The Rolls-Roycesand English Daimlers

reconsidered as the carrierof pseudoclassicalGreco-Roman legacies

Jiro Anzai

For well over a half century the Rolls-Royces' high quality and performance have been kept

so unwaveringly that people outside the Crown would often mistakenly believe that the Rolls are the very cars that have been enjoying the sole loyalty of the English royalty; although the verisimilitude one would get out of the famed 'the best car in the world' advertising cliche by the Rolls-Royce Limited have been supported by their genuine quality, the fact bespeaks otherwise that it had been the English Daimler (not the German Daimler, of course)that had been having the above-mentioned marque or the privileged position of the Royal state cortage.

As witness the facts, it was recently, long after the termination of the Second World War, that the English Daimlers had finally given way to the Rolls-Royce as the No. 1 Royal State

Car. For allthis, however，be it of the Rolls-Royce, of the Daimler, or even of the Vauxhall, among those English motor-cars of respectable careers, one unmistakable feature has been maintained; as it happens, indeed, for the past 70 years, the Britishers are the only ones that had been sustaining that unique, unmistakable radiator shell designs that would remind one of the Greco-Roman legacies, the feature of which in most other countries would go with the

much more stationary oそjetd'art, although the Britishers have been n0 less active in the still area than their continental brethren.

Nowadays, however, in the stiflingclimate of so many cars being turned out of so many assembly lines in so many countries, are assuming on their respective chassis nearly a homo- geneous garb, i.e.,the trapezoidal body, or the wedge shape, from the style of which, minus identity tags, one could scarcely be diiiferentiatedfrom the others. Yes, indeed, amidst the vicious crazed circleof one firm's car's chasing after the other's almost as in a deadly dogfight, while losing one's own integrity as well as identity, it has been a c〇nstant source of relief to observe those English motorcades, as in the Daimlers' or the Rolls-Royces', stillholding their

proud heads high, being crowned with such the indelible Greco-Roman architectonics, so simple in structure and yet stately beautiful beyond comparison.

Of the Rolls-Royce's radiator shell, Anthony Bird and Ian Hallows have the following praise set in their latest work or the fourth revised edition of The Ro/かRoyce Motor-car, published in 1975.

Ornamental flourish, executed in thin sheet iron decorated with chromium plate grilles and curlicues which reached the depths of ornate vulgarity in the 1950s, aginst which the

― 161 － Tiro Anzai

classicsimplicity of the Rolls-Royce 'radiator' stood proud1ﾀ…｡

Yes, indeed, these Palladian fagades on the Rolls-Royces or the Greco-Roman flutes on the Daimlers' radiator tops are the very features, of which no other European cars have cared to keep; to be eχact,there had been times during which the Italians or Fiats and Itals, and even the American Fords had tried somewhat similar attempts on their radiator shells,but none of them lasted, neither preserved; not to speak of their ever attaining even a semblance to the Britishers' level in artistry and perfection, and in the natural sequel they did not preserve. Taking a car as a whole, in itsentirety or total configurational unity, there have been indeed plenty of other cars that have been holding their grounds against those afore-mentioned English cars. Nevertheless, no sooner had you turned your attentive eyes to the radiator grilles than you would find that not even the Mercedes-Benzes or Porsches could hardly equivocate themselves with the fore-named Britishers｡ This may seem a bit sweeping a statementけhe point, however, can easily be justified,had one taken a scrutinising look at the latest model of the Rolls-Royce's speciality car or the 'Camargue,' the highest-priced owner-driven Rolls ever produced, with her graceful body designed by the famous Italian μ7゛yθsw゛か/ininfarina(who had previously done a special saloon job on the 1951 Silver Dawn chassis). It reveals, however, that even with Pininfarina's masterly hand, not even a scratch has been added onto the traditional radiator shell; in a word, all the Italian maestro could do was to give the inelidible radiator fa;ade just a five-degree inclination, and that was all he could do on the famed shell, as though it were a sacred inner sanctum, or the Venus anady∂解ene by

Botticelli!

