Quincunx

Quincunx (pronounced kwing-kuhngks or kwin-kuhngks)

(1) An arrangement of five objects, in a square or rectangle, one at each corner and one in the middle.

(2) In formal gardening, five plants placed thus as part of a design,

(3) In forestry, as a baseline pattern, five trees planted in such a shape.

(4) In botany, an overlapping arrangement of five petals or leaves, in which two are interior, two are exterior, and one is partly interior and partly exterior (described as a “quincuncial arrangement” of sepals or petals in the bud.

(5) The pattern of the five-spot on dice, playing cards and dominoes.

(6) In the history of numismatics, a bronze coin minted during the Roman Republic, valued at five-twelfths of an as (five times the value of the uncia); it was marked with five dots.

(7) In geometry, an angle of five-twelfths of a circle.

(8) In astrology An angle of five-twelfths of a circle (or 150°) between two objects (usually planets).

1640s: From the Latin quīncunx (the basis for the construct being quīnque +‎ uncia) which translates literally as “five twelfths”, a reference to a bronze coin minted (circa 211–200 BC) with a five dot pattern and issued by the Roman Republic; it was valued at five twelfths of an as (the Roman standard bronze coin).  Descendants from the Latin include the English quincunx, the French quinconce, the German Quinkunx, the Spanish quincunce and the Portuguese quincunce.  Quinque (the numeric five (5)) was from the From Proto-Italic kwenkwe, from the primitive Indo-European pénkwe, the cognates including the Sanskrit पञ्चन् (páñcan), the Ancient Greek πέντε (pénte), the Old Armenian հինգ (hing), the Gothic fimf and the Old English fīf (from which English ultimately gained “five”).  The basis of the construct of the Latin uncia may have been ūnicus (unique) (from ūnus (one), from the primitive Indo-European óynos) in the sense of twelfths making up the base unit of various ancient systems of measurement) +‎ -ia.  Not all etymologists agree and some prefer a link with the Ancient Greek ὀγκία (onkía) (uncia), from ὄγκος (ónkos) (weight).  Uncia was the name of various units including (1) the Roman ounce (one-twelfth of a Roman pound), (2) the Roman inch (one-twelfth of a Roman foot), (3) a bronze coin minted by the Roman Republic (one-twelfth of an as), (a Roman unit of land area (one-twelfth of a jugerum)) and in the jargon of apothecaries became a synonym of ounce (the British & American avoirdupois unit of mass); it was generally a synonym of twelfth.  In algebra, it was a (now obsolete) numerical coefficient in a binomial.  Quīnque was the source of many modern Romance words for “five” including the French cinq and the Spanish cinco; uncia was the source of both “inch” and “ounce”.  Quincunx is a noun, quincuncial is an adjective and quincuncially is an adverb; the noun plural is quincunxes or quincunces.

Quincunx garden, Wyken Hall, Suffolk, England.

When first it entered English in the 1640s, “quincunx” existed only in the vocabulary of astrologers (astrology then still a respectable science) and it was used to describe planetary alignments at a distance of five signs from one another.  By the 1640s it had migrated to mathematics (particularly geometry) where it was used to define “an arrangement of five objects in a square, one at each corner and one in the middle”, familiar in the five pips on a playing card or spots on a di).  In the 1660s (possibly from dice or cards rather than the fortune-tellers), it was picked up by gardeners to describe the layout of a section of a formal garden in which one plant or shrub was placed at each corner of a square or rectangle with a fifth exactly in the centre (an arrangement in two sets of oblique rows at right angles to each other, a sense known also in the original Latin.  In forestry, use began (as a layout tool for new plantings) early in the eighteenth century.

Lindsay Lohan (born 2 July 1986) joins a list of the illustrious with a Mercury Quincunx MC (a planetary alignment where Mercury is 150^o apart from the Medium Coeli (a Latin phrase which translates as “Midheaven” (“MC” in the jargon of astrologers)).  In explaining the significance of the Quincunx MC, the planetary soothsayers note than when two planets lie 150^o apart, “tension is created due to their lack of natural understanding or relation.”  The MC is the point where the cusp of the tenth house is found on a natal (birth) and the MC sign signifies  “one’s public persona”.  Now we know.

