1950s Cars
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50 free 1950s Cars trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
No decade loved the automobile quite like the 1950s. Detroit piled on chrome, colour and horsepower, a new suburb seemed to need a new car every year, and across the Atlantic engineers were squeezing whole families into machines barely longer than a sofa. This 1950s car trivia quiz covers both sides of that story. You will meet the famous American nameplates and the flops, the first appearances of features drivers now take for granted, the microcars and people's cars of post-war Europe, and the racers and circuits that made headlines. A few questions look at how the car changed everyday life, from movie nights to family holidays. It is written for anyone who remembers these cars from the driveway or the showroom, and for younger fans who know them from films, museums and car shows. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so the quiz works just as well read aloud at a reunion, a club night or a classroom as it does played on a phone.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which material formed the body of the first Chevrolet Corvette when the sports car launched in 1953?
Fiberglass
Fiberglass bodies were so new that each of the 300 cars built in 1953 came out slightly different. They were largely hand-built in an old truck plant in Flint, Michigan.
Q 02Which Ford brand, launched for 1958 with a vertical horse-collar grille, became a byword for commercial failure?
Edsel
Edsel was named in honour of Henry Ford's son, over the objections of Henry Ford II. Ford dropped the brand in November 1959 after losing more than $250 million on it.
Q 03Which actor died in 1955 driving his Porsche 550 Spyder, nicknamed Little Bastard, to a race in Salinas?
James Dean
James Dean had traded in a Porsche Speedster for the faster Spyder only nine days before the crash. He had just finished filming Giant.
Q 04Which safety device did Volvo's Nils Bohlin introduce in 1959 after designing ejection systems at Saab?
Three-point seat belt
Three-point seat belt patents were opened up by Volvo, which let rival carmakers use the design for free in the interest of safety.
Q 05Which US president signed the 1956 act that created the Interstate Highway System?
Dwight Eisenhower
Dwight Eisenhower had crossed America in 1919 with an Army truck convoy, a slog along the Lincoln Highway that some biographers credit for his backing of better roads.
Q 06Which driving aid, invented by blind engineer Ralph Teetor, first reached buyers on the 1958 Chrysler Imperial?
Cruise control
Cruise control was sold by Chrysler as Auto-Pilot. Family lore says Teetor got the idea riding with a lawyer who slowed down whenever he talked and sped up when he listened.
Q 07Which British small car of 1959 did Alec Issigonis design around a sideways-mounted engine and front-wheel drive?
Mini
The Mini freed 80% of its floorpan for passengers and luggage, a packaging trick that small cars around the world went on to copy.
Q 08Which 1958 Plymouth is the possessed car at the centre of Stephen King's novel Christine?
Fury
The Fury of 1958 was sold only in buckskin beige with gold trim, as a sub-series of the Plymouth Belvedere, before becoming a line of its own for 1959.
Q 09Which Hudson model dominated early-1950s NASCAR and later inspired the Doc Hudson character in Pixar's Cars?
Hornet
The Hornet won 27 of 34 NASCAR Grand National races in 1952, helped by a dropped floor that gave it a lower centre of gravity than its rivals.
Q 10Which device did Chrysler fit beneath the dashboard of its 1956 models under the name Highway Hi-Fi?
Record player
Record player units built by CBS-Columbia sat in a shock-proof case and played special seven-inch records, with storage space for six of them.
Q 11Which two-seater, the first from Ford since 1938, went on sale for 1955 billed as a personal car?
Thunderbird
The Thunderbird sold 16,155 cars in 1955 against just 674 Corvettes. Ford pitched it as a brisk luxury tourer instead of a sports car.
Q 12Which German economy car, designed in the 1930s by Ferdinand Porsche's team, reached its millionth example in 1955?
Beetle
The Beetle went on to pass 21 million sales, the most of any car built on a single platform. Its factory town of Wolfsburg had only been given that name in 1945.
Q 13Which style of door, forced on designers by high sills, gave the 1954 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL its nickname?
Gullwing
Gullwing doors hinged at the roof were the only way to get people over the deep frame, an answer carried over from the company's racing car.
Q 21Which technology, novel in 1953, helped a Jaguar C-Type become the first Le Mans winner to average over 100 mph?
