98 Fun Facts About Classic Car

The Antique Automobile Club of America defines an antique car as being at least how old?

25 years. The club once froze its classes at a fixed 1935 cutoff, then switched in 1975 to a rolling rule, so another model year of cars turns antique every year.

The Classic Car Club of America lists only 'fine' or 'distinctive' cars built from 1915 to 1948; which car makes the list?

Cadillac V-16. The club admits only costly, limited-production cars, so the mass-produced Model T is shut out even though its dates fit, and nothing built after 1948 gets in at all.

To car collectors, the 'vintage' era begins the year after which event ended?

World War I. The vintage years are usually counted from 1919 to about 1930, a decade in which the typical new car went from an open tourer to a closed saloon.

What was the nickname of the Ford Model T?

Tin Lizzie. The assembly line let Ford cut the touring car's price from $850 in 1908 to under $300 by 1925.

Early Ford Model Ts came in gray, green, blue or red; which single color then replaced them all until 1925?

Black. By his own account Henry Ford told his staff in 1909 that buyers could have any color 'so long as it is black', years before the one-color rule actually took effect.

The Ford Model T's record of 15 million cars built stood until 1972, when which car overtook it?

Volkswagen Beetle. A British Army major, Ivan Hirst, got its war-damaged factory running again in 1945, and in February 1972 the 15,007,034th car off the line took the record.

The Ford Model A of 1927 was among the first production cars fitted with what?

It was also the first Ford with a conventional clutch, brake and gearshift layout, though the brake and throttle pedals were reversed from today's.

Years before Ford's moving line, which American make built its Curved Dash runabout on an early assembly line from 1901?

Oldsmobile. A 1901 factory fire left the little Curved Dash the one model saved, and Ransom Olds said that settled which car to build; it is credited as the first mass-produced car.

As Benz patented his three-wheeler in 1886, which German motorized a four-wheeled coach?

Daimler. Gottlieb Daimler and his partner had tried their engine on a motorcycle the year before, and in 1926 his company merged with Benz's to form Daimler-Benz.

On her 1888 drive, Bertha Benz bought fuel at what kind of shop?

A pharmacy, now billed as the first filling station. Petrol was then sold by chemists as a cleaning solvent, and on the same trip she unblocked the fuel line with a hatpin and insulated a wire with her garter.

Which British make's 40/50 hp model of 1907 was hailed by the motoring press as 'the best car in the world'?

Rolls-Royce. Only one car, registered AX 201, was named Silver Ghost; the press gave the name to every 40/50, and the company did not adopt it officially until 1925.

Brothers Fred and August founded which American marque, the first from the US to win the French Grand Prix?

Duesenberg. Jimmy Murphy won it in 1921, then had the same car fitted with a Miller engine and drove it to victory in the Indianapolis 500 the following year.

Which carmaker began in South Bend, Indiana, in 1852 as a builder of horse-drawn wagons?

Studebaker. Already the world's leading maker of horse-drawn vehicles, it began selling electric cars in 1902 and petrol ones in 1904, yet went on building wagons for years afterwards.

Packard built its luxury cars in Detroit for half a century, but in which state was the first one made in 1899?

Ohio. James Ward Packard built it in his home town of Warren after he complained about his Winton car and its maker told him, in effect, to go and build his own.

Which 1934 Chrysler, shaped in a wind tunnel with advice from Orville Wright, was the first streamlined full-size American production car?

Airflow. Its engineers tested dozens of scale models and found that the boxy cars of the day cut through the air better when driven backwards.

Which Lincoln began in 1939 as a one-off convertible built for the Ford president's Florida vacation?

Continental. The European-looking one-off drew so much interest from would-be buyers in Florida that Lincoln put it into production.

Which World War II vehicle did Willys and Ford build to one shared design?

The jeep. More than 600,000 were built as the Allies' standard light runabout, and Willys had a civilian version on sale under the Jeep name before 1945 was out.

