in idiomatic use including: “nothing sandwich” (a sandwich with a bland taste (used also figuratively as a synonym of “nothingburger” to suggest something is of less significance than its appearance or treatment accorded deserves)); “soup sandwich” (something or someone thought disorganized, incompetent, fundamentally flawed or unfinished; “air sandwich” (a sandwich consisting only of bread and a sauce or spread, but no filling (in figurative use a strategy that has high-level direction and low-level administrative support but in operation is close to inert); “Elvis sandwich” (a sandwich made peanut butter, sliced or mashed banana, and sometimes bacon on toasted bread, based on the fondness the singer Elvis Presley (1935-1977) had for the concoction (a banana smeared with peanut butter was reputedly a favourite snack of Bill Clinton (b 1946; POTUS 1993-2001)); “shit sandwich” (something highly undesirable that is rendered more acceptable or palatable by the addition of more tolerable or agreeable components); “tavern sandwich” a sandwich consisting of unseasoned ground beef and sautéed onions in a bun); “barley sandwich” (a glass of beer (synonymous with “liquid lunch”); “lead sandwich” (a method of suicide in which a shotgun is placed in the mouth and discharged  (100% success rate as might be expected)) and “prawn (shrimp) sandwich brigade” (those who attend sporting event to socialize and enjoy the hospitality in corporate hospitality boxes rather than having any interest in the event).  In physics a “nanosandwich” is a nanoscale structure consisting of a dielectric layer between two discs and in chemistry a “sandwich compound” is any compound in which a metal atom is located between the faces of two planes of atoms, especially between two rings.   

Sandwich is a town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, its population 20,675 at the last census; the oldest town on Cape Cod, in 2014, Sandwich turned 375 years old.  Sandwich has a police department: They are the Sandwich Police.

The Sandwich Police cruiser is a second generation (1998-2011) Ford Crown Victoria (1992-2011), built on the corporation's "Panther" platform (1978-2011).  When Ford ceased production of the Crown Victoria, it was the last of the old-style (BoF (body-on-frame), V8, RWD (rear wheel drive)), full-sized cars that were the backbone of the US industry for much of the first four post-war decades.  Although by the 1990s judged archaic by the US motoring press (and some international journalists who drove them in 2009 expressed amazement such a thing was still made), the demise of the Crown Victoria was a matter of regret for US police departments and many other fleet operators (notably rental car companies) because the CV's combination of virtues (robust, reliable, spacious, low TCO (total cost of ownership)) made them ideally suited for "heavy duty use" and in fleets, even today, some remain faithfully in service.  In truth, if driven within it's limitations, a CV (or the companion Mercury Grand Marquis) could be a satisfying experience for what it lacked in refinement it compensated for in other ways and for those who yearn still for the way things used to be done, the more desirable of the CVs can be a good choice.

More sandwich police: A police officer at the Ingham Subway in Queensland, Australia preparing a sub, an event held by Subway Australia on 2 November, 2018 to mark World Sandwich Day.  On the day, 329,814 sandwiches were assembled for needy families.

There is doubt whether the sandwich became so-named as early as 1762 because the first documented account of the earl’s culinary innovation was written in 1770 but it certainly caught on.  The sandwich board, the two-sided mobile advertising carried on the shoulders was first so-described in 1864 and someone employed to "wear" the device was sandwichman (a word now probably extinct although sandwich boards still occasionally are seen, carried presumably by sandwichpersons).  The Wall Street Journal once described the sandwich as "Britain's biggest contribution to gastronomy" but, given the parlous reputation of the rest of their pre-modern cuisine, the WSJ may have been damning with faint praise.  Regardless, while Lord Sandwich may have lent his name, the historical record suggests sandwiches have been eaten since bread was first baked, pre-dating the earl by thousands of years.

In 2022, with Lindsay Lohan on location in Ireland for the shooting of the Netflix film Irish Wish (2024), Westport Café The Creel created a sandwich to honor the famous visitor.  The Lindsay LoHam included 'nduja sausage, Monterey Jack cheese, mixed grated cheddar, caramelized onions and, naturally enough given the name, ham.  Irish Wish remains available to stream but the Lindsay LoHam enjoyed only a limited release.