Disc brakes
Disc brakes proved so superior in Jaguar's win that they set off a scramble to fit them to ordinary production cars.
Q 22Which driver won five Formula One world titles in the 1950s, driving for four different teams?
Juan Manuel Fangio
Juan Manuel Fangio was kidnapped from his Havana hotel in 1958 by gunmen from Fidel Castro's movement. His five championships went unmatched for 46 years.
Q 23Which motorsport gained a governing body in 1951 when Hot Rod magazine editor Wally Parks founded the NHRA?
Drag racing
Q 14Which Chevrolet debuted for 1958 with three taillights on each side, one more than its cheaper siblings?
Impala
The Impala, named after an African antelope, wore triple taillights, while cheaper Chevrolets got two on each side and station wagons made do with one.
Q 15Which nickname stuck to Chrysler's FirePower V8 of 1951 because of its dome-shaped combustion chambers?
Hemi
Hemi know-how came from an experimental engine Chrysler had developed for the P-47 Thunderbolt fighter plane.
Q 16Which form of propulsion was planned for a 1957 Ford concept car that was shown only as a scale model?
Nuclear reactor
A nuclear reactor would have been swapped out whole when its uranium ran down, in the vision behind the Ford Nucleon. The mock-up sits in the Henry Ford Museum.
Q 17Which Italian-designed bubble car, built under licence by BMW, has a single door that forms its entire front?
Isetta
The Isetta's wheel and instrument panel swing out with the door. Its name is Italian for little Iso, after the firm that created it.
Q 18Which Eastern Bloc car, built from 1957, wore body panels of Duroplast made from recycled cotton waste?
Trabant
The Trabant kept a two-stroke engine with just two cylinders for more than thirty years. The first one left the factory in Zwickau, Saxony, in November 1957.
Q 19Which carmaker's Rocket 88 inspired a 1951 hit often called the first rock and roll single?
Oldsmobile
Oldsmobile's fast new model was praised in song by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats, who were really Ike Turner's band, the Kings of Rhythm.
Q 20Which luxury brand built the 1955 Fleetwood that Elvis Presley had painted pink and gave to his mother?
Cadillac
The Cadillac was of little use to Gladys Presley, who never held a driver's licence, so Elvis and his band drove it on the road through 1955 and 1956.
Drag racing was organised from California by Parks, a dry-lakes racer himself, who set out to promote safety, sportsmanship and fellowship among hot rodders.
Q 24Which nickname did the media give 1950s drive-in theaters, whose parked cars offered couples some privacy?
Passion pits
Passion pits were at their most numerous in 1958, when more than 4,000 drive-ins were operating across the United States.
Q 25Which feature did the 1951 Chrysler Imperial bring to passenger cars for the first time, under the name Hydraguide?
Power steering
Power steering had been demonstrated as far back as 1926 by engineer Francis Davis, and Chrysler based its system on some of his expired patents.
Q 26Which French carmaker took 12,000 orders in one day when it unveiled the DS at the 1955 Paris Motor Show?
Citroën
Citroën had spent 18 years developing the car in secret, and gave it a self-levelling suspension that rode on pressurised gas and fluid.
Q 27Which Japanese carmaker set up its first American office in a former Rambler dealership in Hollywood in 1957?
Toyota
Toyota sold just 287 Toyopet Crown sedans and a single Land Cruiser in its first year, after the Crown's engine struggled at American highway speeds.
Q 28Which American marque, a luxury carmaker since 1899, merged with Studebaker and built its last cars in 1958?
Packard
Packard's final models were restyled Studebakers built in South Bend, Indiana, and rivals and critics mocked them as Packardbakers.
Q 29Which company did Nash-Kelvinator and Hudson form in 1954, in what was then America's largest corporate merger?
American Motors
American Motors was soon run by George Romney, who mocked the Big Three's large cars as dinosaurs and later became governor of Michigan.
Q 30Which Chevrolet trim level sat above the One-Fifty and Two-Ten in the celebrated Tri-Five range of 1955–57?
Bel Air
The Bel Air of 1957 is counted among the most recognisable American cars ever made, and its 283 V8 could be ordered with fuel injection.