The above phenomenon, 0n retrospection, seems to have been representing a unique socio- historical as well as socio-cultural problem. worthy for a very serious consideration. For as one even littletaken to European history would recall, it happened to be no other than

England that had been the last, though not the least, which had been visited by the Caesarian eがvahisseurs｡ In this writer's opinion, these seemingly Paradoχical fiχationsover the Palladian style facjad- es or the Greco-Roman flutings on the radiator shell tops, betray more than anything else the extreme degrees of great esteem with which the English aristocrats and upper bourgeois have been treating the Greco-Roman legacies ; indeed, it has been taken to such the extent and extreme that the Britishers had carried out the fluted ornamentations not just on the Bank of England's columns and a number of those Palladian edifices, oi"on the surface of Georgian teapots, but also onto these quality cars, treating them as though art quotidien et mobile, or living art on wheels. Had we considered these phenomena. simply in terms of either geographical or blood- linear proximity, the bids seem to have been fairing with those Italians or Frenchけheir works,

1)Anthony Bird and Ian Hallows, The Rolls-Royce Motor Car,(London: Batsford,1955), P. 190. 2)Ibid., P. 306.

162 The Rolls-Roycesand English Daimlers however, testifyotherwise. In fact, and more often than not, those Italian or French coach- builders' products have been the obvious fugitives from the Caesarian pasts／To attest the above statement, let us take up those Lamborghinian cars, and imagine their nearest con- figurational predecessors. Alas, as it turned out, the nearest in the con石gurational predeces-

SOTS fallupon some of those Rommelian armoured cars on the African desert theatre in WW II, to which the then Italians should have been having green-eyed envies as well as inferiority complex. Somewhat interesting a parallel appearing in the present-day Germany are the very excessive angularities with which the Porsche sports or sporty cars are garbed, the configurations of which are so unlike the Porsche's wartime tanks such as Tiger and Leopard whose shape had been in a word boxy and bumpy. Though casting a psychiatric analysis garb on them and calling both the Italian and German designers of the posterior are busy in compensating for the pasts, would come near to the point of practical joking and reductio ad absurdμni，the fact remains in that that only in Great Britain these Greco-Roman legacies have walked up atop the bonnets, having shown such an expression of elan vitaL of which no equal could be found.

Thus, this unique phenomenon seems worth considering, even today on which the words 'English Disease' have been frequently spoken in such a tone as though nothing would come out of Britain to save her from her toppling. Inasmuch as the writer of thisarticlehad pound- ed on the shallowness of such the view in his last article.he should be refraining from such the recapitulation here; nevertheless, he would like to add that he is having a very positive view about her future and products; so much so that he believes. on top of allthe merits of those R-crowned techniques, whether to what degrees or directions she has been reported toppling or leaning to, you may rest assured that, no matter what may happen in future, Lewis Carroll's wonderbook 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' would be kept on reading, and the very Rolls-Royces with their P alladian-s tyle facades be kept on riding in.

Now, so much for this, and to further our analysis丿et us take up a case history of the

Rolls-Royces｡ Firstly, it should be noted that the firstRoyce car, almost virtually handmade by the 40-year Henry Royce (1863－1933), bom of the poor millman's family, at Alwalton in Lincolnshire, as his latest dream realised, took to the road on the 1st day of April of the year 1904. Of the above mentioned fact, Bird and Hallow took trouble to mention as follows｡

With various delays…it was in April 1904 before the firsttrialrun took place though for some years the 'official'datt was given as 31 March, to avoid the tedious waggishness of

the anti-motoring fraternity.

While we should give credit to the two authors above for their bringing to light the fact that this historic date had been being switched for some time for a political reason, the writer of this research paper feels that the very alteration of the actual date April 1st to the end of the

3) Ibid., P. 37

－163 TiroAnzai

previous month must have been carrying much more psychological implications. Moreover,

thisincident can be just another evidence that would prove the importance of psychic feelings peoples all over the world would incur from certain 丘χed dates or numbers, the practices of which are prevalent even to this day.

Now, returning to the brief reviewing of the Rolls-Royce careers, we note that the honour- able Charles Rolls (1877－1910), the third son of Lord Llangattock and a fanatical believer of automobilism, had been amply eχperienced in early contest-driving as well as agenting such the then well-reputed cars as French Panhards and Pugeots, had been casting his ever scan-

ning eyes for the British homemades that would satisfy his patriotic wants. Compared to his, the lifeof the afore-mentioned Henry Royce had allthe roughs and tumbles of human life; yet,

possessing, or being possessed with, burning desires to turn him into something worth, Henry Royce had kept studying at snatches and night, on top of his full day's work at steam loco-

motive works. As it turned out it was the mysteries and future of the newly opened world of electricity that had caught his attention.