Which French car was designed to cross a ploughed field with a basket of eggs on the seat without breaking one?

Citroën 2CV. Pierre Boulanger wanted a car to replace the horse and cart for French farmers, so its soft, long-travel suspension was built for rutted fields, not paved roads.

Which engineer led the design of the 'people's car' that Hitler ordered in the 1930s?

Ferdinand Porsche. Hitler set the brief: room for two adults and three children, and no more than seven litres of fuel per 100 km.

Dutch importer Ben Pon's 1947 notebook sketch became which Volkswagen, launched three years later?

The Microbus. Pon had watched a makeshift parts cart trundle round the factory on a Volkswagen chassis and drew a box with the driver up front; the notebook is now in the Rijksmuseum.

Porsche is tied to Stuttgart, but its first production car, the 356, was initially built in which country in 1948?

Austria. About 50 cars were hand-built with aluminium bodies in the village of Gmünd before production moved to Zuffenhausen, in Stuttgart, in 1950 and switched to steel.

What made the Mercedes-Benz 300 SL of 1954 instantly recognizable?

Gullwing doors. The racing-style tubular frame ran so high along the sides that ordinary doors would not fit, so they were hinged at the roof; US importer Max Hoffman had talked Mercedes into a road version.

The 1955 Citroën DS was the first mass-produced car to make a success of which kind of brakes?

Disc brakes. The American Crosley had tried them in 1949 and soon gone back to drums; the DS kept the same front discs through its whole twenty-year run.

Which car's 2016 launch broke the Citroën DS's 1955 record for advance orders?

Tesla Model 3. About 180,000 people put down $1,000 within a day, many before the car had even been shown; the DS had taken 80,000 orders over the ten days of the Paris show.

The 1959 Mini saved space by building its gearbox into what?

The engine's sump. Gearbox and engine shared one oil supply under a sideways-mounted motor, which made the tiny car remarkably roomy inside.

Which crisis, by bringing petrol rationing back to Britain, led BMC to commission the Mini?

The Suez Crisis. Rationing in 1956 sank big-car sales and made German bubble cars fashionable, so BMC ordered a proper small car, sold from 1959 as the Austin Seven and Morris Mini-Minor.

The Jaguar XK-E, as Americans knew it, was based on which of the marque's Le Mans-winning racers?

The D-Type. It won Le Mans in 1955, 1956 and 1957, and the same aerodynamicist, Malcolm Sayer, then shaped the road car; leftover racers were even sold as street-legal XKSS models.

What was the Aston Martin DB5's first James Bond film?

Goldfinger. Ian Fleming's novel had put Bond in an older Aston, the DB Mark III; the film's effects chief talked the company into lending its DB5 prototype, then filled it with gadgets.

Which British roadster, launched in 1962 and built until 1980, sold more than half a million with its hardtop GT sibling?

MGB. It swapped the separate chassis of earlier MG sports cars for a one-piece body shell, and when the last one was built in 1980 the Abingdon factory closed with it.

Which Italian city car of 1957 had a rear-mounted two-cylinder engine?

Fiat 500. Dante Giacosa designed it, and on the car's fiftieth anniversary in 2007 Fiat brought the shape back as a new 500, this time with the engine at the front.

The East German Trabant's body panels were made of what?

Duroplast. The hard plastic was pressed from recycled cotton waste and resin, and the East German government blocked every proposed replacement for the car, so it barely changed in decades.

Which carmaker made the modern three-point seat belt standard equipment in 1959, after one of its engineers devised it?

Volvo. Its engineer Nils Bohlin had spent years designing ejection seats for aircraft, and worked out the belt within about a year of joining the company.

Which engine, new for 1955, made the 'Tri-Five' Chevrolets legends?

The small-block V8. The compact 265-cubic-inch engine made 162 horsepower in base form, and versions of the same design stayed in production for decades.

All 300 Corvettes built in 1953, the model's first year, were painted which color?