Fluffy dice in 1974 Ford Mustang II (left), the color of the dashboard molding emblematic of what was happening in the 1970s.    In continuous production over seven generations since 1964, the Mustang II (1973-1979) is the least fondly remembered iteration (uniquely among Mustangs, in its first season a V8 engine was not even optional) but, introduced some weeks before the first oil embargo was imposed in 1973, it was a great sales success and exceeded the company’s expectations.  Unlike at least some of the models in all other generations, the Mustang II is a classic “Malaise era” car and not a collectable in the conventional sense of the word although they do have a residual value because the front sub-frame with its rack & pinion steering and flexible engine accommodation is prized for all sort of purposes and many have been cannibalized for this assembly alone.  Fluffy dice are available also in designer colors (right) and as well as the familiar dots, there are some with hearts, skulls, handguns, eyes and dollar signs.  Probably, the Mustang II and fluffy dice are a perfect match.

Although the five-dot pattern on a di is known in the industry as the quincunx, the other five faces enjoy rather more prosaic descriptions and most just use the number:

1 (single dot, at the center of the face): The “center dot” or “monad”.

2 (two dots, diagonally opposite each other): The “diagonal pair”.

3 (three dots, forming a diagonal line): The “diagonal trio”.

4 (four dots, arranged in a square pattern: The “square” or “quadrant”.

6 (six dots, arranged in two parallel vertical lines of three dots each): The “double row” or “paired trios”.

US Army five star insignia of (General of the Army) Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969; US president 1953-1961).

The quincunx was one of the layouts considered in 1944 when, for the first time, the US military created five star ranks in the army and navy (there would not be a separate USAF (US Air Force) until 1947).  Eventually a pentagrammatic circle of stars was preferred but the aesthetics of epaulettes were the least of the problems of protocol, the military been much concerned with history and tradition and the tangle wasn’t fully combed out until 1976 when the Congress, the White House, and the Pentagon, acting in succession, raised George Washington (1732–1799; first president of the United States, 1789-1797) to the rank of five star general (he’d retired as a (three star) lieutenant general), back-dating the appointment so he’d for all time be the military’s senior officer.  In 1944, there was also an amusing footnote which, according to legend, resulted in the decision to use the style “general” and not “Marshal” (as many militaries do) because the first to be appointed was George Marshall (1880–1959; US Army chief of staff 1939-1945) and it was thought “Marshal Marshall” would be a bit naff, something Joseph Heller’s (1923-1999) “Major Major” in Catch-22 (1961) would prove.

The quincunx induction system, the Cadillac Le Monstre and the 24 Heures du Mans, 1950

Living up to the name: The 1950 Cadillac Le Monstre.

The two Cadillacs which in 1950 raced at Le Mans were mechanically similar but visually, could have been from different planets.  The more conventional Petit Pataud was a Series 61 coupe with only minor modification and it gained its nickname (the translation “clumsy puppy” best captures the spirit) because to the French it looked a lumbering thing but, as its performance in the race would attest, Cadillac’s new 331 cubic inch (5.4 litre) V8 (which would grow to 429 cubic inches (7.0 litres) before it was retired in 1967) meant it was faster than it looked.  Underneath the second entrant (Le Monstre obviously needing no translation but used in the sense of “monstrosity” rather than “large”) there was also a Series 61 but the body had been replaced by something more obviously aerodynamic although few, then or now, would call it “conventionally attractive”.  Although Le Monstre seemed very much in the tradition of the “cucumber-shaped” Mercedes-Benz SSKL which had won the 1932 race at Berlin’s unique AVUS circuit, the lines were the result of testing a one twelfth (Uncia in the Latin) scale wooden model in a wind-tunnel used usually to optimize the shape crop dusters and other slow-flying airplanes.  Presumably that explains the resemblance to a section of an airplane’s wing (a shape designed to encourage lift), something which would have been an issue had higher speeds been attained but even on the long (6 km (3.7 mile)) Mulsanne Straight, there was in 1950 enough power only to achieve around 210 km/h (130) mph although as a drag-reduction exercise it must have contributed to the 22 km/h (13 mph) advantage it enjoyed over Petit Pataud, something Le Monstre’s additional horsepower alone could not have done and remarkably, even with the minimalist aluminium skin it wasn’t much lighter than the standard-bodied coupe because this was no monocoque; the robust Cadillac chassis was retained with a tube-frame added to support the panels and provide the necessary torsional stiffness.

Le Monstre's 331 cubic inch V8 with its unusual (and possibly unique) five-carburetor induction system in a quincunx layout.

