Frame

Frame (pronounced freym)

(1) A (sometimes intricate) border or case for enclosing a picture, mirror etc.

(2) A rigid structure formed of relatively slender pieces, joined so as to surround sizable empty spaces or non-structural panels, and generally used as a major support in building or engineering works, machinery, furniture etc.

(3) A body, especially a human body, with reference to its size or build; the physique of someone (often with a modifier (large frame, slight frame etc).

(4) A structure for admitting or enclosing something (doors, windows etc); other in the plural and used with a plural verb).

(5) In textile production, a machine or part of a machine over which yarn is stretched.

(6) In statistics, an enumeration of a population for the purposes of sampling, especially as the basis of a stratified sample

(7) In telecommunications and data transmission, one cycle of a regularly recurring number of pulses in a pulse train (frame relay etc); in networking, an independent chunk of data sent over a network.

(8) A constitution or structure in general; the system.

(9) In beekeeping, one of the sections of which a beehive is composed, especially one designed to hold a honeycomb

(10) In formal language teaching, a syntactic construction with a gap in it, used for assigning words to syntactic classes by seeing which words may “fill the gap”.

(11) In physical film stock, one of the successive pictures, the concept transferred to digital imagery.

(12) In television, a single traversal by the electron beam of all the scanning lines on a television screen.

(13) In computing, the information or image on a screen or monitor at any one time (dated).

(14) In computing (website design), a self-contained section that functions independently from other parts; by using frames, a website designer can make some areas of a website remain constant while others change according to the choices made by the internet user (an individually scrollable region of a webpage; “collapsible frames” a noted innovation).

(15) In philately, the outer decorated portion of a stamp's image, often repeated on several issues although the inner picture may change; the outer circle of a cancellation mark.

(16) In electronics (film, animation, video games), a division of time on a multimedia timeline.

(17) In bowling, one of the ten divisions of a game; one of the squares on the scorecard, in which the score for a given frame is recorded.

(18) In billiards and related games, the wooden triangle used to set up the balls; the balls when set up by the frame.

(19) In baseball, an inning.

(20) In underworld slang, as “frame-up” or “framed”, to incriminate (an innocent person) on the basis of fabricated evidence.

(21) In law enforcement slang as “in the frame”, being suspected by the authorities of having committed a offence.

(22) In publishing, enclosing lines (usually in the form of a square or rectangle), to set off printed matter in a newspaper, magazine, or the like; a box.

(23) The structural unit that supports the chassis of an automobile (X-Frame, ladder-Frame, perimeter-frame, space-frame et al).

(24) In nautical architecture, any of a number of transverse, rib-like members for supporting and stiffening the shell of each side of a hull; any of a number of longitudinal members running between web frames to support and stiffen the shell plating of a metal hull.

(25) In genetics, as “reading frame”, a way of dividing nucleotide sequences into a set of consecutive triplets.

(26) In mathematics, a complete lattice in which meets distribute over arbitrary joins.

(27) A machine or part of a machine supported by a framework, (drawing frame, spinning frame et al).

(28) In printing, the workbench of a compositor, consisting of a cabinet, cupboards, bins, and drawers, and having flat and sloping work surfaces on top.

(29) In bookbinding, an ornamental border, similar to a picture frame, stamped on the front cover of some books.

(30) One’s thoughts, attitude or opinion (usually as “frame of mind”).

(31) To form or make, as by fitting and uniting parts together; construct.

(32) To contrive, devise, or compose, as a plan, poem, piece of legislation etc.

(33) To conceive or imagine, as an idea.

(34) To provide with or put into a frame (painting, mirror et al).

(35) To give utterance to (typically as “frame an answer” etc).

(36) To form or seem to form (speech) with the lips, as if enunciating carefully (often used in speech therapy and elocution training).

(37) To fashion or shape (often a term used in sculpture).

(38) To shape or adapt to a particular purpose.

(39) To line up visually in a viewfinder or sight.

(40) To direct one's steps (archaic).

(41) To betake oneself; to resort (archaic).