By convention, when more than two slices of bread are used it becomes a "club sandwich" and it's now not uncommon for filled bread rolls, pita, flatbreads, etc also to be sold as sandwiches.  When the filling is spread atop a single slice of bread, it can be called an "open sandwich" which (historically) is oxymoronic but in commerce the term is well-established; dating from the 1920s, these first appeared on menus as "open face sandwich" but the term was soon clipped.  Over millennia, there must have been countless inventions and re-inventions of variants of the sandwich and the innovations have been linguistic as well as culinary, one noted concoction the muffuletta, a thick, round sandwich, typically containing ham, salami, and cheeses and topped with an olive salad, a specialty of New Orleans; it seems first to have been served in the late 1960s, the name from the Sicilian dialect, from the Italian muffoletta (a round hollow-centered loaf of bread), from muffola (mitten), from the French moufle.  In New Orleans, among the muffuletta cognoscenti, there is a heated faction and a room-temperature faction.  Another delicacy is the fried brain sandwich which, although now associated with things south of the Mason-Dixon line, was apparently first offered in St Louis, Missouri.  Self-explanatory, it's made with thinly sliced fried slabs of calf’s brain on white toast; to some a genuine delicacy, to others it'd be an acquired taste.  Etymologists note that confusingly, in the US, some restaurants (said to be most often those “specializing in barbecue”) use “sandwich” in its adjectival sense when serving a meal that is smaller than either lunch or dinner yet not so modest to be thought “a snack”.  These offerings do not imply that of necessity what’s served will be in the form of “a sandwich” although some may be, the point being what’s on the menu is “something smaller than what appears on the lunch and dinner menus”.

Quintessential Grilled Cheese: The ultimate cheese toastie.

In 2017, Guinness World Records officially recognized the “Quintessential Grilled Cheese” on the menu at New York City’s Serendipity 3 as the planet’s most expensive commercially available sandwich.  Then listed at US$214, it was made with Dom Perignon champagne-infused French Pullman bread, 23-karat edible gold, a rare Italian cheese and grass-fed white truffle butter.  Served on a Baccarat crystal plate with a bowl of South African lobster tail tomato bisque, the restaurant required customers to order 48-hour in advance.  Obviously not a typical cheese toastie, the core ingredient was Caciocavallo Podolico, an extremely rare Italian cheese made from the milk of a mere 25,000-odd cows grazing on fennel, licorice, and wild strawberries; accounting for some of the sandwich’s high price, the beasts lactate only for a few weeks over May-June.  The luxury toastie still appears on Serendipity 3's menu (along with the “World's most expensive fries” but interestingly, the restaurant have not advised any increase in the price, despite recent inflation and the spike in the gold price.  Given it need to be ordered in advance, presumably it's now on a PoA (price on application) basis.  Still, renowned also for its Frrrozen Hot Chocolate (there’s a $25,000 “Haute” version of that which must be remarkable), Serendipity 3 does sound the ideal place for a first date although it would raise expectations and one should choose the place only if one has the disposable income for regular return visits.  The Quintessential Grilled Cheese deserves at least a footnote in economics textbooks because a cheese toastie at that price is one of the industry's most literal instances of “conspicuous consumption” and its qualities may also be Veblen in that should Serendipity 3 note a slowing in sales, demand might be stimulated by raising the price, the point about Veblen goods being their behavior moving in the opposite direction on the classic PED (Price Elasticity of Demand) curve.    

Lindsay Lohan next to pink ice cream truck, Salt Lake City, Utah, 2021.