White. Every 1953 car was Polo White, and each was largely built by hand in Flint, Michigan, before production moved to St. Louis.

GM unveiled the Corvette prototype in New York in January 1953 at which showcase of its dream cars?

Motorama. Styling chief Harley Earl, taken with the European sports cars seen in America after the war, wanted GM to build its own, and the result was first shown at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel.

The 1958 Ford Thunderbird's addition of a back seat is credited with creating which market segment?

Personal luxury cars. The two-seat original was already pitched as an upscale cruiser, and the four-seater went further, putting comfort and convenience ahead of handling and speed.

Which Cadillac Eldorado sub-names, used 1956-60, came from a Spanish city and a French resort?

Seville and Biarritz. Seville marked the hardtop and Biarritz the convertible; fifteen years after Cadillac dropped it, Seville came back as a model in its own right.

What design feature made the 1951 Hudson Hornet a NASCAR terror?

A step-down floor pan. The floor was dropped between the frame rails, giving a low center of gravity, and the Hornet dominated early-1950s stock car racing before inspiring Doc Hudson in Pixar's Cars.

Which film director owned one of the 51 Tucker sedans?

Francis Ford Coppola. His film Tucker: The Man and His Dream tells how a fraud trial sank the company even though its founder was cleared of every charge.

Preston Tucker's 1948 car was originally, and still commonly, called what?

The Torpedo. The name was dropped before production, reportedly because Tucker did not want buyers reminded of the war, yet it has stuck to the Tucker 48 ever since.

Which book attacked the handling of early Chevrolet Corvairs?

Ralph Nader targeted the swing-axle rear suspension; a 1972 NHTSA-commissioned report later tempered the criticism.

Which car beat the Ford Mustang to market by 16 days in April 1964?

Plymouth Barracuda. It arrived on 1 April 1964 as a fastback version of the Valiant, but the Mustang sold over 400,000 in its first year and the whole class became 'pony cars' after it.

The Ford Mustang wears a horse badge, but Ford credits stylist John Najjar with taking its name from what?

A fighter plane. Najjar was a fan of the wartime P-51 Mustang; in Germany, where a truck maker and a moped maker already used the name, the car was long sold as the T-5 instead.

What were the DeLorean's outer body panels made of?

Brushed stainless steel. Giorgetto Giugiaro styled it, and although its maker went bankrupt within two years, the car found lasting fame as the time machine in Back to the Future.

Near which UK city were the roughly 9,000 DeLoreans built?

Belfast. British public money paid for much of the Dunmurry plant, in the hope that new jobs would ease Northern Ireland's sectarian violence.

The Shelby Cobra paired a Ford V8 with a chassis and body from which British firm?

AC Cars. Its light aluminium-bodied Ace roadster had only ever had six-cylinder engines until Carroll Shelby had a new Ford V8 shipped to the English works in 1961.

For its first two model years, 1964 and 1965, the Pontiac GTO was an option package on which car?

LeMans. GM barred big engines from its mid-size models, but the rule said nothing about option packages, a loophole John DeLorean's engineers used to slip in a 389-cubic-inch V8.

The Ford GT40 was built specifically to beat which team, Le Mans winner six years running?

Ferrari. Henry Ford II ordered the car after Enzo Ferrari walked out of talks to sell him the company in 1963, and three GT40s crossed the Le Mans finish line together in 1966.

Which Italian tractor maker began building sports cars in 1963 after complaining about his own car's clutch?

Lamborghini was already rich from tractors, boilers and air conditioners when founder Ferruccio set out to build a more refined grand tourer. The tractor firm he started in 1948 still makes them.

Which US president pranked guests by driving his Amphicar into a lake, shouting that the brakes had failed?

Lyndon B. Johnson kept the lagoon-blue German convertible at his Texas ranch. Fewer than 4,000 Amphicars were built, the only civilian amphibious passenger car ever mass-produced.