Some of the additional horsepower came from the novel "quincunx" induction system.  Le Monstre’s V8 was configured with five carburettors, the idea being that by use of progressive throttle-linkages, when ultimate performance wasn’t required the car would run on a single (central) carburettor, the other four summoned on demand and in endurance racing, improved fuel economy can be more valuable than additional power.  That’s essentially how most four-barrel carburettors worked, two venturi usually providing the feed with all four opened only at full throttle and Detroit would later refine the model by applying “méthode Le Monstre” to the triple carburettor systems many used between 1957-1971.  As far as is known, the only time a manufacturer flirted with the idea of a five carburetor engine was Rover which in the early 1960s was experimenting with a 2.5 (153 cubic inch) litre in-line five cylinder which was an enlargement of their 2.0 litre (122 cubic inch) four.  Fuel-injection was the obvious solution but the systems then were prohibitively expensive (for the market segment Rover was targeting) so the prototypes ended up with two carburettors feeding three cylinders and one the other two, an arrangement as difficult to keep in tune as it sounds.  Rover’s purchase of the aluminium 3.5 litre (214 cubic inch) V8 abandoned by General Motors (GM) meant the project was terminated and whatever the cylinder count, mass-produced fuel injection later made any configuration possible.  Five carburettors wasn’t actually the highest count seen in the pre fuel-injection era, Ferrari and Lamborghini both using six (done also by motorcycle manufacturers such as Honda and Benelli) and Moto-Guzzi in the 1950s fielded a 500 cm³ Grand-Prix bike with the memorable component count of 8 cylinders, 4 camshafts, 16 valves & 8 carburetors.  The early prototypes of Daimler’s exquisite hemi-head V8s (1959-1969) were also built with eight carburettors because the original design was based on a motorcycle power-plant, the reason why they were planned originally as air-cooled units.

Le Monstre ahead of Petit Pataud, Le Mans, 1950.  At the fall of the checkered flag, the positions were reversed. 

Motor racing is an unpredictable business and, despite all the effort lavished on Le Monstre, in the 1950 Le Mans 24 hour, it was the less ambitious Petit Pataud which did better, finishing a creditable tenth, the much modified roadster coming eleventh having lost many laps while being dug from the sand after an unfortunate excursion from the track.  Still, the results proved the power and reliability of Cadillac’s V8 and Europe took note: over the next quarter century a whole ecosystem would emerge, crafting high-priced trans-Atlantic hybrids which combined elegant European coachwork with cheap, powerful, reliable US V8s, the lucrative fun lasting until the first oil crisis began in 1973.

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 (Hunt / Buxton (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).

Blackwing

Blackwing (pronounced blak-wing)

(1) In zoology (mostly ornithology, entomology & ichthyology), a widely used descriptor of birds, insects, certain water-dwellers and the odd bat.

(2) As Blackwing 602, a pencil with a cult following, manufactured by the Eberhard Faber between 1934-1988, by Faber-Castell 1988 to 1994 and by Sanford 1994-1998.  A visually (though not technically) similar pencil has since 2012 been produced by Palomino.

(3) A high-performance V8 engine manufactured by the Cadillac division of General Motors (GM) between 2018-2020.  Cadillac continues to use Blackwing name for the some of its sedans.

1100s (originally of birds, first informally, later in formal taxonomy): The construct was black + wing.  Black (In the sense of the “color”) was from the Middle English blak, black & blake, from the Old English blæc (black, dark (also "ink”)), from the Proto-West Germanic blak, from the Proto-Germanic blakaz (burnt (and related to the Dutch blaken (to burn)), from the Low German blak & black (blackness, black paint, (black) ink), from the Old High German blah (black), which may be from the primitive Indo-European bhleg- (to burn, shine).  The forms may be compared with the Latin flagrāre (to burn), the Ancient Greek φλόξ (phlóx) (flame) and Sanskrit भर्ग (bharga) (radiance).  Black in this context was “a color” lacking hue and brightness, one which absorbs light without reflecting any of the rays composing it.  In the narrow technical sense, black is an absolute (absorbing light without reflecting any of the rays composing it) but in general use, as a descriptor or color, expressions of graduation or tincture are used, thus the comparative is blacker and the superlative blackest.  The usual synonyms are ebony, sable, inky, sooty, dusky & dark while the antonym is white.  Wing (in the sense used in “flight”) was from the twelfth century Middle English winge & wenge, from the Old Norse vængr (wing of a flying animal, wing of a building), from the Proto-Germanic wēingijaz, from the primitive Indo-European hweh- (to blow (thus the link with “wind”)).  It was cognate with the Old Danish wingæ (wing), the Norwegian & Swedish vinge (wing), the Old Norse vǣngr and the Icelandic vængur (wing).  It replaced the native Middle English fither, from the Old English fiþre, from the Proto-Germanic fiþriją (which merged with the Middle English fether (from the Old English feþer, from the Proto-Germanic feþrō)).  The original use was of birds but this quickly extended to things where a left-right distinction was useful such as architecture, sport and military formations (later extended to organizational structures in air forces).  Blackwing is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is blackwings.  In commercial use, as a registered trademark, an initial capital is used.