In 2021, RadarOnline (a pop culture aggregation handler published by RMG (Radar Media Group)) reported that while on-location in Salt Lake City, Utah for the shooting of the Netflix movie Falling for Christmas (2022), Lindsay Lohan bought ice cream sandwiches for the film crew.  Ice cream is in Utah a popular commodity because of what's laid down in the Word of Wisdom, (a kind of etiquette guide cum rulebook) for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons).  The Word of Wisdom is properly styled the Doctrine and Covenants (the D&C (1835)) and is the Mormon scriptural canon, section 89 containing the dietary rules proscribing, inter-alia, the consumption of alcohol, tobacco and hot drinks (ie tea & coffee).  Noted Mormon Mitt Romney (b 1947; Republican nominee in the 2012 US presidential election, US senator (Republican-Utah) 2019-2025) usually looks so miserable not only because of what has become of the Republican Party but because the D&C's index of the forbidden denies him the simple indulgence of a cup of coffee.  The rules also explain why manufacturers of chocolate, candy & soda have long found the Mormons of Utah a receptive and lucrative market; other than the joyful singing of hymns, the sugary treats are among their few orally enjoyed pleasures.  In Utah, as well as ice cream sandwiches, there's a ready market too for “dirty sodas”; Mormons aren’t allowed to do anything “dirty” (though it's rumored some do) and a dirty soda (a soda flavored with “spikes” of cream, milk, fruit purees or syrups) is about as close to sinfulness as a reading of the D&C would seem to permit.  Mormans sometimes team an ice cream sandwich with their dirty soda and for those who want more, ice cream cakes are also a big seller.  

Replacing humans with mechanical devices has a long history: Automated dystrybutor piwa i kanapek (beer and sandwich dispenser), Kraków, Poland.  It was installed in May 1931.

In the mid 1950s when English in the US was more regionalized than it would become, in New York City a sandwich typically was sold as a “hero” while in other parts it might be a grinder (based on the ground meat often used as the base of the filling) or a submarine (based on the use of a long, tubular bread roll, the use carried-over when other types of bread were used).  The “poor boy” was a description from New Orleans of uncertain origin but presumed related to the idea of a sandwich being a “cheap meal” to take-away while richer folks sat in the diner and ate off a plate.  Most intriguing was the “hoagie” which definitely emerged in the Pennsylvanian city of Philadelphia though the history is disputed.  One explanation is the original was a “big sandwich” in the form a filled split-roll (al la those served by the modern Subway chain) and thus resembling in shape a large cigar, the linguistic link claimed to be with “stogie”, a common slang term for a cigar, the construct thought to be stoga + -ie, the first element derived from the Conestoga Cigar Company which in the 1880s was one of the first Pennsylvanian cigar factories.  The connection sounds plausible but is undocumented.  The professionals seem unconvinced by the alternative suggestions: (1) a folk-etymology alteration of the Greek gyro (a back-formation from the plural gyros, from the Ancient Greek γύρος (gýros) (from the turning of the meat on a spit) or (2) some connection with the US popular musician Hoagland “Hoagy” Carmichael (1899-1981).  The Greek link is undocumented and thought “vague” and although as a songwriter Hoagy Carmichael enjoyed success as early as the late 1920s, his fame as a performer wasn’t established until a decade later and in Philadelphia the sandwiches were being sold as “hoggies” as early as 1935, thus the conclusion his later celebrity status might have influenced a change in the spelling, “Hoagies” on sale by 1945.  It is of course possible the original “hoggie” was derived from “hog” on the basis of at least some of the sandwiches being “pork rolls” but of this there’s no evidence.  As a footnote, although rarely seen without a cigarette, Mr Carmichael seems not to have been a cigar smoker.

1959 Lotus Elite S1.

The Lotus Elite (Type 14) was produced in two series (S1, 1957-1960; S2, 1960-1963) and was a rolling catalogue of innovation and clever re-purposing of off-the-shelf parts.  One of its most distinctive features was borrowed from aviation: the stressed-skin fibreglass monocoque construction which obviated entirely the need for a chassis or space-frame, the body an integrated, load-bearing structure created using the “sandwich technique”.  The only substantial steel components were a sub-frame supporting the engine and front suspension and a hoop to which was attached the windscreen, door hinges and jacking points.  The company’s philosophy was “simplify, then add lightness” while lent the Elite some delightful characteristics but even had all components been produced in accordance with the specification, many parts of the structure were so close to the point of failure that some revisions to the design would anyway have been necessary but the early cars were far from perfect.  The contact for the fabrication of the bodies had been won by a boat-builder, then one of the few companies with much experience in molding fibreglass.

