Cars & Automotive Quiz
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146 free Cars & Automotive trivia questions with answers — technology quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
75 free Cars & Automotive trivia questions with answers. Sixty-five car questions in three rounds. The first is car brand trivia: what the Mercedes star and Subaru's six stars actually mean, the Milanese serpent on the Alfa Romeo badge, the explorer behind Cadillac, why BMW started with aircraft engines, the saw-maker that became Peugeot, and the racing driver Louis Chevrolet. The second is classic car trivia questions and answers: the Model T, the Beetle, the 1964 Mustang launch, the Jaguar E-Type Enzo Ferrari supposedly envied, the warship that named the Corvette, the Suez-crisis Mini and Bond's Aston Martin DB5. The third covers how cars work and race: engines, forced induction, ABS, the boxer layout, Le Mans, Formula 1 and the Dakar. Easy questions come first and the last stretch is for people who read the workshop manual for fun. Every answer has been checked against a reference source, shown under each question once you answer.
30 of 146 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which German engineer patented his three-wheeled Motorwagen in 1886, widely regarded as the first practical automobile?
Karl Benz
Karl Benz's invention was proved by his wife: in 1888 Bertha Benz drove a Motorwagen about 100 km to her mother's in Pforzheim without telling him, the first long-distance car journey.
Q 02What is the best-selling car nameplate of all time, with over 50 million units sold worldwide?
Toyota Corolla
The Toyota Corolla passed 50 million sales in 2021, twelve generations after its 1966 launch; its name is Latin for a little crown or garland, a nod to the bigger Toyota Crown.
Q 03What was the nickname commonly given to the Ford Model T?
Tin Lizzie
Tin Lizzie kept getting cheaper: the Model T cost $825 at its 1908 launch and $260 by 1925, and some 15 million had been built when production ended in 1927.
Q 04Ferrari's prancing-horse emblem came from the plane of which Italian WWI flying ace?
Francesco Baracca
Francesco Baracca was killed in 1918; after Enzo won at Ravenna in 1923 he met the ace's parents, and Countess Paolina urged him to carry her son's horse on his cars for luck.
Q 05Which sports car maker was founded in 1963 by a man who had made his fortune building tractors?
Lamborghini
Lamborghini's founder, Ferruccio, began in 1948 by building tractors from discarded war material, fitting them with engines and differentials from surplus military trucks.
Q 06Which safety device did Swedish engineer Nils Bohlin invent in 1959?
Three-point seatbelt
The three-point seatbelt came naturally to Nils Bohlin, who had developed ejector seats for aircraft; his employer made it standard in 1959 and later let every carmaker use the design free.
Q 07Which dashboard instrument shows how fast the engine is turning, in revolutions per minute?
Tachometer
The tachometer lets a driver change gear at the right moment, and the red zone at the top of its dial marks engine speeds high enough to do damage.
Q 08Which US state is home to the Bonneville Salt Flats, where land speed records fell for decades?
Utah
Utah's salt flats are the bed of an Ice Age lake, so hard and level that Malcolm Campbell became the first driver to pass 300 mph there in 1935.
Q 09Which measure of a petrol's quality describes its resistance to engine knock?
Octane rating
Octane rating shows how much squeezing a petrol can take before it ignites by itself and knocks, which is why high-compression performance engines are built to run on premium fuel.
Q 10Which car brand's logo features four interlocking rings?
Audi
Audi's logo of four interlocking rings represents the four companies that merged in 1932 to form Auto Union: Audi, DKW, Horch, and Wanderer.
Q 11Which car, unveiled at the 1964 New York World's Fair, launched a new class of affordable sporty coupés?
Ford Mustang
The Ford Mustang was forecast to sell 100,000 a year; 22,000 were ordered on the first day and over 400,000 went in twelve months, and its imitators became known as pony cars.
Q 12Which car, launched in 1997, was the world's first mass-produced petrol-electric hybrid?
Toyota Prius
The Toyota Prius became a hybrid because of a target: its engineers had planned a 50% gain in fuel economy from a better petrol engine, then management demanded double.
Q 13What does ABS stand for on a car?
Anti-lock Braking System
Q 21Which stainless-steel sports car flopped in showrooms, then found fame as a 1985 movie time machine?
DeLorean DMC-12
The DeLorean DMC-12 was built in Northern Ireland for under two years; founder John DeLorean was arrested in a 1982 drug sting days before the firm went bankrupt, and was later acquitted.