!t should be noted that another great automobile figure that was to distinguish himself, setting up his own marque in later years, or the great Ferdinand Porsche (1875－1951)had also been attracted to the marvels of electricity,from equally early period of his life. But in Porsche's case his firstcar had been an electric one.

Returning to the subject, Henry Royce of the late thirties had established himself as the manufacturer of the dependable electricmotors and electricallypowered cranes, having as one of his credits the job of laying the entire lighting system of the city of Manchester.

A closer look at the spiritof the time during which Henry Royce had grown we note that the year 1863 happens to be only two years prior to the year of the notorious Red Flag Act that decreed any steam locomoted car should not eχceed the speed limits of 10 miles per hour, and be anteceded by men carrying a red flag. It should be also noted that the afore-mentioned year is also the year in which an English electric engineer by the name of R.E.B. Crompton had transported himself to India so as not to be hobbled by the ridiculous English acts. It had been said of him that he had begun his steam bus service in India soon afterwards. Of the Zeiなeisi of the period Cyril Posthumus has the following words:

Britain's own bigoted legislation had killed the steam road carriage, an entirely British

invention of tremendous promise…Brilliant engineers…produced these vehicles between 1800 and 1860, and their use steadily spread all over the country. In so doing, they

threatened strong vested interests such as the railways, stage coaches, grain merchants, stabling and other dependent ancillaries; direct confrontation ensued, and the railways and horse won. Turnpike trusts savagely raised steam carriage tolls,and an 1861 Act restrictingspeeds to 10 mph on open roads and 5 mph in towns was followed by another

in 1865 imposing ridiculous limits of 4 and 2 mph respectively…When the internal engine came on the scene in the late 1880sけhese archaic restrictions were stillenforced.

－164－ TheRolls-Roycesand English Daimlers

4) naturally discouraging British incentive to build cars.

Chronology-wise, Henry Royce's venturing into the motor-car business comes only at his early forties; nevertheless, allthat which had been eχperienced by this man he had certainly poured into his new venture, and as their sequel, his products got unequal excellence, finally drawing the eχcellencies'favours from the world over. And in retrospection, it can be said

that the great damaging period that reigned in England, the period hitherto spoken as the sources of all the evils for the British motoring progress had preserved the ample chances for the late coming British innovators including Henry Royce.

Even so, one would often pose a puzzling question to the effect that even as Royce's past

telltales,he had hardly had time and fortunes to enthral himself in the world of the newly

come-up automobilism, then just beginning to be enjoyed by the aristocratic playboys and bourgeois pastimers. While this had been true in a great extent, the verisimilitude of the above should not lead one's scanning eyes astray. For, starting as a hand at a locomotive works, and landing at having his own successful business renowned for quality electricmotors and cranes, the achivements of which had been no mean fate, other men might have stayed with the electrical works, often wisely afraid of new venturing. As it turned out, Henry

Royce, like Henry Ford and several other Henry's that went on to have their names big-letter- ed in the field of automobilism, was no mere perfectionist. That bidding spirit had been in and it suddenly showed up when for most other men life's plateau had been reached, and taking the cautious steps for years ahead seemed the most reasonable path.

Nevertheless, in terms of having met the mysteries of revolving machines or motors, his

early experiences at locomotive works and then electricalmotors and crane effortsthat followed in their wakes, must have caused the psychic hysterisis, and thus could be considered the real beginnings of a scarlet thread that went on to culminate in red-lettered double R's badge atop

the Rolls-Royce radiator pediment. Psycho-analytically interpreted, his fascinations with moving machines had gone to such the eχtent and eχtreme that the accumulated desires had finally dam-busted when just before he had decided on his venturing into automobilism. In

this sense it can be conjectured that Henry Royce had been suppressing an ever-mounting desire in him to get on tinkering with the automobile, until the day came when he n0 longer could contain such.

It so happens that the very firstcar Henry Royce had come to taste was the second-hand French make 'Decauville' the very name of which seems t0 line the coat of the above assump- tion. For the name Decauville should have meant nothing new for anyone that had a hand in locomotive manufacturing concerns inasmuch as the Decauville Works itselfchanced to be one of the rather known locomotive firms on the European continent, doing for a sideline a voiture

(car)making. It was not a steam car, but a real petrol car which had come into Royce's hand. And though the said Decauville's quality had been so badly shown as to have caused in Royce's -････-･-･･r･-==JJ〃=〃=〃〃－〃〃←← 4)Cvril Posthumus, The Story of Veteran and Vi?itageCars,(London: Batsford,1975), PP. 28-29.