Club sandwich: The Elite's triple-layer monocoque.

However, the Elite was a more complex design than a boat hull and fibreglass was still a novel material, even Chevrolet in the United States, with access to the financial and engineering resources of General Motors, found early in the production of the Corvette there were lessons still to be learned.  Unlike many boats which used a single or double-layer method, the Elite’s body consisted of three stressed-fiberglass layers (thus in industry jargon a “club sandwich”) which, when joined in a monocoque, created the bulkheads and eight torsion boxes gave the structure its strength and stiffness although the success was something of a surprise.  The designer, working in the pre-CAD (computed-aided design) era and with no experience of the behavior of fibreglass, had doubted the material would be strong enough so had the first prototype built with some steel and aluminum plates sandwiched between the layers with mounting brackets bonded in points at the rear to support the suspension and differential mountings.  In subsequent tests, these proved unnecessary but so poorly molded were many of the layers that structural failures became common, the resin porings of inconsistent thickness creating weaknesses at critical points, suspension struts and differentials known to punch themselves loose from mountings or even tear away chunks of the supposedly supporting fibreglass.

Le Mans 24 Hour, June 1959:  Lotus Elite #41 leads Ferrari 250TR #14. The Ferrari (DNF) retired after overheating, the Elite finishing eighth overall, winning the 1.5 litre GT class.

Needing an operation more acquainted with the tight tolerances demanded in precision engineering, after finishing some Elites, Lotus switched suppliers, the molding contract granted to the Bristol Aeroplane Company. This transformed quality control and the remaining 750-odd Elites carried an S2 designation, the early cars retrospectively (but unofficially) dubbed S1.  Even so, despite the improved, lighter and stiffer shell, it would be another generation before the structural implications of fibreglass would fully be understood and the flaws inherent in the design remained, suspension attachment points sometimes still prone to detachment, Lotus content to the extent it now happened only under extreme loading rather than habitually.  The combination of light-weight, a surprisingly powerful engine and a degree of aerodynamic efficiency which few for decades would match delivered a package with a then unrivalled combination of performance and economy.  On the road, point-to-point, it was able to maintain high average speeds under most conditions and only in then unusual places like the German Autobahns with their unlimited speeds could heavier, more powerful machines assert their advantage.  On the circuits, it enjoyed an illustrious career, notable especially for success in long-distance events at the Nürburgring and Le Mans.  The frugal fuel consumption was an important factor too, as well as claiming five class trophies in the Le Mans 24 hour race, the Elite twice won the mysterious Indice de performance (an index of thermal efficiency), a curious piece of mathematics actually designed to ensure, regardless of other results, a French car always would win a trophy for something.

Charlotte Brontë (1816–1855).

Elizabeth Gaskell's (1810–1865) 1857 biography (a very Victorian work) long loomed over the memory of Charlotte Brontë because it portrayed the author of the deliciously depraved eponymous protagonist in Jane Eyre (1847) as the doomed, saint-like victim of the circumstances which crushed her and the consumption which stalked her.  The old curmudgeon G.K. Chesterton (1874–1936) reckoned that while a good biography told one much about the subject, a bad one revealed all one needed to know about the author.  Gaskell’s crafted miserabilia of course created a legend of its own, a kind of death cult for those for whom victimhood isn’t quite enough so Charlotte Brontë has long been on the emo reading list (a very specific sub-set of the canon).  However, whatever might have been the tone of reviews penned by those critics who found little to admire in works by women, even jaded types like literary editors were captivated by her words, George Smith (1865-1932) who worked for the publishing house Smith, Elder & Co at Cornhill noting in his diary: “After breakfast on Sunday morning I took the manuscript of Jane Eyre to my little study, and began to read it.  The story took me captive.  When the servant came to tell me that luncheon was ready I asked him to brim me a sandwich and a glass of wine, and still went on with Jane Eyre.  Dinner came; for me the meal was a very hasty one; and before I went to bed that night I had finished reading the manuscript.”  She deserved better than the gloomy impression left by Elizabeth Gaskell and history has been kind although even George Smith who admired her thought he discerned what she really wanted from life, writing in The Critic in 1901: "I believe she would have given all her genius and all her fame to be beautiful.  Perhaps few women ever existed more anxious to be pretty than she, and more angrily conscious of the circumstance that she was not pretty."  That was perhaps toxic masculinity as expressed by the literary middle class but Anthony Trollope (1815-1882) focused just on the work, writing in his Autobiography (1883): "I venture to predict that Jane Eyre will be read among English novels when many whose names are now better known shall be forgotten."  