Q 22Which Japanese automaker built rotary-engined cars from the 1967 Cosmo to the RX-8?
Mazda
Mazda took up the rotary in the 1960s to stand apart from bigger rivals, once its engineers had cured the 'devil's fingernails', chatter marks the spinning rotor scratched into its housing.
Q 23Which engine device uses exhaust gases to spin a wheel that forces extra air into the cylinders?
Turbocharger
Anti-lock Braking System: by stopping the wheels from locking under hard braking, it keeps the tyres gripping the road, so the driver can still steer while stopping.
Q 14Which rear-engined Stuttgart sports car has been built continuously since 1964?
911
The 911 was launched as the 901, but a French carmaker claimed the rights to three-digit names with a zero in the middle, so the 0 became a 1 after only 82 cars had been built.
Q 15Which car brand's hood ornament is called the "Spirit of Ecstasy"?
Rolls-Royce
Rolls-Royce commissioned the figure from sculptor Charles Sykes in 1911 because owners had begun fitting 'inappropriate' mascots of their own to its radiators.
Q 16Which military vehicle, mass-produced during World War II, became the ancestor of the modern Jeep brand?
Willys MB
The Willys MB, built alongside Ford's near-identical GPW from 1941 to 1945, was the wartime jeep; Willys turned it into the civilian CJ-2A in 1945, the first of the Jeep line.
Q 17Which Volkswagen was the most-produced single-platform car ever, at over 21.5 million units?
Beetle
The Beetle owes its long life to a British Army officer: Major Ivan Hirst restarted the bombed Wolfsburg factory in 1945, and 21,529,464 were built before the last left Mexico in 2003.
Q 18What do the letters GT on a sports car stand for?
Gran Turismo
Gran Turismo is Italian for grand touring: the letters first marked fast, comfortable coupés built for long journeys, but carmakers have since stuck them on hot hatchbacks and many cars that are nothing of the kind.
Q 19Which automaker holds the record for the most overall wins at the 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race?
Porsche
Porsche took until 1970 to win Le Mans outright, then made up for lost time: 19 victories, including a record seven in a row from 1981 to 1987.
Q 20Which engine layout places its cylinders horizontally opposed to one another in two banks?
Boxer (flat)
A boxer (flat) engine's opposed pistons move in and out together, which cancels much of the vibration, and its low, wide shape gives the car a low centre of gravity.
A turbocharger recycles energy that would otherwise blow out of the exhaust pipe; the pause while the exhaust spins it up to speed is the 'turbo lag' drivers feel.
Q 24Which race, first run in 1911, is held on a 2.5-mile oval every Memorial Day weekend?
Indianapolis 500
Indianapolis 500 winners swig milk in victory lane, a custom that grew from Louis Meyer asking for buttermilk after his 1936 win; Ray Harroun won the first race in 1911.
Q 25What does the term "displacement" refer to when describing a car engine?
Volume swept by all the pistons
Volume swept by all the pistons, given in litres or cc, is a rough guide to an engine's muscle: the more air and fuel its cylinders can draw in, the more power it can make.
Q 26Which luxury brand, revived by Volkswagen in 1998, built the Veyron and Chiron hypercars?
Bugatti
Bugatti had been revived once before: an Italian entrepreneur relaunched it in 1987, but that company folded in 1995 and Volkswagen bought the name three years later.
Q 27Which driver matched Michael Schumacher's record of seven Formula 1 world titles in 2020?
Lewis Hamilton
Lewis Hamilton sealed his seventh title by winning the 2020 Turkish Grand Prix; a year later he lost an eighth to Max Verstappen on the last lap of the season.
Q 28What is the main advantage of all-wheel drive over two-wheel drive?
Better grip on slippery surfaces
Better grip on slippery surfaces comes from driving all four wheels: if one tyre spins on ice or mud, the others can still push the car along. The cost is extra weight and fuel.
Q 29Which European automaker began offering a driver airbag on its flagship saloon in 1981?
Mercedes-Benz
Mercedes-Benz succeeded where General Motors had given up: GM sold airbags in the mid-1970s, then dropped the option for lack of buyers.
Q 30Which race has opened NASCAR's Cup Series season every year since 1982?
Daytona 500
Daytona 500 fame dates from 1979, the first shown live from start to finish: with much of the East snowed in, viewers saw the leaders crash on the last lap and brawl beside the track.