Quite why Cadillac (the premium brand of General Motors (GM) since 1909) chose the seemingly improbable “Blackwing” as a name for an engine and later the premium, high-performance versions (the V-Series) of its sedans (a now rare body-style in North America) is said to date to the very origin of the brand, more than a century earlier.  It was to recall the stylized black birds which appeared on the corporate crest first in 1902 (although not widely used until 2005 and trademarked in 1906).  That escutcheon was adopted as a tribute to the French explorer (some are less generous in their descriptions) Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac (1658-1730) who in 1701 founded the settlement which became the city of Detroit.

Evolution of the Cadillac Crest: Antoine Laumet's original (and dubious) family crest (top left), A early Cadillac from 1905 (top centre), from a 1960 Coupe DeVille (top right), with the restored laurel wreath on the unfortunate vinyl roof of a 1968 Eldorado (bottom left), a post 2014 version without couronne & merelettes (bottom centre) and the current versions (bottom right), the black & white edition an illuminated badge created to mark the transition to electric propulsion; it's currently available as an option on petrol vehicles.  The illuminated grill badge was a trick long used by the English manufacturer Wolseley (1901-1975). 

Although of bourgeois origin and having departed France surreptitiously after “some unpleasantness”, shortly after arriving in the new world, Antoine Laumet re-invented himself, adopting a title of nobility named after the town of Cadillac in south-west France and in some histories, it wasn’t unusual for him to claim some vague descent from the royal line, a story common among many of Europe’s aristocratic families and his “family crest” was wholly his own invention.  Such things were possible then.  The Cadillac company modified the crest but retained the most distinctive elements: (1) The couronne (crown (from the Old French corone, from the Latin corōna, from the Ancient Greek κορώνη (korṓnē)) symbolized the six ancient courts of France; (2) The pearls (which appeared in various numbers on both the family & corporate versions) signified a family descended from the royal counts of Toulouse; (3) The shield denoted the military traditions of a noble family, the “warrior symbol” one of the most commonly used in heraldry while (4) The black birds were known as merlettes (an adaptation of the martin), mythical small birds without beaks or feet and never touching the ground, always in flight; they represent a constant striving for excellence, and when presented as a trio, referenced the Holy Trinity and thus a family’s adherence to Christianity.  The merelettes appeared often on the standards flown by knights during the late Medieval Christian Crusades staged to recapture the Holy Land but they didn’t disappear from the Cadillac crest in deference to sensibilities in the Middle East (a market of increasing value to GM).  Like the crown, the black birds were removed in 2000 as a part of a modernization exercise, the aim to achieve something “sharper and sleeker”, the more angular look of the new “Art and Science” philosophy of design.  “Art and Science” was from the class of slogans campaign directors of corporations and political parties adore because they mean nothing in particular while sounding like they must mean something.

A Cadillac Escalade driven by Lindsay Lohan receiving a parking infringement notice (US$70) for obstructing access to a fire hydrant, Los Angeles, September 2011.  The crest’s laurel wreath would remain until 2014 but the merelettes had been removed a decade earlier.

Prestige by associative semiotics: Emblem of the 1971 HQ Statesman de Ville by GMH (General Motors-Holden's).

Cadillac over the years made may detail changes to the corporate crest and structurally, the most significant addition came in 1963 when an almost enclosing laurel wreath returned (it had been there in 1902 but was gone by 1908, returning for a run between 1916-1925) and it proved the most enduring design thus far, maintained until 2014.  It clearly had some cross-cultural appeal because in 1971 Holden (GM’s now defunct Australian outpost) made a point of issuing a press release informing the country “special permission” had been received from Detroit for them to borrow the wreath to surround the Holden crest on their new HQ Statesman de Ville, a car so special that nowhere on the thing did the word “Holden” appear, the same marketing trick Toyota would three decades on apply to the Lexus.

