It came from Al Capp's "Li'l Abner" comic strip which featured the "Skonk works" where Appalachian hillbillies ground up skunks, old shoes, and other foul-smelling ingredients to brew fearsome drinks and other products. Lockheed engineers identified the secret XP-80 assembly facility as the place where Kelly Johnson was stirring up some kind of potent brew. The nickname stuck, although "skonk" became "skunk" in deference to the non-hillbillies working at the Lockheed facility and because Al Capp objected to anyone else using his unique spelling. Cartoonist Capp and the "Li'l Abner" comic strip departed many years ago, but the Skunk Works -- a registered service mark of Lockheed along with the familiar skunk logo -- lives on as Lockheed Martin Skunk Works continues to "brew" the world's most potent aircraft.