－165 － Jiro Anzai

mind to try his own creation, and in fact the Decauville's name was soon t〇slipout of anyone's mind excepting the car historian's,it should be noted that it had been a car of the same make that had come into the trembling palms of the young Mark Birkigt (1878－1953), who went on to become the creator of the famed Hispano-Suiza, the quality of which had once equal- shouldered with the Rolls-Royce, quite often nicknamed as the Continental Rolls. Nevertheless, having tasted the said Decauville motor-car th〇roughly, Royce came to a decisive conclusion that he could have done a far better job and he should do it at any cost; indeed, the perfectionist in him began stirring, reasoning that the then current conditions prevailing in motor-cars could hardly be tolerated, and finallya demoniac desire had propelled him into a new plane of creativity. (lt should also be noted that among other things several rather important names in the world of automobilism had received their initial baptism in the wheeled machination by way of locomotive works, and to name just few such men, Louis Renault of France, Walter Chrysler of America, and the very Britisher 0. Bentley, could be suffice.)

Returning to the Royce cars (so named as they happened to be the cars being produced by Royce alone prior to the Rolls-Royce's joint venturing days); now having scrutinised the second-hand Decauville, Henry Royce had come up with the two-cylindered 10 hp car, or the Royce Car N0. 1, in 1904. As it turned out, the machine had beaten not only the modelled Decauville but all other eχisting cars, in quality and performance as well, so much so that the report excellent went on to create quite a ripple on the consciousness pool of the automobiling elites. And in the natural sequel, the encounter of him with the honourable Charles Rolls had taken place, and out of this great meeting came the auto history's greatest alliance or the double R-ed joint venture, composed so symbolically of the aristocratic Charles Rolls and of the labouring Henry Royce. It has been agreed among them that not only the selling of the Royce cars are to be done exclusively by Rolls, but the new firm be established, carrying both names on equal partner status. At firstsight, it may seem that the young honourable Charles Rolls had rolled onto the chassis of the back-breaking Henry Royce of the forties,a sort of piggy-back fashion; but a littlestudy should have revealed the fact that it had been otherwise. Being a Cantabrigian himself, having been well versed not just in Greek and Latin (the Greco-Roman legacies, indeed), and yet versatile in allsorts of sports, especially in motoring sports (the extent of which had included the aeroplane flying, the very career of which was to terminate his lifealltoo prematurely in 1910), he had been at once the Royce cars' self-appoint- ed sales agent per excellence; moreover, he had by his own past records well-qualified as a race- and test driver, a knight errant on a new form of horse, a mechanical horse. As observable in the illustration,the firstRoyce cars did not have the famous Greco-Roman radiator, and although the Rolls-Royce Company Limited has to this day neither denied nor confirmed of its true origin and identity, in most Rolls-Royce books some credit has given to Claude Johnson, the Rolls-Royce's influential business manager, for having saved the Grecian

－166 － The Rolls-Roycesand English Daimler

radiator shells from Royce's intent of discarding. Of the just-mentioned radiator shell origin, let us see what Bird and Hallows say;

There is a theory that the classic radiator outline was derived from an obscure make of car called the Norfolk which was made by Blackburn and Co., teχtilemanufacturers, of Cleckheatoii. Towards the end of 1930 very large orders for 100ms…decided this con- cern to give up the car business…that some of their redundant car workers were taken on by Royce and Co., and passed onto their new employers the plan of Norfolk radiators.

Despite the air of improbability of this tale, which Rolls-Royce Ltd. neither confirm nor deny, itis undeniable that the surviving Norfolk motor car has a radiator which strongly resembles the shape made famous by Rolls-Royce. The chief difference is one of detail, in that the Norfolk's filercap is surmounted by an affairlike the lanterns of a lighthouse in

which a fountain plays to indicate that the water pump is working, and it took a man of Royce's artisticsensibility to apply the ancient principle of entasis which entails making

the apparently flatsurfaces slightly convex. This optical trick is necessary in order to decive tyy human eye which, at a slight distance, 'sees' flat surfaces as being slightly concaved.