Which singer gave his mother a pink 1955 Cadillac, even though she never had a driver's license?

Elvis Presley bought the Fleetwood in blue and had a neighbor repaint it. With Gladys unable to drive, he and his band used it as their touring car for most of the next year.

Which actor died in 1955 at the wheel of a Porsche 550 Spyder with 'Little Bastard' painted across its tail?

James Dean had owned the car for only nine days. Warner Bros. had barred him from racing while he filmed Giant, and he was driving to his first event since when he crashed.

Henry Ford unveiled an experimental plastic-bodied car in 1941 that is nicknamed after which crop?

Soybean car is its usual name, though the exact recipe for its panels is lost. Ford vowed to 'grow automobiles from the soil' and kept 12,000 acres of the crop for experiments.

Plymouth paid Warner Bros. $50,000 to name its budget 1968 muscle car after which cartoon character?

Road Runner decals came with a horn tuned to mimic the cartoon bird's call, which cost Plymouth another $10,000 to develop. The car itself was a back-to-basics coupe: big engine, few frills.

Chevrolet told reporters that which new 1967 model's name meant 'a small, vicious animal that eats Mustangs'?

Camaro was unveiled at a press conference billed as the only meeting of the 'Society for the Elimination of Panthers from the Automotive World', a joke on the car's code name, Panther.

The Mercedes name, given to a 1901 car ordered by dealer Emil Jellinek, honored which member of his family?

His daughter Mercédès was still a child when the car appeared. Jellinek loved the name so much that in 1903 he changed his own surname to Jellinek-Mercedes.

Which electronics brand name was coined in 1930 by Paul Galvin's company for its new car radio?

Motorola joined 'motor' to the 'ola' of Victrola. The name became so well known that Galvin Manufacturing renamed the whole company after it in 1947.

Fiat's Lingotto factory in Turin, completed in 1923, tested its finished cars on a track built where?

On the roof, five floors up, a banked test loop received each car as it left the assembly line. The getaway in The Italian Job (1969) races across it.

Ray Harroun won the first Indianapolis 500 in 1911 using which novelty instead of the usual riding mechanic?

Rear-view mirror is today's name for the gadget on Harroun's Marmon Wasp. Rivals protested that a driver alone could not see cars closing from behind, so he fitted one and raced solo.

Chrysler's FirePower V8 of 1951 is better known by which nickname, taken from its combustion-chamber shape?

Hemi power began in aircraft: Chrysler first tried the dome-shaped chamber in an experimental engine for the P-47 Thunderbolt, then used that wartime experience in its first V8 for cars.

Which Ford executive championed the 1964 Mustang and later led Chrysler back from the brink of bankruptcy?

Lee Iacocca was fired by Ford in 1978 even though the company made a $2 billion profit that year. At Chrysler he won government loan guarantees and repaid the loans well ahead of schedule.

Which British vehicle of 1948 got aluminium body panels because post-war steel was closely rationed?

Land Rover turned the shortage into a selling point, since the alloy panels never rusted. Its flat, simple shapes were chosen because workers could cut and bend them by hand on a basic jig.

Which German carmaker bought the rights to build the egg-shaped Italian Isetta microcar in the 1950s?

BMW bought the license and the body tooling from Iso, a firm that also made refrigerators and scooters. The entire front of the car hinged outwards as its door.

Which Italian marque's badge copies the trident held by the statue of Neptune in Bologna's main square?

Maserati was founded in Bologna by a family of racing brothers. Mario, the one who became an artist instead, drew the logo.

Which Kalamazoo company built the boxy sedans that served for decades as the classic New York taxi?

Checker built the Marathon from 1960 to 1982 and then quit carmaking altogether. Private buyers and police departments could order the same tough sedan as the cab fleets.

Twin brothers Francis and Freelan built which make of steam car, a world speed record holder in 1906?

Stanley steamers were startlingly fast: one covered a mile in 28.2 seconds in 1906, about 127 mph, and no steam car went quicker until 2009.

