Buick Ventiports and Style Vs. Function: A Fundamental Dichotomy?

In my last post on the Buick Flamingo, I mentioned the Ventiports that were present on the vehicle and suggested the topic was ripe for a Car Lust treatment. Well, here it is. 

These things have fascinated me for a while, mostly for geeky theoretical reasons. I studied evolutionary theory as part of my graduate studies in archaeology and, oddly enough, automobiles provide very good examples of a lot of the sort of evolutionary principles that can be applied to cultural phenomena; in this case those big ol' 'artifacts' that we drive around in. Cars have a
number of functional features that have been molded by selective forces -- gasoline won out over electrics over a hundred years ago, for example -- but they also have a lot of stylistic features that illustrate the sort of cultural factors that influence their design. And then there are others that manifest the complicated history of design trends and historical "hiccups" that make for odd combinations of features that aren't really explained by either purely functional or stylistic concerns. 

And this is where Ventiports come in. At first glance, they appear to be. . . .well, what? They look like they might have some use, and in fact a lot of the questions that appear on various web sites contemplate what possible function they have or may have had at one point. Once people realize that they're really just decorative elements, they're often dismissed as meaningless. But their history is a bit more complicated and interesting than simple decoration may suggest and it offers potential for insight into how seemingly trivial design elements can tell us something of our collective automotive history. 

Plus it gives me warrant to utilize all that theorizing I did way back when. I've bracketed the geeky theoretical mumbo-jumbo section so non-nerdy (read: normal) folks can ignore that part, or at least just skim it. So put on the coffee and let us delve into Style and Function: A Fundamental Dichotomy. 

[Begin nerd section]

When people hear the term "evolutionary theory" they generally think of one of two things: the political fight (of which the less said here, I think, the better), and the phrase "survival of the fittest". In terms of the latter, the idea of 'fitness' has been pretty much misunderstood in the popular sphere from the first time it was used (which was not, in fact, by Darwin). Without getting too deep into the jargon-filled thicket, it essentially is the theoretical potential for reproductive success. In organisms, "reproductive success" means pretty much what we think it means: producing offspring (or copies of oneself) and passing on one's genes to the next generation. It doesn't mean being the biggest, meanest, toughest, etc., and more able to survive the slings and arrows of merely existing (excepting, of course, on the way to reproducing). If a trait -- say, coloring that enables the critter to avoid being eaten before it can reproduce -- contributes to said critter's reproductive fitness, that trait will tend to be passed onto offspring who in turn have greater chances at reproducing, and the trait eventually becomes established within the population (or 'fixed' in evolutionary parlance). If a trait has a negative effect on fitness, it is eliminated quickly, as the critters who unfortunately possess it don't survive to reproduce. And then there are the neutral traits, the ones that really don't affect things either way; those will tend to fluctuate based on other sorts of factors, some of them largely 'random', others by various accidents of history such as a breeding population becoming isolated for some reason (such as being stuck on a remote island). 

It's not a simple matter to simply import this theory to people and the things they make, and swimming pools of ink (or, more recently, pixels) have been used to argue the point either way. Personally, I like the potential for explanation of cultural phenomena, though I'm less enthusiastic about its potential as a true explanatory theory than I used to be. Nevertheless, I still think it provides a good interpretive framework for looking at a lot of cultural phenomena. True, objects don't reproduce themselves; we do that. Ceramic pots didn't become common early on because the pots themselves had the ability to get together and make a lot of little ceramic pots, but they proved so useful that people created lots of them. A lot of this is also in line with common sense. We don't wonder why, for example, the wheels on cars are round because we know that square ones wouldn't work very well (except in particular circumstances). But in other cases, it's more complicated. Why did gasoline vehicles win out over electrics? How much of it was purely functional -- they worked better -- and how much was due to particular historical circumstances? You can work a lot of this out by simply "doing history", but having a theoretical framework that specifies what and how different functional attributes contribute to reproductive fitness can give explanations a more concrete form, not to mention being able to apply them elsewhere as well. 

[End nerd section]

So how do we apply this to Ventiports? First, we look at what they are and where they originated. Internet lore says that the first ventiports were a custom job by Ned Nickles, a Buick designer, who cut holes in his personal 1948 Buick Roadmaster convertible and filled each with an amber light such that each hole would flash on and off in time with its own engine cylinder. His inspiration was supposedly the exhaust stack on piston-engined fighter airplanes (see photo) that would often spit fire (pardon the pun) on startup. And, in fact, that may be the proximal source for the Ventiports: Fighter plane exhaust stacks. One can certainly see the analogy, and even into the late 1940s the Streamline Moderne school of design was applying aviation-inspired streamlining to everything from trains to toasters. Indeed, General Motors developed the Allison V-1710 aircraft engine that was placed in the P-38 Lightning and P40 Warhawk fighters from WWII. So there's that. 

But I wonder. Perhaps the ultimate source of the ventiport was not in aviation but back in automotive design. A number of early automobiles had exhaust systems poking out the sides of the engine, notably some big name cars such as the Cord, and Auburn Boattail Speedster (shown), Duesenberg, and Mercedes SSK. Those mentioned here at least were high-end performance models, and it's likely that the idea of side exhaust ports was still frittering around the minds of automobile designers in the late 1940s. During my research for this post, I also found some references that some of the exhaust pipes on these classic automobiles were in fact non-functional, suggesting that even in their hey-day, side exhaust pipes weren't all entirely functional either. 