At first sight, there seems to be nothing wrong with the above reasoning postulated by Messers Bird and Hallows, but on reflections, at leastけo the writer of this article,something does not seem to quite add up to make the plausible picture. Had Henry Royce's artistic sensibilitybeen as sophisticated as the above statement suggested, just why the same man had come to do away with the radiator to which he himself had devoted with such a strong yen, so soon adterwards ？ Although Bird and Hallows have been very revealing in their previous analysis, 0n this caseけhey seem to have been a bit o汀the mark, so much so that the following quote's contents should contradict with the foregoing statement.

As far back as 1922 Royce wanted to abandon the Grecian shell for some more practical

form but Johson knew that this was the matter over which sentiment must be allowed to outweight economics, and that the famous shape was almost worth its weight in golよ

The above quote, with allits contents, is not only true to the teχt，but is appearing on the previous page, thus entirely contradicting; in that at the right above they are saying Royce had tried to do away with the Grecian radiator shell as if from the economical reason, and then on the foregoing page they had gone onto declare, "it took a man of Royce's artisticsensibility to apply the ancient principle of entasis‥.This optical trick is necessary in order to deceive the human eye which, at a slight distance／sees' flat surfaces as being slightly concaved…” According to other sources, it was not the economic reason that the great mother Royce of the Rolls-Royce cars had objected against the graceful shell design :it was due to the progress of aero-dynamics and in favour of the far less wind-resistant stream-lined shape that Royce 一一一一一一一‥-一一一一一一一一一一 5) Anthony Bird and Ian Hallows, op.cit..p. 46. 6)Ibid., P. 134.

－167 － JiroAnzai had made the said stand. Moreover, this story seems to be far more in keeping with the nature of Henry Royce as revealed even in the Bird-Hallows account elsewhere.

Itis common knowledge that Johnson's organisation of Royce's way of life after 1911 possibly saved his life and certainly prolonged itけhe unobtrusive way in which he so arranged affairs that Royce was freed from the day-to-day cares of the factory yet was stillable to give the company the benefit of his skillprevented almost certain disaster. It isless common knowledge that Royce's illness was a blessing in disguise for the company: thismay seem a harsh judgement but the plain fact was that Henry Royce was perfec-

tionistand there comes a time when perfectionists can be too expensive a luxury for any

commercial concern. Left to himself, Royce would have carried his efforts to make a 7) perfect motor-car beyond the bounds of commercial reasons.…

As clearly seen in the above statement, the two authors are contradicting their own previous saying on the same issue. Certainly, a perfectionist can never be satisfied until the thing concerned should meet the scale of his own perfection, that he had once tried to change the Grecian shell to which he had been reported of eχcercising so much sensibility and energies as to produce the entasis effect,which dictated labourious and painstaking handmade pro- cesses？ More than that the least interested, for and by Henry Royce, had been the out- wardly appearances of things; his perfectionistic cares and polishes had been devoted to the parts that could not be so easily seen from outsides; in fact, a story has it that in order not to weaken the strength of his chassis frames or even the engine surfaces he had deliberately stayed away from the usual practice of punching the serial numbers or any legendary embossings procedures ; instead, he had pasted the identification tags. The eχtent of such the perfectionist's self-arresting consciousness is told again in the Bird-

Hallows account, as follows.

There is obviously much exaggeration in this, although it is true that everything had to pass Royce's criticaleye…It was typical of Royce, incidentally, that when one of these castings failed on a car he was testing…he immediately examined a batch of eleven blocks

castfrom the same patternmaker instructions to put diagonal ribs outside the combustion

chambers so as to avoid any possibility of further failure. The actual chance of the mishap being repeated was small, and most firms would have let the とでtchthrough and

contended themselves, at the most, with modifying subsequent castings.

Having reviewed allthese, we realize that the part played by the third man can hardly be ignored; and as we turn for scanning, we discover that almost all car history books have re- ferred to the existence of trilogy. By this trilogy people of course mean Henry Royce,

Charles Rolls, and Claude Johnson, the last being a confidential associate to Rolls, once secretary of the RAC or Royal Auto Club, and above allthe match-maker of both Rolls and

7)Ibid･ 8)Ibid., P. 36

一168 － The Rolls-Roycesand English Daimlers

Royce, and then the Rolls-Royce's business manager. While these had been all true, the contents analysis of the so-called achivements by Johnson might carry a shade bit differing impression from the previous studies,if one excercises a much more independent judgement.