Rear-hinged car doors, common on models of the 1930s, are widely known as which kind of doors?

Suicide doors got the name before seat belts: if one came open on the move, the wind forced it wide, and anyone leaning out to grab the handle could fall into traffic.

William Durant named Chevrolet in 1911 after his Swiss-born partner Louis Chevrolet, who was famous as what?

A racing driver who started the Indianapolis 500 four times, Louis quarrelled with Durant over the car's design and sold him his share of the company.

The 1963 Corvette Sting Ray coupe is prized for which styling feature, dropped after a single model year?

Split rear window glass was stylist Bill Mitchell's idea. Engineer Zora Arkus-Duntov hated how the bar down the middle blocked the driver's vision, and it was replaced for 1964.

Which Chevrolet, launched for 1959 to answer the Ford Ranchero, blended a car's front half with a pickup bed?

El Camino was adapted from a two-door station wagon, with cab and cargo bed in one body. It lasted only two years at first, then returned in 1964 and stayed until 1987.

The original Ford Mustang borrowed its platform and running gear from which humble Ford compact?

Falcon parts kept the Mustang cheap to develop and to buy. Under the long hood sat the economy car's frame and suspension, and the two models were identical in overall length.

On Chevrolet performance models from the 1961 Impala onward, what do the letters of the 'SS' badge stand for?

Super Sport began as a $53.80 dress-up kit that could be added to any Impala. Only 453 of the 491,000 Impalas built that first year carried it.

The 1932 Ford, a hot-rodders' favorite celebrated in a 1963 Beach Boys hit, goes by which nickname?

Deuce refers to the 2 in 1932. By the 1940s the cars were plentiful and cheap enough for young men to buy, which made them the ideal starting point for a hot rod.

Pontiac's Bonneville and Triumph's Bonneville motorcycle both honor famous salt flats in which US state?

Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats were an early home of American car racing and the scene of numerous land speed records, including Triumph's own motorcycle record attempts.

Which rock singer's psychedelically painted Porsche 356, her daily driver, sold for $1.76 million in 2015?

Janis Joplin's car set a record price for a 356, Porsche's modest first model, when it sold in New York. Its paintwork has also been shown at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Which California golf resort hosts the concours widely regarded as the world's most prestigious car show?

Pebble Beach began its concours in 1950 as a sideshow to a road race on closed public roads. Two years later the cars moved onto the 18th green of the golf links.

Old-car fans say 'three on the tree' for a three-speed gearshift mounted where?

On the steering column is where most American cars of the 1940s and 1950s carried their shifter, hence the rhyming nickname. The sportier layout that followed was 'four on the floor'.

The exposed fold-out perch in a 1930s roadster's tail, jokingly named for a mother-in-law, is which kind of seat?

Rumble seat riders sat outside the cabin, exposed to the wind and rain. British drivers knew the same perch as a dickey seat.

Which British marque did Colin Chapman found in 1952 on a creed of cutting weight rather than adding power?

Lotus started as a spare-time business that Chapman ran with a group of enthusiasts. Its racing team went on to win a string of Formula One constructors' titles and the Indianapolis 500.

Which British sports-car maker has framed its body shells in ash wood for a century?

Morgan's first design was a single-seat three-wheeler that its founder built for his own use, and three-wheelers stayed in the range until 1952.

Which British marque won Le Mans four years running from 1927, driven by a set of wealthy motorists known as its 'Boys'?

Bentley owed those wins to a crew that included an aviator, a steeplechaser and a pearl-fishery magnate. Their dedication to serious racing kept the marque's fast reputation alive.

The MG marque began in the 1920s as a sales sideline of a car dealership in which English university city?

Oxford was home to Morris Garages, whose manager Cecil Kimber promoted sales by building his own special versions of the cars he sold. Its octagon badge was registered as a trademark in 1924.

Porsche's 'Targa' name comes from the Targa Florio, a mountain road race held on which Mediterranean island?