(42) To prepare, attempt, give promise, or manage to do something (archaic).

Pre 1000: From the Middle English verb framen, fremen or fremmen (to prepare; to construct, build, strengthen, refresh, perform, execute, profit, avail), from the Old English framiae, fremian, fremman or framian (to avail, profit), from the Proto-West Germanic frammjan, from the Proto-Germanic framjaną (to perform, promote), from the primitive Indo-European promo- (front, forward) and cognate with the Low German framen (to commit, effect), the Danish fremme (to promote, further, perform), the Swedish främja (to promote, encourage, foster), the Icelandic fremja (to commit), the Old Frisian framia (to carry out), the Old Norse frama (to further) and the Old High German (gi)framōn (to do); the Middle English was derived from the verb.  Derived forms such as deframe, misframe, reframe, subframem unframe, beframe, enframe, full-frame, inframe, outframe, well-framed etc are created as needed.  Frame, framer & framableness are nouns, framed & framing are verbs, framable & frameable are adjectives, frameless is an adjective and framably is an adverb; the noun plural is frames.

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December 2011.

In Middle English, the sense of the verb evolved from the mid-thirteenth century “make ready” to “prepare timber for building” by the late 1300s and the meaning “compose, devise” was in use by at least the 1540s. The criminal slang (“framed”; a “frame up” etc) made familiar in popular fiction all revolved around the idea of corrupt or unscrupulous police fabricating evidence to “blame an innocent person” seems not to have been in use until the 1920s (although the dubious policing practices would have had a longer history) and all forms are thought to have been a development of the earlier sense of “plot in secret”, noted since the turn of the twentieth century, that possibly and evolution from the meaning “fabricate a story with evil intent”, first attested early in the sixteenth century.  The use of the noun in the early thirteenth century to mean “profit, benefit, advancement” developed from the earlier sense of “a structure composed according to a plan”, developed from the verb and was influenced by Scandinavian cognates (the Old Norse frami meant “advancement”).

Like its predecessor the 300 SL Gullwing (W198; 1954-1957), the Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Roadster (W198; 1957—1963) was built on a tubular space-frame.

The use in engineering “sustaining parts of a structure fitted together” emerged circa 1400 while the general sense of “an enclosing border” of any kind came some two centuries later.  Surprisingly, the familiar form of a “border or case for a picture or pane of glass” seems to have come into use only in the mid-seventeenth century while the use “human body” (ie large frame, slight frame etc) was in use by the 1590s.  Of bicycles it was used from 1871 and of motor cars by 1900 although the early use referred often to what would now be understood as sub-frames, structures which attached to the chassis to support drive-train components, coach-work etc.  The meaning “separate picture in a series from a film” dates from 1960 and was purely descriptive because the individual “frames” on film-stock resembled framed photographs attached in a continuous roll.  The idea of a frame being a “specific state” was in use in the 1660s, the “particular state” (in the sense of “one’s frame of mind”) appears in the medical literature in the 1710s.  The “frame of reference” was coined for use in mechanics and graphing in 1897; the figurative sense coming into use by at least 1924.  As an adjective, frame was in use in architecture & construction by the late eighteenth century.  The A-Frame (a type of framework shaped like the capital letter "A") was an established standard by the 1890s and a vogue for buildings in this shape was noted in the 1930s.

Faster and smaller: By 1964 the IBM 360 mainframe (left) had outgrown its cabinet (the original “main frame”) and had colonized whole rooms.  By 2022, the IBM z16 mainframe (right) was sufficiently compact to return to a cabinet.  