To begin with, the so-called 'Horseless Carriage' project, jointly pushed by Sir Alfred Harmsworth and Johnson did not go well, becoming a complete folly. Secondly, another serious failure happens to be the establishing of the American Rolls-Royce, at Springfield, Massachusetts, for the eχpress purpose of not just selling and servicing but manufacturing the American version of the famed Rolls-Royce cars. While this company lasted some 15 years, and having sold some 2000 American Rolls, it came to bankruptcy in 1934, having been survived only four years after the death of the said Johnson.

What had turned out to be more than right, or the right decisions at that, are,in the ヴ de Pescalier，the very role of match-making and his steadfast rejection of that non-Grecian, streamlined radiator shell, despite the great Henry Royce's intent to ban. In this second ac- tion, Johnson had been very much ego-involved, so much so that not even an inch budging from his stand. This behaviour, together with the afore-mentioned incident of 'horseless carriage' betrays a sort of ultra conservativism of artistic taste in Johnson. And yet the ironical fate that had visited him at the end was not one inflvientialhad come to knight him; in fact, neither a Cantabrigian nor an Oxonian, just a graduate from an art school, he had died as a plain Mr. Johnson. As history has been abound with like casesけhe outsiders that had been taken in as part of the Establishment often becomes the most ardent supporter of the orders. In this respect, though knighted and well received and respected, the late Sir Henry Royce had kept his inner selfall to himself, reserving his innermost at the 'Empfindsamkeitinsel' at Le Canadel and elsewhere.

It was on the 22nd of, again, April of 1933, or some 28 years after the firstRoyce car had taken the road, the great mother of the Rolls-Royce cars had ceased his breathing. Looking at those Rolls-Royces prior to his death and those after his death, you would discern one marked feature that has been changed; that part somewhat reminds the writer of this article the custom entitled Gyakusyu in Japan by the custom of which the proper occupant-to-be of the tomb would keep his cenotaph legend l'ed-lettered until he dies, but once the person is entombed, the legend letters be changed to black, thus eχpressing mourning for the newly buried. Although quite irrespective of the thing Japanese, itis true of the famed R-R badge appearing on the center of the pedimental part of the Rolls-Royce grillesけheirletters as well as frames went from the red to the black, soon after his passing away. Some writers went so far as to equate this episode with the reqμdescent in pace situation attending to the dying Morzart, declared Henry Royce, too, foreseeing his death had willed it as his ○wn comme- moration. Against this interpretation, there are others who argue that it had been done simply in accordance with the view of colour scheming, in that in the Edwardian days. with so many

－169 － JiroAnzai

parts of the motor-cars being zinc- or brass-madeけhe reddish legends, or scarlet letters and

frames, fellfar more in keeping with such the environs, but of late the topmost cars began taking much m〇re sombre colours as grey, black and deep maroon, the black seemed to be far ●● ●more fairing with.

Nevertheless, after the passage of some forty years, mystic airs that had surrounded the

late Henry Royce had no more lifted:in fact, had there been any change, it had thickened. Even the most unsparing criticcannot deny the late Henry Royce's role of the transformer; the great magician that had turned the inanimate tons of metals and fabrics and rubbers into

the precious jem coveted and envived by peoples the world over. For allthis, just how inten- sely strain-laden his innermost had been is betraying in the eχtreme degrees of his perfec-

tionism，and selfimposed disciplines with which he had revolutionized the concept of the

automobile from the level of no more than that of a lawless, noisy a plaything by playboys and fanaticsけ0 a model of punctuality, eχactitude and for perfection. Though at firstsight, looking a schizophrenical in his physical makeup, deep inside him he should have been a tenacious viscous type, so extremely self-checking as to demand perfectionisms in everything he had laid his Midas-like hand on, having had indeed a Midas touch on the famed Radiator shells.

Schefiier, dividing the European arts into two camps, or the Grecian and Gothic, argues that whilst in the world of sound Greek people seek after harmony and wisdom, tending to be conservative and a governor of the things traditional, the peoples in the Gothic world are

distinguished for the prevalency of gnashing teeth and sharp crackling sounds, being attended by demoniacal fightings。 In the writer's opinion, this observation by Scheffler on the Greek, is also applicable to the English and English motorcars that have come to love the fluted

columns and Palladian facades, and those continental Gothics whose posteriors have come to love Ispanos, Mercedes- B enzes and Romeos and Bugattis that had been known for their uninhibiting noise-making. Yes, indeed, compared to the Rolls-Royces and English Daimlers in the twenties and thirties(called the Edwardian and vintage days in the woiid of automo- bilism)whose stress had been on the noiselessness and graceful finishes, those Bugattis,

Ispanos and Mercedeses had been known (in fact, reputed)for having the gear boxes from which almost diabolical noises were freely let out. Speaking of the Mercedes-Benzes in these days, one commentator went so far as to say 'Strum und Drang' of the car.