Sicily staged the race on public roads in the mountains near Palermo. Porsche scored several victories there before 1973 and borrowed the name for its open-top 911.

Each of the four interlocking rings on an Audi badge stands for one of what?

Merged carmakers is the story behind the rings: Audi, DKW, Horch and Wanderer banded together in 1932 as Auto Union, the direct ancestor of the modern company.

Which Japanese carmaker bet on the Wankel rotary engine, starting with the hand-built Cosmo sports car of 1967?

Mazda proved the unfamiliar engine by entering the Cosmo in an 84-hour endurance marathon at the Nürburgring. The cars were assembled by hand at roughly one a day.

Which Japanese sports car, launched in late 1969, was sold at home under the unlikely name Fairlady?

Datsun 240Z was the export badge for a car Japanese buyers knew as a Nissan. At home it usually had a 2.0-litre engine, because the 2.4 fell into a much higher tax class.

Britain's Veteran Car Run for pre-1905 cars retraces an 1896 celebration drive from London to where?

Brighton was the goal of the 1896 Emancipation Run, held to celebrate a new law that raised the speed limit to 14 mph. Breakfast that morning included the ceremonial tearing of a red flag.

Which Italian supercar of 1966, named after a breeder of fighting bulls, made mid-mounted engines the norm?

Miura began as an after-hours project: the engineers designed it in their spare time against the wishes of the company's founder, who preferred powerful but sedate grand tourers.

Porsche renamed its 901 the 911 after which French carmaker claimed rights to three-digit names with a middle zero?

Peugeot protested when just 82 cars had been built with the 901 badge. It claimed exclusive rights to such names in France, so Porsche swapped the zero for a one rather than fight.

Which engineer's electric self-starter, first fitted to the 1912 Cadillac, ended the chore of hand-cranking?

Charles Kettering was called in after Cadillac's own engineers failed to make a starter small enough to be practical. His system also supplied the ignition spark and the lights.

Which Buffalo luxury marque patented headlights molded into the front fenders, a look it kept until 1938?

Pierce-Arrow moved its lamps off the sides of the radiator in 1914 and patented the placement. Buyers could still order conventional headlamps, but only a minority ever did.

Which American car of 1936, nicknamed the 'coffin nose', was the first production model with pop-up headlights?

Cord 810 lamps were modified aircraft landing lights hidden in the fenders. It was also the last American car with front-wheel drive for almost thirty years.

The small tailfins on the 1948 Cadillac were inspired by the twin rudders of which wartime aircraft?

P-38 Lightning rudders caught the eye of GM's designers when they saw an early example at a Michigan air base. They thought the twin tails would make a sleek addition to the back of a car.

Which industrial designer's team shaped the fiberglass-bodied Avanti coupe of 1962 in a 40-day crash program?

Raymond Loewy wanted a grilleless nose and a wasp waist. The shape was too costly to press in steel, so the panels came from the firm that molded the first Corvette bodies.

Which designer of the original Mini had created the Morris Minor more than a decade earlier?

Alec Issigonis was nicknamed 'the Greek god' by his contemporaries. He began the Minor during the war under the code name Mosquito and was knighted in 1969.

Which name for an open touring-car body recalls the boy in Greek myth who lost control of the sun chariot?

Phaeton first named a light, open horse-drawn carriage in the 1700s. On cars it meant an open body with no fixed weather protection, a style popular until the 1930s.

Which carmaker's first prototype was built by sixteen aircraft engineers, only two with a driver's license?

Saab had been set up to build warplanes for neutral Sweden. Its first cars were all painted the same dark green, reputedly to use up a surplus of wartime camouflage paint.

Nash and Hudson combined in 1954, in the largest corporate deal the US had then seen, to form which carmaker?

American Motors stayed independent of Detroit's big three for a quarter of a century. Renault bought a large stake in 1979, and Chrysler took the company over in 1987.