In computing, the word “frame” was used in a variety of ways.  The mainframe (central processor of a computer system) was first described as such in 1964, the construct being main +‎ frame and the reference simply was to the fact the core components were stored in a cabinet which had the largest frame in the room, other, small cabinets being connected with wires and cables.  Mainframes were the original “big machines” in commercial computing and still exist; incomparably good for some purposes, less satisfactory for others.  Frame Relay also still exists as a standardized wide-area network (WAN) technology although it’s importance in the industry has declined since its heyday during the last two decades of the twentieth century.  A packet-switching protocol used for transmitting data across a network, Frame Relay operates at the data link layer of the OSI (Open Systems Interconnection) model, which is the second layer in the seven-layer model.  In a Frame Relay network, data is divided into frames, which are then transmitted between network devices (such as routers), over a shared communication medium and it was this latter aspect which accounted for its widespread adoption: unlike traditional circuit-switching networks (in which a dedicated physical circuit is established for the duration of a communication session), Frame Relay allows multiple logical connections to share the same physical resources so for all but the largest organizations, the potential for cost-saving was considerable.  Importantly too, integral to the protocol’s design was the use of packet switching (which means data is transmitted in variable-sized packets (ie frames) allowing the optimal use of available network bandwidth.  Frame Relay had the advantage also of not adding layers of complexity to the network architecture, relying on the underlying physical layer for error detection and correction rather than including error recovery mechanisms (a la a protocol like X.25 which operate at the network layer).  All of this made Frame Relay scalable and adaptable to various network topologies, making it an attractive “bolt-on” for system administrators and accountants alike.  However, while it still exists in some relatively undemanding niches, the roll-out of the infrastructure required to support internet traffic mean it has substantially been supplanted by newer technologies such as Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS).

Pop-art painting of Lindsay Lohan in a mid-eighteenth century frame by Jean Cherin (circa 1734-1785), Paris, France.  This is an intricately carved example of the transitional Louis XV-style gilt double sweep frame, ornamented with shell centres, acanthus fan corners, and a top crested with a ribbon-tied leaf & flower cluster atop a cabochon.

Scuttle

Scuttle (pronounced skuht-l)

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

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

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

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

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

(6) A deep bucket for carrying coal.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Scuttle shake

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

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

Triumph TR2 (1953-1955).

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

Triumph TR3 (1955-1962).

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

Triumph TRS with "sabrina" engine, Le Mans, 1960.

Like the TR2, the TR3 was a popular choice as a race car but by the late 1950s, the competitive cars from Britain, Italy and the US had been developed well beyond what the TR2 had tended to face earlier in the decade.  For various reasons, it wasn’t easy for European manufacturers to pursue the path to power and performance by adopting the American approach of big displacement so they chose the alternative: greater specific efficiencies & higher engine speeds.  In Italy, as early as 1954 Alfa Romeo had proved the once exotic double overhead camshaft (DOHC) configuration was viable in relatively low-cost, mass-production machines and even in England, MG’s MGA Twin Cam had been released, short-lived though it was.  Triumph’s cars had enjoyed much success, both in the marketplace and on racetracks but their engines were based on one used in a tractor and while legendary robust, it was tuneable only up to a point and that point had been reached, limiting its potential in competition.  The solution was a DOHC head atop the old tractor mill and this the factory prepared for their racing team to run in the 1959 Le Mans 24 Hour classic, naming the car in which it was installed the TR3S, suggesting some very close relationship with the road-going TR3 although it really was a prototype and a genuine racing car.  The engine used at Le Mans was called the “sabrina”.

Sabrina in some characteristic poses.

Norma Ann Sykes' (1936–2016 and better known by her stage name: Sabrina)  early career was as a model, sometimes in various stages of undress, but it was when in 1955 she was cast as a stereotypical “dumb blonde” in a television series she achieved national fame.  On stage or screen, she remained a presence into the 1970s and although without great critical acclaim although the University of Leeds did confer an honorary D.Litt (Doctor of Letters) for services to the arts so there was that.

The Le Mans campaigns with the sabrina Engine: TR3S (1959, left), TRS (1960, centre) and the TRS team crossing the line in formation for what was a "staged  photo-opportunity", none of the cars having completed the requisite number of laps to be classified a "finisher" (1960, right).  In 1961, all three went the distance, taking the "Teams Prize".  

Some resemblance in the mind's eye of an engineer: Sectional view of the sabrina.