Speaking of the Gothic or Greco-Roman would naturally bring people to the world of architectonics, and when you tiy to think of it twice, you realise that the automobile is in a sense a building, complete with a roof, windows and the floor, although in the earlier model. of the undue heat and racket no one had thought of side-panelling, let alone to window-panel. For this matter even the Rolls-Royce had been open-car for quite sometime, whilst the horse-

driven carriage had been enjoying its enclosed security for decades preceeding. Nevertheless, as soon as the situation improved, the automobile reached the stage on which it can be said of a building on wheels. More than that. the car has fast become one of the most emotions-

－170－ The Rolls-Roycesand English Daimlers

laden and emotions-inducing edifice on earth. Once it become so, those Britishers (although at times a way behind the Continental brethren)began forging ahead, and gathering such momentum, started to gallop. Once the thing has been fast reined, it has become almost of the natural sequel for those that had been so well versed in the Greco-Roman cultural legacies as to have the whole country sides pepper-

ed with the pseudo-classical Greco-Roman buildings, to take so passionately to the Greco- Roman configurations. Their love for these symbolic features or the flutings on the radiator shell tops or Palladian pedimental structure atop the radiator shells had been such the degree

and extreme that they have never ceased from recapitulating｡ Looking from stillanother angleけhe writer of this article would like to see a semblance to

the portmanteauing so vividly exemplified by Lewis Carroll by whose masterly pen various

and sundry fancy characters have taken t0 life. For when one comes to think of them twice, those statelylooking (iovi＼A&-Broug力amed Rolls-Royce 'Silver Ghost' that had been reigning on the roads in the twneties and thirties,and stillreigning on some part of the world, are in

essence, a portmanteauing of the Greco-Roman Temple and of the 刀r∂ug/ia辨-hodied Carriage, the carry-over from the Greco-Roman's and from the Victorian England's horse- carriage legacies, telescopingly compressed and combined! Essentially, the same sort of telescoping of the two cultural legacies can be discerned of the English Daimlers, with their fluted radiator tops showing the same scarlet-threadina; of the Greco-Roman variety, and the huge passenger compartments as direct carry-over of the Victorian coach days, more often than not even the carriage sweep lines revived on their side-

panels. Yes, indeed, scrutinizing the great Silver Ghost of the twenties, the writer of this article,has

felt as follows; that rather grip-worthy steering wheel would stand for will，the elegant finish of the Broughamed body emotion，and the Greco-Roman radiator shell the symbol of 'itiisdoniけhus without intent representing the trilogical division of one's mental activitiesinto the said three-phase kingdoms, which constitute the traditional English way of thought

division｡ Speaking on the English psychic makeup, we can hardly dismiss that Lady of Silver Fancy

episode, from which root started the perching of a flying lady mascot by the name of 'The Spirit of Ecstacy' atop the Rolls-Royce filler-cap (originally. the radiator water fillercap). Reviewing her Pﾂt,we observe that the original model was firstdesigned by the famous sculp- tor Charles Sykes in 1911 for Lord Montagu's persona] car. The da清eoise/le modelled for

him turned out to be, on the surface, no Grecian goddess or figurehead, but a very faithful private secretary for the said nobility. The original statuette had been called a Silver Fancy;

but when her copies began scintillating atop the Rolls-Royces' filler-caps,they began to be

named 'The Spirit of Ecstacy.' There seems to be stillanother interesting phenomenon pertaining to the same mascot;

9)D. B, Tubbs, Art and the Automobile, (London: Luttenworth, 1978), PP。139-40.

171 － JiroAnzai

that is a series of the gradually differing poses to which the Lady has been subjected to. In the beginning, she was more or less in a standing position, although her shoulders had been slightly stooped; nevertheless, soon afterwards, she started kneeling and crouching―and though the Rolls-Royces in the past had no duplicate body, there should have been inevitable ups, and downs in their kneeling positions―taken together the increasing of her knee bend

that goes nearly concomitant with the decrease in the car height, seems quite in accordance with the principles of psychovectoral identification.