Well GM understood the symbolic significance of the wreath.  The Cadillac 62 (1940-1964) had existed as an "entry level" model (ie lower cost) after the shuttering of the LaSalle (1927-1940) and when it was replaced by the Calais (1965-1976), one signifier of its place in the hierarchy was the corporate crest appearing wreathless, unlike the more expensive de Ville & Eldorado.  However, unlike the accessories, ahat has remained constant throughout are the emblem's core colors and, according to Cadillac, black against gold symbolizes riches and wisdom; red means boldness and prowess in action; silver denotes purity, virtue, plenty and charity while blue stand for knightly valor.  Behind the and crest, the background is platinum (a high-value metal) and the whole combination is said to have been influenced by Piet Mondrian (1872–1944), a Dutch artist noted for his work with color and geometric shapes.

The elegant black-winged Damselfly, one of dozens of insects, birds, aquatic creatures and the odd bat known as the “black-winged” something.  One of some 150 species of Calopterygidae, the taxonomic name is Calopteryx maculata and the stylish little mosquito muncher is commonly found in North America, its other common name the ebony jewelwing.

Cadillac Blackwing V8.  It was a genuinely impressive piece of engineering but according to Road & Track magazine, Cadillac booked a US$16 million dollar loss against the project.    

Cadillac’s all aluminium Blackwing V8 was designed with an AMG-like specification which would once have seemed exotic to Cadillac owners.  Built in a single basic configuration, it featured a displacement of 4.2 litres (256 cubic inches), double overhead camshafts (DOHC), four valves per cylinder, cross-bolted main bearings and twin, intercooled turbochargers mounted in a “hot-V” arrangement (atop the block, between the cylinder banks) a layout which delivers improved responsiveness but, as BMW found, can bring its own problems.  Intended always to be exclusive to Cadillac’s lines (recalling GM’s divisional structure in happier times) it was in production less than two years because the collapse in demand for the models for which it was intended doomed its future; it was too expensive to produce to be used in other cars.  The early indications had however been hopeful, the initial run of 275 over-subscribed, a slightly detuned version accordingly rushed into production to meet demand.  In 2020, the Blackwood V8 was cancelled.

2025 Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing.

Repurposed, Blackwing however lives on at Cadillac, the company in 2021 appending applying the name to exclusive variants of its CT range sedans.  The CT5-V Blackwing is the last survivor of what once was a well-inhabited niche and although clearly an anachronism, demand still exists and although Cadillac has admitted this will be their last V8-powered sedan, in announcing the 2025 range they’ve made it clear the last days will be memorable.  In a nod to history, the company chose Le Mans in France to reveal details of the 2025 V-Series Blackwing “Special Editions”, honoring the “Le Monstre” and “Petit Pataud” Cadillacs which contested the 1950 24 hour endurance classic.  Each of those was a one-off (one especially so) but in 2025 there will be 101 copies of the Blackwing Le Monstre and 50 of the Petit Patauds.  The two are visually similar, the exteriors finished in Magnus Metal Frost matte paint, accented by Stormhawk Blue Carbon Fiber and Royal Blue brake callipers, the blue theme extened to the interior fittings.  Mechanically, the two are essentially stock, the Petit Pataud based on the CT4-V Blackwing powered by a twin-turbo 3.6 liter (223 cubic inch) V6 while the more alluring Le Monstre includes a supercharged 6.2-liter (376 cubic inch) V8.  For those who care about such things, although Mercedes-Benz AMG once offered rear-wheel-drive (RWD) 6.2 litre V8s, the Batwing offers the chance to enjoy the experience with a manual gearbox, something the Germans never did.  The Blackwings are also much cheaper and have about them an appealing brutishness, a quality Stuttgart’s engineers felt compelled to gloss a little.

2025 Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing.  Compared with some of the atmospheric interiors in the Cadillacs of old, the Blackwing is disappointingly close to what one finds in a Chevrolet but for a number of reasons, creating something which is both attractive and lawful is not as easy as once it was.  For many, the sight of the stick-shift and a clutch pedal means all is forgiven.