The engine's original project code was 20X but an engineer's chance remark at the assembly bench caught on so "sabrina" it became.  Anatomically, the engineers were of course about right because the front sectional view of the sabrina engine’s internals do align with what Dr Vera Regitz-Zagrosek (b 1953; Professor of Cardiology at the University of Zurich), describes as “the bikini triangle”, that area of the female human body defined by a line between the breasts and from each breast down to the reproductive organs; it’s in this space that is found all the most obvious anatomical differences between male & female although the professor does caution that differences actually exist throughout the body, down to the cellular level.

Triumph used the sabrina engine for three consecutive years at Le Mans, encountering some problems but the reward was delivered in 1961 when all three cars completed the event with one finishing a creditable ninth, the trio winning that year’s team prize.  Satisfied the engine was now a reliable power-plant, the factory did flirt with the idea of offering it as an option in the TR sports cars but, because the differences between it and the standard engine were so great, it was decided the high cost of tooling up for mass production was unlikely to be justified, the projected sales volumes just not enough to amortize the investment.  Additionally, although much power was gained by adding the DOHC Hemi head, the characteristics of its delivery were really suited only to somewhere like Le Mans which is hardly typical of race circuits, let alone the conditions drivers encounter on the road.  As a footnote in Triumph’s history, it was the second occasion on which the factory had produced a DOHC engine which had failed to reach production.  In 1934 the company displayed a range-topping version of their Dolomite sports car (1934-1940), powered by a supercharged two litre (121 cubic inch), DOHC straight-8.  The specification was intoxicating and the lines rakish but, listed at more than ten times the price of a small family car, it was too ambitious for the troubled economy of the 1930s and only three were built.

Triumph TR4 (1962-1965).

Although the chassis and drive-train of the TR3 substantially were carried over, the TR4 received a new body, designed in Italy by Giovanni Michelotti's (1921–1980) design house, continuing what would prove a lucrative association for both the Italians and the British.  Modernised in function as well as form, the TR for the first time enjoyed wind-up windows and much improved ventilation as well as the novelty of the option of a kind of targa top, the first on the market although it was Porsche which decided to copyright the name.  To compensate for the increased weight, the engine was bored out to 2.1 litres (128 cubic inches) but the smaller version remained a factory option for those wished to run in competitions under the FIA’s 2.0 litre (122 cubic inch) rules, although, being a tractor engine and thus using wet cylinder liners, it wasn’t difficult for owners of a 2.1 to revert.

A 1965 Triumph TR4A appeared in Netflix's Lindsay Lohan film Irish Wish (2024) and the IMCDB (Internet Movie Cars Database) confirmed it was registered in Ireland (ZV5660, VIN:STC65CT17130C) as running the 2.1 litre version (17130C) of the engine.  The Triumph 2.1 is sometimes listed as a 2.2 because, despite an actual displacement of 2138 cm³, in some places the math orthodoxy is ignored and a "round up" rule applied, something done usually in jurisdictions which use displacement-based taxation or registration regimes, the "rounding up" sometimes having the effect of "pushing" a vehicle into a category which attracts a higher rate.  The lack of the "IRS" (independent rear suspension) badge on the trunk (boot) lid indicates the use of the live rear axle.

This time Triumph did create official version names as the specification changed.  In 1965, the TR4A was released, marked by a small power increase but, more significantly, independent rear suspension which necessitated a change to the rear of the chassis frame.  Improvements in tyre technology had increasingly exposed the limitations of the TR4’s live axle which, mounted on such a low chassis, offered only limited wheel travel, something disguised by the grip of the TR2-era tyres which tended predictably to slide but when fitted with modern radial-ply tyres, the loss of grip could be sudden and unexpected.  The IRS greatly improved the ride and raised the limits of adhesion, making for a safer road car but those using a TR4 in competition still opted for the live axle which offered more control in the hands of experts who preferred to steer with the throttle.  Many TR4As were actually fitted with the live axle, re-designed to accommodate the changes to the chassis.  Facing competition from much improved MG and Austin-Healy roadsters, sales suffered somewhat with around forty-thousand TR4s built.

