ABSTRACT
In the summer of 1970, when poorly paid British academics were driving clapped-out Minis (or worse), Wolfgang Stroebe’s arrival in Bristol caused quite a stir. He swept into town in a brand new, brilliant white convertible Mercedes sports car. We tried to tell him that this was thoroughly impractical. Bristol was cursed by a total lack of car parking and chronic traffic jams. He’d be lucky ever to get out of second gear. But practicality was beside the point. It was all about image, and the message in the image was clear. Wolfgang, as events quickly proved, had no intention of staying single for very long. Even teasing him about it was less fun than it should have been, since he made no attempt to deny it. “N’Ja,” he riposted when asked why he thought he needed such an extravagant prop to his manhood, “that’s like saying that a good product needs no advertisement.”