In something which would for most of the second half of the twentieth century have seemed improbable or unthinkable, it’s now possible to buy a Cadillac with a manual gearbox and a clutch pedal but not a Ferrari so configured.  Ferrari by 1976 had begun to flirt with automatic transmissions in their road cars (GM’s famously robust Turbo-Hydramatic 400) but until 2004, Cadillac hadn’t needed clutch pedal assemblies on the assembly lines since the last 1953 Series 75 (among the Cadillac crowd the Cimarron (1982-1988) is never spoken of except in the phrase “the unpleasantness of 1982”).  However, by the early twenty-first century, the market for the cars Cadillac had perfected was shrinking fast so, noting the success of Mercedes-AMG and the M-Series BMWs, Cadillac entered the fray and the existence of the Chevrolet Corvette’s transmission in the corporate parts bin meant offering a manual gearbox was financially viable in a way it wasn’t for the Germans.  In the same decade, advances in hydraulics and electronics meant the earlier inefficiencies and technical disadvantages attached to automatic transmissions had been overcome to the point where no Ferrari with a manual transmission, however expertly driven, could match their performance and customers agreed, sales of manual cars dwindling until a swansong when the Ferrari California was released in 2008 with expectations some 5-10% of buyers would opt for a clutch pedal.  However between then and late 2011, a mere three were ordered (some sources say two or five but the factory insists it was three).  Ever since, for Maranello, it’s been automatics (technically “automated manual transmission”) all the way and that wasn’t anything dictatorial; had customer demand existed at a sustainable level, the factory would have continued to supply manual transmissions.  The rarity has however created collectables; on the rare occasions a rare manual version of a usually automatic Ferrari is offered at auction, it attracts attracts a premium and there's now an after-market converting Ferraris to open gate manuals.  It's said to cost up to US$40,000 depending on the model and, predictably, the most highly regarded are those converted using "verified factory parts".  The Cadillac Blackwing offers the nostalgic experience from the factory although the engineers admit there is a slight performance penalty, buyers choosing the manual purely for the pleasure of driving.

The quincunx induction system, the Cadillac Le Monstre and the 24 Heures du Mans, 1950

Living up to the name: The 1950 Cadillac Le Monstre.

The two Cadillacs which in 1950 raced at Le Mans were mechanically similar but visually, could have been from different planets.  The more conventional Petit Pataud was a Series 61 coupe with only minor modification and it gained its nickname (the translation “clumsy puppy” best captures the spirit) because to the French it looked a lumbering thing but, as its performance in the race would attest, Cadillac’s new 331 cubic inch (5.4 litre) V8 (which would grow to 429 cubic inches (7.0 litres) before it was retired in 1967) meant it was faster than it looked.  Underneath the second entrant (Le Monstre obviously needing no translation but used in the sense of “monstrosity” rather than “large”) there was also a Series 61 but the body had been replaced by something more obviously aerodynamic although few, then or now, would call it “conventionally attractive”.  Although Le Monstre seemed very much in the tradition of the “cucumber-shaped” Mercedes-Benz SSKL which had won the 1932 race at Berlin’s unique AVUS circuit, the lines were the result of testing a one twelfth (Uncia in the Latin) scale wooden model in a wind-tunnel used usually to optimize the shape crop dusters and other slow-flying airplanes.  Presumably that explains the resemblance to a section of an airplane’s wing (a shape designed to encourage lift), something which would have been an issue had higher speeds been attained but even on the long (6 km (3.7 mile)) Mulsanne Straight, there was in 1950 enough power only to achieve around 210 km/h (130) mph although as a drag-reduction exercise it must have contributed to the 22 km/h (13 mph) advantage it enjoyed over Petit Pataud, something Le Monstre’s additional horsepower alone could not have done and remarkably, even with the minimalist aluminium skin it wasn’t much lighter than the standard-bodied coupe because this was no monocoque; the robust Cadillac chassis was retained with a tube-frame added to support the panels and provide the necessary torsional stiffness.

Le Monstre's 331 cubic inch V8 with its unusual (and possibly unique) five-carburetor induction system.  The layout (one in each corner, one in the centre) is a "quincunx", from the Latin quīncunx.