Said in stillanother expression, although the Rolls-Royces had never bowed to the faddy spiritof the days, with their proud Grecian facades kept high until the Italian maestro Pinin-

farina gave them a five-dgree inclination in 1975, they had least cared for their radiator

mascot's bowings.

And thus, as though these beauty figures might have sanded the otherwise vigilant eyed Royce, even the Rolls-Royces, while keeping their Grecian shell facades high, began con-

forming to the spirit of the streamlined philosophy born out of the aero-dynamics, through

the back-door of such an innocent figure as a mascot lady. The careful studies at these figures would reveal that the lady in question, a pedestalled semi-nude with her feet discalced, arms half-raised and spread out with the semi-transparent

wing-like sleeves,is abiding to the code of traditional beauty so much so that there can be no room for our mistaking her no other than the pseudo Grecian beauty. For, even as one takes trouble to look at the back of her head, one is bound to discover her hair's being don in a Psyche knot, as another evidence of her being posed as a pseudo-classical Grecian beauty. As well known by the epic toils to show her love, Psyche figurette is indeed the fitting model for the faithful secretary.

But now being called 'The Spirit of Ecstacy' she had indeed been the fitting objet d'oeuii for the ecstatic Rolls-Royce owners. Of the possible power of ecstatic uplifting the Rolls- Royce cars should have given, nearly a half century before, the American economist Rostow came up with his famed 'Take-off Theory,' the great practitioner of the streamline of con- sciousness school in Europe Marcel Proust (1871-1922) had spoken of men's psychic 'Take- off'in his great 'roman fleuve' as follows:

Le jour oille jeune Bergotte put montrer au monde de ses lectures le salon de mauvais

gout ou il avait passe son enfance et les causeries pas tres droles qu'il y tenait avec ces freres, ce jour-la il monta plus haut que les amis de sa famille, plus spiritueles et plus distingues: ceux-ci dans leurs belles Rolls-Royce pouraient rentrer chez eux en temoignant un peu de mepris pour la vulgarite des Bergotte; mais lui, de son modeste appareil qui venait enfin de ((decoller)),il les survolait.

There are at least severalother passages on which the late French author erivesthe Rolls- Royce very high esteem.

10) Marcel Proust, A la recherche du temps perdu, (Paris: Gallimard, 1954), vol. 1,P. 555.

―172 ― TheRolls-Royces and English Daimlers

i＼s to those Anglo-Saxon writers and authorsけhe books and novels that have spoken about the Rolls-Royces and Daimlers are too numerous to record here. And all these facts taken together for reconsiderations, the writer of this article has come to reassert the thesis that, however, unconscious they have been to the Britishers themselves, there on the motor-car tops of the British high society cars exist unbroken threads of ornamental continuum that that suggest of the Greco-Roman legacies, and that the Rolls-Royces and English Daimlers, have been both the conscious and unconscious vindications of the Greco-Roman golden standards about which the English aristocracy as well as upper bourgeois classes have maintained so much esteem and nostalgia. Though redundant, geographical and blood-linear proximity- wise, they should have been the cars that have been least aifected by the Greco-Roman designs; but as the facts bespeak, neither the German nor French cars of long traditions, not even the Daimler-Benzes have been carrying such the unmistakable Greco-Roman legacies as the 日ut- ings and pedimental shaped bonnets as in the English Daimlers and Rolls-Royces.

Bibliography

1)Anthony Bird and Ian Hallows, The Rolls-Royce Motor Car,(London: Batsford，1975). 2)R. Bonds (ed.),The Encyclopedia of the World ClassicCars,(London: Salamanders, 1977)･ 3)Lawrence Dalton, Coach印∂rkon Rolls-Royce,1906-1939, (London: Motorbooks, 1975). 4) H. F. Fergusson-Wood (ed.),Rolls-Royce Catalogue, 1910/11, (New York: Bonanza, 1923). 5)Lord Montagu and F. w. McComb, Behind the Wheel, (London: Paddington, 1977). 6)Cyril Posthumus, The Story of Veteran and Vintage Cars, (London: Hamlyn, 1975). 7)Marcel Proust, A la recherchedu temps perdu, (Paris: Gallimard, 1954). 8) D. Scott-Moncrieff,VeteranのぶEdwardian Motor CarsバLondon: Batsford,1961). 9)Brain E. Smith, The Royal Daimlers,(London: Transport Bookman, 1976). 10) D. B. Tubbs，Art and the Automobile,(London: Luttenworth, 1978).

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