Meet The Car Named For A Poem That Goes So Hard And Looks The Part: Cold Start

Did you have to memorize poems for English classes when you were in, like junior high or middle school? Or if not English, whatever your native tongue happens to be? I did. And some of them got lodged in there so hard I still know them. One of them is Invictus by William Earnest Henly, (no relation to the shirt) and that poem goes hard. It’s a badass poem, the kind of thing you can recite to yourself when you’re picking yourself up off the ground, making it look worse than it is, before, whammo, you leap at that motherfucker and make him pay. There was a Buick that (just about) shares a name with the poem, and it definitely looks the part.

The name of the Buick was derived from the same Latin root as the poem title, and is just the feminine form of the same word. So I’m counting these two as nomenclature-siblings.

Let’s recite the poem right now, why not? Stand up, wherever you are (if you’re currently piloting a plane just do this over the intercom, but you can stay seated) and boldly belt out the following:

Out of the night that covers me,

      Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

      For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

      I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

      My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

      Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

      Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

      How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

      I am the captain of my soul.

Oh, hell yeah! You ARE the captain of your soul! And look at this Buick, the Invicta:

I mean, that looks like a car that has not winced nor cried aloud under the bludgeonings of chance.

Even from the back you can tell that in the Craigslist ad selling this car it’ll say “has unconquerable sole” and yes I know that’s misspelled but it’s a Craigslist ad, what do you expect?

Typographically, I appreciate how the Invicta doesn’t need to bludgeon you, as cruel chance did it, with a badge that crows about its inherent toughness. It’s a script badge, common for the era (1959-1960) and demonstrates a quiet confidence and elegance I appreciate:

That badge doesn’t need to be formed of clunky, massive block letters; this is much more potent, containing a sleeping strength, like water for fire. That “I” sure looks like a “J” but not much you can do about that.

Look at that determined brute. Bloody, but unbowed. Also an absolute nightmare to park and a dinosaur, mechanically, but who cares?

Now get out there and take no guff.