Some of the additional horsepower came from the novel "quincunx" induction system.  Le Monstre’s V8 was configured with five carburettors, the idea being that by use of progressive throttle-linkages, when ultimate performance wasn’t required the car would run on a single (central) carburettor, the other four summoned on demand and in endurance racing, improved fuel economy can be more valuable than additional power.  That’s essentially how most four-barrel carburettors worked, two venturi usually providing the feed with all four opened only at full throttle and Detroit would later refine the model by applying “méthode Le Monstre” to the triple carburettor systems many used between 1957-1971.  As far as is known, the only time a manufacturer flirted with the idea of a five carburetor engine was Rover which in the early 1960s was experimenting with a 2.5 (153 cubic inch) litre in-line five cylinder which was an enlargement of their 2.0 litre (122 cubic inch) four.  Fuel-injection was the obvious solution but the systems then were prohibitively expensive (for the market segment Rover was targeting) so the prototypes ended up with two carburettors feeding three cylinders and one the other two, an arrangement as difficult to keep in tune as it sounds.  Rover’s purchase of the aluminium 3.5 litre (214 cubic inch) V8 abandoned by General Motors (GM) meant the project was terminated and whatever the cylinder count, mass-produced fuel injection later made any configuration possible.  Five carburettors wasn’t actually the highest count seen in the pre fuel-injection era, Ferrari and Lamborghini both using six (done also by motorcycle manufacturers such as Honda and Benelli) and Moto-Guzzi in the 1950s fielded a 500 cm³ Grand-Prix bike with the memorable component count of 8 cylinders, 4 camshafts, 16 valves & 8 carburetors.  The early prototypes of Daimler’s exquisite hemi-head V8s (1959-1969) were also built with eight carburettors because the original design was based on a motorcycle power-plant, the reason why they were planned originally as air-cooled units.

Le Monstre ahead of Petit Pataud, Le Mans, 1950.  At the fall of the checkered flag, the positions were reversed. 

Motor racing is an unpredictable business and, despite all the effort lavished on Le Monstre, in the 1950 Le Mans 24 hour, it was the less ambitious Petit Pataud which did better, finishing a creditable tenth, the much modified roadster coming eleventh having lost many laps while being dug from the sand after an unfortunate excursion from the track.  Still, the results proved the power and reliability of Cadillac’s V8 and Europe took note: over the next quarter century a whole ecosystem would emerge, crafting high-priced trans-Atlantic hybrids which combined elegant European coachwork with cheap, powerful, reliable US V8s, the lucrative fun lasting until the first oil crisis began in 1973.

Perfection in a pencil: The Eberhard Faber Blackwing 602.  They were not cylindrical so, like a "carpenter's pencil", were less prone to rolling onto the floor.  

The Blackwing 602 remains fondly remembered by those who admire the perfect simplicity of the pencil.  Produced in the shape of a square ferrule (both pleasant to hold in one’s hand and less susceptible to rolling off the desk), it used a soft, dark graphite blend which required less pressure (the manufacturer claimed half but it’s not clear if this was science or “mere puffery”) to put what was wanted on paper.  To casual users, this may not sound significant but for those for whom pencilling was a full-time task (notably writers and artists), the advantages were considerable and the advertising claim “Half the Pressure, Twice the Speed” must have convinced one target market because the Blackwing 602 was a favourite of stenographers (a profession one of the early victims of the technological changes which have emerged in the wake of the transistor & microprocessor).  The Blackwing 602 was manufactured by Eberhard Faber between 1934-1988, by Faber-Castell (1988-1994) and by Sanford (1994-1998).  In 2012, after buying rights to the name, Palomino being production of a visually similar Blackwing but they didn’t quite replicate the graphite’s recipe.  Original Blackwing 602s are now a collectable and in perfect condition are advertised between US$50-100 although there was one recent outlier sale which benefited from a celebrity provenance.

Pencil porn.

Doyle’s in New York on 18 June 2024 conducted an auction of some items from the estate of US composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim (1930–2021), attracting dealers, collectors & Sondheim devotees.  There was Lot 275: (Three blue boxes printed with "Eberhard Faber/Blackwing/Feathery-Smooth Pencils, two of the boxes complete with 12 pencils, one with 8 only (together 32 pencils).  Some wear to the boxes and drying of the erasers”, listed with a pre-sale estimate of US$600-800.  The hammer fell at US$6,400 against a pre-sale estimate of US$600-800.  That’s US$200.00 per pencil, indicating the value of a celebrity connection but whoever set the pre-sale estimate (US$18.75-25.00 per pencil) clearly didn’t check eBay.