Be that as it may, GM exec Harlow Curtice saw Nickles' ports and decided they should go on the 1949 Buicks, albeit without the flashing lights. And thus was born the Ventiport. These were almost entirely non-functional; they were just gussied-up empty holes in the fender. For that first year, Buick suggested that they were functional, providing added air flow to the engine. This is probably rather dubious, but at any rate the holes were soon plugged up anyway (but see here) and became almost entirely decorative from then on. 

I keep saying "almost" because they did serve an ancillary 'function': showing the type of engine. Early on, the number of ports generally corresponded to the size of the engine: smaller engines got three ports on each side, larger ones got four. Then again, by the mid 1950s with variations in engine displacement and body size across different models, the number of ports eventually morphed into a general indicator of body size (because people back then apparently couldn't determine the size of their vehicle without that added visual cue). At various times the number of ports have also represented the number of cylinders on V-shaped engines: three on a side for V6's and four for V8's. 

After going away for most of the 1980s and on into the 1990s, Ventiports reappeared on the 2003 Park Avenue. The only photos I've found have only three ports, which makes sense since the Park Avenue was only offered with a 3.8L V6, so at least it was consistent with earlier usage. However, when the Park Avenue was discontinued and replaced by the Lucerne, the ventiports were retained and since the Lucerne also offered a V8 a 4-port option was available for those engines. Ventiports have also been popping up on other models, although they are not always on the front quarter panels. The Enclave, for example, has them up on the side of the hood, three on a side befitting its V6 engine. The 2012 Regal also has the ports although they look less like ports than a small scoop with two compartments (for its 4-cylinder engine). 

I've also seen some imports with after market ports. The 2015 Infiniti QX80, for example, has them from the factory. Otherwise they have pretty much not caught on elsewhere. A similar non-functional treatment was found on some of the 1970s "Stutz" cars which occasionally had the actual (albeit fake) side-pipe exhausts. And there are some photos out there of people sticking them on "ricers" mostly, although they've gotten a bit creative with placement, some even putting them on the rear quarter panel. 

And so, by fits and starts, we have come around to where we started regarding Ventiports: Style or Function? It's a little more complex than you might think. One might be tempted to consider Ventiports as something like "vestigial organs", attributes that have lost all or most of their original function but are still present and recognizable. In a sense, they're not: They came out of the head of a designer and otherwise had little, if any, real functionality. Leastways, not enough functionality to be crucial to the success of the automobile they were part of. Then again, one might also argue, as I have suggested, that they are vestigial exhaust side-pipes. True, the side pipes weren't present on immediately previous Buicks, but if one looked at the whole of the automotive world, one could reasonably infer that the Ventiports were in a way derived from the old side-pipes, at least indirectly. 

However, there is another angle to this that one might consider, and some of you reading this may have already done so. What if 'function' were defined more broadly? If we look at the cultural significance of the Ventiports, one might make the case that they did have some functional significance in that their presence acted as a signal of "Buick" that could mark its owner as, well, someone who could afford more than a Chevy. In that way, could Ventiports act in a manner akin to sexual selection? In other words, an attribute that isn't really functional per se in a 'survival' sense but confers some benefit of ownership. I'm not sure I'm willing to make that leap, but it seems like something worthwhile to at least bat around. Besides, even if this were the case, it's not at all clear that one would call such a thing functional: any particular attribute, even if it appears to be acting in selective fashion, can just as soon turn around. Witness the comings and goings of particular color schemes that become popular for a time but then fade away just as quickly. 

Personally, I don't have much opinion on the damn things either way. Don't love 'em, don't hate 'em. I suppose in the days of rampant Badge Engineering it was a handy way for Buick to differentiate itself from the GM herd at pretty low cost. And for those who want to impress the young folks with our vast knowledge of old cars, they provide a quick and dirty key to identifying old Buicks. I would kind of like to see some manufacturer make them light up like their original developer did. It might even be cool to use them as sequential turn signals. Whatever your opinion on their decorative utility, at least now you can do a little propounding on their cultural evolutionary significance at the next cocktail party you attend. Thus virtually guaranteeing you will leave alone.

I admit that I briefly thought about getting a set and popping them (temporarily) on my Mustang II just to be a little weird. 

I will, however, leave you with perhaps my favorite use of the Ventiport on a vehicle which I would give my someone else's left arm to own, the 1954 Buick Wildcat II concept. Me-ow, says I. 

Credits: The top brochure for the '49 Roadmaster can be found here. I scanned in the Far Side cartoon from my own collection. The Spitfire -- literally spitting fire -- can be found here. I got the Boattail at this site, but make sure to peruse our own Car Lust post for more. The Lucerne is from Wikipedia and the Wildcat is from Hemmings. 

Addendum: For those interested (bored, given to self-flagellation, etc.) here are a couple of links you can follow up on if so inclined. The title comes from a paper by archaeologist Robert C. Dunnell one of my profs at the UW back in the day. 

The original paper which you can read for free by registering.

Style and Function: An Introduction (pdf paper)

Style, Function, and Cultural Evolutionary Processes (pdf paper)

 

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