Triumph TR5 (1967-1968 and sold in North America as the TR-250).

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

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

Triumph TR6 (1968-1976).

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

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

A home market 1974 TR6 in magenta, one of the more appealing of the wide range of color choices (some of the hues of brown not fondly remembered) British Leyland offered during the 1970s (left) and a 1976 US market TR6 (right).  The revised detailing at the front was a consequence of needing to install more substantial bumpers to comply with legislation, the rubber dagmars fitted also at the rear.  Unusually for the smaller British roadsters of the era, air-conditioning was sometimes fitted to the US market cars.

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

Flachkühler

Flachkühler (pronounced flak-koo-ler)

In German, (literally wide cooling device (radiator)), a name adopted by Daimler-Benz to describe the W111 Mercedes-Benz coupés and cabriolets built (1969-1971) with a lower, wider radiator grill than the earlier W111 (and W112) coupés and cabriolets (1961-1969).

Circa 1860s: The construct was Flach + kühler.  The adjective flach (the singular flacher, the comparative flacher and the superlative flachsten) (shallow (wide and not deep)) was from the Middle High German vlach, from the Old High German flah, from the Proto-Germanic flakaz of uncertain origin.  The construct of the noun Kühler ((1) cooler (anything device which cools) or (2) radiator (of an internal combustion engine) was kühlen +‎ -er.  Kühlen was from the Middle High German küelen, from the Old High German kuolōn & chuolen, from the Proto-Germanic kōlōną & kōlēną and related to kalaną (to be cold).  It was cognate with the Hunsrik kiele, the Luxembourgish killen, the Dutch koelen, the Saterland Frisian köile, the English cool (verb) and the Swedish kyla.  The German suffix -er (used to forms agent nouns etc from verbs (suffixed to the verb stem)) was from the Middle High German -ære & -er, from the Old High German -āri, from the Proto-West Germanic -ārī, from the Proto-Germanic -ārijaz, from the Latin -ārius.  When used as an adjective, kühler was a comparative degree of kühl ((1) cool (of temperature), (2) calm, restrained, passionless and (3) cool, frigid (particularly of the emotions)), from the Middle High German küele, from the Old High German kuoli, from the Proto-West Germanic kōl & kōlī, from the Proto-Germanic kōluz & kōlaz, from the primitive Indo-European gel-.  It was cognate with the Dutch koel and the English cool.  Flachkühler is a noun; the noun plural is Flachkühlers.

1965 Mercedes-Benz 300 SE Cabriolet (Hōchkühler)

The dimensions of the grill used on the Mercedes-Benz W111 coupé & cabriolet was dictated by the height of the three litre straight six (M189) engine used in the more exclusive W112 (300 SE) versions.  The M189 was one of several de-tuned variants of the M198 used in the 300SL Gullwing & Roadster (W198) which had started life as the M186 in the big 300 (W186, “Adenauer”) saloon before revealing it’s competition potential by gaining victories at the Nürburgring, the Carrera Panamericana in Mexico and, most famously, the 24 Hours of Le Mans.  In the sports cars, the long-stroke six had been installed at an angle of 50^o and fitted with a dry sump which permitted a low hood (bonnet) line but in the W111 & W112 the engine was in a conventional perpendicular arrangement and used a wet sump, further adding to the height, thus the relatively tall grill.  The smaller sixes used in the car (2.2 litre (M127); 2.5 (M129) & 2.8 (M130)) were of a more modern, short-stroke design and didn’t demand such a capacious engine bay but production line rationalization didn’t make viable two different sets of coachwork for what were low volume models.