Of the fourth Earl of Sandwich who got a bit of fun out of life

Portrait of John Montagu, fourth Earl of Sandwich (1783) by Thomas Gainsborough (circa 1727-1788), National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.

John Montagu was one of the more interesting chaps to sit in the House of Lords.  Rich and well-connected, he was a libertine in the milieu of the aristocratic swagger of the eighteenth century, his country house described by a contemporary as “the scene of our youthful debaucheries, the retreat of your hoary licentiousness.”  There’s never been any suggestion Sandwich was in his self-indulgence any more depraved than many of his companions but certainly, he fitted-in.

In his lifetime, the earl’s fame came not from the eponymous snack but his long affair with Miss Martha Ray (1746-1779), a most becoming and talented young singer.  It’s never been known when first they made friends but she lived with him as his mistress from the age of seventeen (he was then forty-five), the relationship producing nine children.  The concubinage of Miss Ray he  enjoyed while his wife was suffering from mental illness and while it’s not recorded if her condition was triggered by her husband’s ways, given he conducted an affair also with his sister-in-law, there must be some suspicion.

Montagu's behavior attracted the interest of many, including John Wilkes, a prominent satirist who wrote a number of pieces critical of the earl’s politics and ridiculing his (not so) private life.  Montagu’s revenge was swift.  Wilkes didn’t write only publicly-published satire, he also had a small circle of socially elite subscribers to his other literary output.  That was pornography, and the earl was a subscriber.  To discredit Wilkes, Lord Sandwich rose in the House of Lords and read extracts from Wilkes’ The Essay on Women which he prefaced by telling their lordships “…it was so full of filthy langue (sic) as well as the most horrid blasphemies”.  The earl did not exaggerate and even today the words would shock and appall their lordships although, it must be admitted, it's always been a place where members easily are appalled (or at least affect to be).  The vengeance backfired, the Lords ruling his speech a breach of procedure which sounds a mild rebuke but in that place was a damning censure.  It also provoked Wilkes who responded with tales of Sandwich’s “debauchery, miserliness and lack of good faith” and a biography published in the 1760s labelled him “an arsonist and thief”.  His reputation never recovered although, when masticating a sandwich, we all still should remember him and be glad.

Portrait of Martha Ray (in pussy bow) by Nathaniel Dance-Holland  (1735–1811).

Miss Ray’s end was sadder still.  Lord Sandwich granted her a generous allowance and obtained a flat in Westminster so she had somewhere to live during those times when, for whatever reason, she couldn’t stay in his house.  He also introduced her to a young soldier, James Hackman (circa 1752-1779) who became obsessed with her and soon turned into what would now be called a stalker.  In 1779, Hackman resigned his commission to join the church and it seems he and Ms Ray may have had a brief liaison but she declined his offers of marriage, apparently because she thought his social status and financial means inadequate to keep he in the style to which she'd become accustomed.  Not handling rejection well, Hackman remained infatuated, became obsessively jealous and renewed the pursuit.  One evening in April 1779, after following her to the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, he shot her dead, apparently under the impression she had taken another lover, which may or may not have been true.  Immediately after the murder, Hackman attempted suicide but succeeded only in wounding himself and was arrested.  Two days after she was buried, the Reverend Hackman was sentenced to be hanged and within the week he died on the Tyburn gallows in a public execution before “a large crowd”.