1971 Mercedes-Benz 280 SE 3.5 Coupé (Flachkühler)

By the mid 1960s however, Mercedes-Benz realized their gusty, high-revving sixes were technologically bankrupt and for success in the vital US market, they needed a mass-market V8.  Their big-block 6.3 litre V8 (M100), introduced in 1963 with the 600 Grosser (W100) wasn’t suitable for down-sizing so a physically smaller range was developed, the first of which was designated M116; released in 1969 and in displacements of 3.5, 3.8 & 4.2 litres, it would serve the line until 1991.  The 3.5 came first and in 1969 it was fitted to the W111 coupé & cabriolet.  By then, the old 3.0 litre six had been discontinued so the tall grill, which by then had come to look rather baroque, as no longer required and the factory took the opportunity to modernize things and the new, lower wider grill came to be known as the Flachkühler (literally “flat cooler” and best translated as “flat radiator”, the engineers deciding the earlier design should be referred to as the Hōchkühler (high radiator).  Hōch (high, tall; great; immense; grand; of great importance) was from the Middle High German hōch, from the Old High German hōh, from the Proto-West Germanic hauh, from the Proto-Germanic hauhaz, from the primitive Indo-European kewk-, a suffixed form of kew-; it may be compared to the Dutch hoog, the English high and the Swedish hög.

1968 Mercedes-Benz 280 SE Cabriolet (Hōchkühler, left) and 1970 Mercedes-Benz 280 SE 3.5 Cabriolet (Flachkühler, right).

Because of the first oil shock in 1973, the plans for mass-market (a relative term) Mercedes-Benz V8s were interrupted for a while but the 3.5 litre W111s had already reached the end of the line before the embargo began.  Produced only until 1971, they were always expensive and only 3,270 coupés and 1,232 cabriolets were built and, it being another age, they were available with a four-speed manual gearbox, an option a few actually choose.  The Mercedes-Benz manual gear-change was a rather clunky thing but such is rarity value, they have a cult following.  The whole ecosystem of 280 SE 3.5 coupés and cabriolets is actually a cult in itself, perfectly restored cabriolets commanding prices in excess of US$500,000 and some German tuning houses will charge even more for examples modernized with attributes like ABS, later V8 engines, transmissions and suspension.  Even now, although in essence the structure dates from the late 1950s and the mechanicals a decade later, the appeal remains because the things are remarkably usable in modern conditions and ascetically, nothing Mercedes-Benz has made since has anything like the elegance.

1953 Morgan Plus 4 ("flat radiator", top left), 1955 Morgan Plus 4 (top right), 1969 Morgan Plus 8 (bottom left) and 2024 Morgan Plus 6 (bottom right).  Thematically, not all that much has changed since 1954.  

Strangely, the idea of the “flat radiator” had been around for a while in the vernacular of collector car circles but it referred to another aspect of geometry.  In 1952, Morgan of Malvern Link, Worcestershire, was (as it is now) a cottage industry manufacturing pre-war sports cars with more modern engines and they received advice from the manufacturer of their separate headlight assemblies that because MG’s new TF (due for release in 1953) would have its headlamps integrated into the bodywork, production of the housing was ending.  There being no alternative supplier, Morgan were compelled to follow MG’s lead restyle things so the headlamps were faired in.  Concurrent with this, the Morgan factory took the opportunity to do one of their rare styling changes, abandoning their long-establish upright radiator grill one mounted in a cowl that blended into the hood (bonnet).  It wasn’t exactly the onset of modernity but there presumably was some aerodynamic gain.  Just to assure buyers change wasn’t being made for the sake of change, disc brakes would have to wait another few years.  The change to the grill was made in 1953 although, because of the way Morgan operated, some of the older style cars were actually assembled later than the new.  The cars with the traditional Morgan look which features the upright grill are known among aficionados as the “flat radiator Morgans”.

Impromptu Flachkühler: In October 2005, Lindsay Lohan went for a drive in her Mercedes-Benz SL65 AMG.  There was a low-speed unpleasantness with a van which caused the roadster to suffer a Flachkühler.

Bathtub

Bathtub (pronounced bath-tuhb or bahth-tuhb)

(1) A tub in which to bathe, variations including permanent installations (either built-in fixtures or free-standing units) in a bathroom and (now less commonly in the developed world) portable constructions (historically of metal or timber although for military and outdoor use, foldable bathtubs (of leather or canvas) have a long history).

(2) An automotive style (most common in the 1950s) in which the bodywork resembled an upturned bathtub.

1825–1835: The construct was bath + tub and the previous related word was “wash-tub”, dating from the turn of the seventeenth century.  Bath was from the Middle English bath & baþ, from the Old English bæþ (bath), from the Proto-West Germanic baþ, from the Proto-Germanic baþą (bath), from the primitive Indo-European root bhē- (to warm).  The corresponding inherited verbs were bathe & beath.  The Old English bæð (“an immersing of the body in water, mud, etc” or “a quantity of water etc., for bathing”) was from the Proto-Germanic badan (the source also of the Old Frisian beth, the Old Saxon bath, the Old Norse bað, the Middle Dutch bat and the German Bad), also from the primitive Indo-European root bhē- with the appended –thuz (the Germanic suffix indicating “act, process, condition” (as in “birth”; “death”)). The etymological sense is of heating, not immersing.  Tub was from the late fourteenth century Middle English tubbe & tobbe (open wooden vessel made of staves), from the Middle Dutch & Middle Flemish tubbe or the Middle Low German tubbe & tobbe, of uncertain origin.  Etymologists have concluded there’s no link with the Latin tubus or the English tube but it was related to the Old High German zubar (vessel with two handles, wine vessel) and the German Zuber.  In the seventeenth century tub was slang for “pulpit”, thus since the 1660s a “tub-thumper” was a particularly forceful preacher who literally “thumped his fists on the pulpit” to emphasize some point; the use was later extended beyond the church to politicians and others who spoke in a loud or dramatic way.  The English city in the county of Somerset (in Old English it was Baðun) was so called from its hot springs.  The convention now probably is to refer to any permanently installed unit as a “bath”, a bathtub something portable.  The word can appear both as bath tub and bath-tub.  Bathtub is a noun and bathtubby is an adjective (bathtubesque & bathtubbish (resembling or characteristic of a bathtub) were jocular constructions); the noun plural is bathtubs.

Lindsay Lohan with claw-footed bathtub, music video release of Confessions of a Broken Heart (Daughter to Father) (2005).

A “bathtub cockpit” is a cockpit with recessed seating, so that a pilot or driver is sitting in a bathtub-shaped space.  It was often seen in aircraft but the classic example was that used in the delicate, cigar-shape voiturettes built to contest the Formula One World Championship during the 1.5 litre era (1961-1965).  The bathtub curve is a concept from reliability engineering, describing a particular form of the hazard function taking into account three categories of failure rate.  As a theoretical model it assumes the shape of a bathtub (sectioned in the middle and viewed from the side), the three regions being (1) a decreasing failure rate due to early failures, (2) a constant failure rate due to random failures and (3) an increasing failure rate due to wear-out failures.  The slang term “bathtub gin” is a US prohibition era (1919–1933) term to refer to a gin (or other spirit) of such dubious quality it suggests it may have been distilled by an unskilled amateur in their bathtub.  It’s a similar form to “gutrot”, “moonshine” etc and was applied sometimes to any form of illicit alcohol and not just distilled spirit.  “Bathtub racing” literally describes bathtubs being raced.  One of sports more obscure niches, the variations have included (modified) bathtubs being rowed or sailed on waterways or raced on land (either powered, pushed or run on downhill courses.  In economics, the “bathtub theorem” is the charming illustration of the idea that capital accumulation = production - consumption.  The metaphor is that of the water running from the taps (production) and that exiting from the plughole (consumption).  That seems obvious but where the inflow is too great for the capacity of the plughole, the water in the tub (capital) overflows, flooding the place, an elegant explanation of the effects of over-production which can induce recessions or depressions.

Admiral Sir Reginald Aylmer Ranfurly Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax KCB.

In the intricate hierarchy of the UK’s honours system, The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is an order of chivalry dating from 1725 and the name really is derived from the use of a bathtub, the reference being to the medieval ceremony under which knighthoods were conferred, bathing being a symbol of purification.  More than most British honours, the Order of the Bath has a tangled history, at times limited to the military and with various restrictions on the numbers of members.  One thing which was once constant however was that recipients were entitled to the post-nominal letters “KB” after their name.  This changed in 1815 when the order was re-organized into three classes: Knight Grand Cross (GCB), Knight Commander (KCB) & Companion (CB) and the transition was handled effortlessly by the experts but one thing which these days annoys those who worry about such things (and there are a few) is that inexpert journalists and others not do sometimes attach a KB to a Knight Bachelor.  The Knight Bachelor actually attracts no post-nominal letters; it’s a kind of “entry-level” knighthood and recipients are not inducted as a member of one of the orders of chivalry (although there have been plenty of awards of the latter to those whose lives have been far removed from the chivalrous, not all of them from the colonies or Dominions).  The Order of the Bath also provided one of the amusing anecdotes in the unpromising field of diplomatic protocol.  In 1939, when Admiral Sir Reginald Aylmer Ranfurly Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax KCB (1880-1967) was introduced at a ceremony in Moscow, protocol required his honors be read out in full, the Russian translator rendering his KCB as рыцарь умывальник (rytsar' umyval'nik) (Knight of the Wash Tub).  The Russians honor guard couldn’t help but laugh and fortunately, the admiral shared their amusement.

In December 1917, the US satirist & critic HL Mencken (1880–1956) published a fictitious history of the bathtub.  Intended as an amusing hoax, the story was so convincing that quickly it wildly was promulgated, appearing even in reference works and medical journals.  Around a century later, a similar hoax was perpetrated when a university student edited the electric toaster’s Wikipedia page, claiming it had been invented by a wholly factitious Scottish scientist.  The technique was exactly the same as Mencken’s: use the dry factual approach (ie the classic Wikipedia template) and it remained on-line for some years, presumably because the origin of the toaster is not a matter of great interest or controversy.

1949 Nash Ambassador (left), Evelyn Ay (1933–2008), Miss America 1954, in her “bathtub” Nash Rambler (the official car of the beauty pageant) (centre) and 1957 Nash Ambassador which still showed the legacy of the earlier, more extravagant bathtub styling cues.

The best remembered of the “bathtub” cars were first built in the late 1940s by manufacturers introducing their first genuinely new post-war lines (most of the cars produced in 1945-1946 were slightly updated versions of those which had last been made early in 1942).  Within the industry, engineers first called the motif “envelope styling” but the more evocative (and certainly more accurate because an up-turned bathtub came to mind more than an envelope) “bathtub” quickly became the preferred slang.  Echoes of the lines which became familiar in the next decade can be seen in some of the low-volume and experimental bodies seen in the 1920s & 1930s, many an evolution of the realization the “teardrop” shape was close to aerodynamically optimal (at least on paper, the implications of lift and down-force then not widely understood).  Among the large US manufacturers, Nash and Hudson pursued the bathtub style to its most extreme and persisted the longest.  In the early 1950s, the aerodynamic advantages were apparent and combined with the inherently good weight-distribution afforded by their low-slung “step-down” construction, the Hudson Hornet dominated NASCAR racing between 1951-1954, despite its straight-six engine having both less power and displacement than some of the competition.  Except for the odd quirky niche, the bathtub styling didn’t make it into the 1960s and nor did the Nash & Hudson nameplates, the former in 1954 absorbing the latter to created AMC (American Motor Corporation) and in 1957, both brand-names were retired.

Evolution of the Porsche “bathtub” style 1948-1965, the lines of the original a direct descendant of a pre-war racing car.  1948 Porsche 356-001 (the Gmünd Roadster) (top), 1955 Porsche 356 pre-A 1500 Speedster (centre) and 1965 Porsche 356SC Coupé (bottom).  Although the “bathtub” motif was abandoned with the end of 356 production, the 356’s contribution to the lines of the 911 (introduced in 1964 as the 901) is obvious and in the sixty-odd years since, stylistically, not much has changed.