Cola Wars
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40 free Cola Wars trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
For more than a century Coca-Cola and Pepsi have fought over the same shelf, and the fight has shaped modern advertising. What began with two nineteenth-century tonics became the soda wars of the 1970s and 1980s, when taste tests, pop stars and one disastrous change of recipe made front-page news. This quiz follows the history of Pepsi vs Coke from the first glass onwards: the founders, the bargain years of the Great Depression, the New Coke fiasco, famous commercials, deals struck behind the Iron Curtain, courtroom dramas and the snack, juice and restaurant brands each company gathered along the way. It suits advertising buffs, business students, soda loyalists on either side and anyone hosting a trivia night. Every question comes with a short explanation, so you pick up the story behind each answer as you play.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In 1989 the Soviet Union paid PepsiCo for its cola partly with what unusual military hardware?
Old warships
Old warships were the payment: 17 submarines, a cruiser, a frigate and a destroyer, which PepsiCo promptly sold for scrap. The same deal brought it two new Soviet oil tankers, which it leased out.
Q 02What did Pepsi give every employee in April 1985 to celebrate Coca-Cola's announcement of New Coke?
A day off
A day off was declared across the company by Pepsi executive Roger Enrico, who also bought a full-page newspaper advert claiming victory in the cola wars.
Q 03What military aircraft did student John Leonard try to claim from Pepsi for 7,000,000 Pepsi Points?
A Harrier jet
A Harrier jet appeared in a Pepsi advert as a joke prize, so Leonard posted a cheque for about $700,000 to buy the points. A court ruled that no reasonable person could have taken the advert seriously.
Q 04Where did Coke and Pepsi both send specially designed cans in July 1985 for a head-to-head test?
Earth orbit
Earth orbit was the venue, on a shuttle flight whose crew tried both colas. The cans fizzed too much in weightlessness and could not be chilled, and the crew said afterwards that they preferred Tang.
Q 05What did Pepsi do in 2006 when a Coca-Cola secretary tried to sell it her employer's trade secrets?
Warned its competitor
Pepsi warned its competitor and the FBI, whose agents then posed as Pepsi executives in a sting. The secretary, Joya Williams, was arrested along with two accomplices.
Q 06Which pop star's hair caught fire while filming a Pepsi commercial at a Los Angeles auditorium in 1984?
Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson suffered second-degree burns to his scalp from the stage pyrotechnics. He gave his $1.5 million settlement to a California medical centre, which named its burn unit after him.
Q 07What profession was shared by John Pemberton, who created Coca-Cola, and Caleb Bradham, who created Pepsi?
Pharmacist
Pharmacist is the answer for both men, and both drinks were first sold over a drugstore counter. Pemberton's was first sold in Atlanta in 1886, and Bradham's followed in New Bern, North Carolina, in 1893.
Q 08How did Pepsi undercut Coca-Cola during the Great Depression while charging the same price of a nickel?
Almost doubling the serving
Almost doubling the serving did it: Pepsi's 12 ounces cost the same five cents as 6.5 ounces of Coca-Cola. Pepsi-Cola's profits doubled between 1936 and 1938.
Q 09Which communist leader, a longtime Coke drinker, called New Coke a sign of American capitalist decadence?
Fidel Castro
Fidel Castro joined the backlash against the new formula. Coca-Cola's chief executive later recalled that this was the only time his own father had agreed with Castro.
Q 10Which Netflix series prompted Coca-Cola to bring back New Coke for a limited run in 2019?
Stranger Things
Stranger Things set its third season in 1985, the year New Coke launched, so the drink returned in limited quantities as a tie-in. Cans of it appear in three of the season's episodes.
Q 11Which campaign, launched in 1975, asked shoppers to choose between two unmarked cups of cola in blind taste tests?
The Pepsi Challenge
The Pepsi Challenge adverts suggested that people preferred Pepsi on taste alone. Critics noted that the Pepsi cup was often marked M and the Coca-Cola cup Q, so a liking for one letter may have swayed some results.
Q 12Under what name did the original Coke formula return in July 1985 after the backlash against New Coke?
Coca-Cola Classic
Coca-Cola Classic kept that name on its labels until 2009, long after New Coke itself had been renamed Coke II and then withdrawn.
Q 13Which Soviet leader was photographed sipping Pepsi beside Richard Nixon at a 1959 exhibition in Moscow?
Q 21Which Pepsi president did Steve Jobs recruit in 1983 to become chief executive of Apple?
John Sculley
John Sculley had made his name at Pepsi with blind taste tests against Coke. Within a few years he won a power struggle at Apple that ended with Jobs being forced out.
Q 22Which vodka did PepsiCo get Western rights to in 1972 in return for selling Pepsi in the USSR?
Stolichnaya
Stolichnaya was swapped for Pepsi syrup because roubles could not be taken out of the country. PepsiCo made its money by selling the vodka to drinkers in the West.
Q 23Which arcade hit did Atari rework for Coca-Cola in 1983 so that players shot at the letters P-E-P-S-I?
Space Invaders
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev gave Pepsi executive Donald Kendall a priceless photograph with that sip. Pepsi went on to become the first American consumer product made and marketed in the USSR.
Q 14Which singer's 1989 Pepsi campaign was cancelled after religious groups objected to her new music video?
Madonna
Madonna was dropped after her Like a Prayer video brought calls for a boycott of Pepsi, yet the company let her keep her $5 million fee.
Q 15Which singer listed the cola wars among decades of headlines in a chart-topping 1989 single?
Billy Joel
Billy Joel packed more than a hundred headline events into We Didn't Start the Fire, running from 1949, the year he was born, to 1989. He got the idea just after turning 40.
Q 16Which fruit soda did Coca-Cola's German branch invent during the Second World War when cola syrup ran out?
Fanta
Fanta was made from whatever wartime Germany could supply, including whey and apple pomace. Its name comes from Fantasie, the German word for imagination.
Q 17Which chain did PepsiCo buy in 1977 as its first step into the restaurant business?
Pizza Hut
Pizza Hut was joined by Taco Bell a year later and by KFC in 1986. PepsiCo spun all three chains off in 1997 as the company now called Yum! Brands.
Q 18Which Pittsburgh Steelers star tossed his jersey to a young fan in a celebrated 1979 Coca-Cola commercial?
Joe Greene
Joe Greene, the fearsome lineman nicknamed Mean Joe, limps down the tunnel and drains the boy's Coke before throwing him the shirt. The advert won a Clio Award.
Q 19Which sports drink did PepsiCo gain by buying Quaker Oats in 2001?
Gatorade
Gatorade was the main reason for the purchase, handing Pepsi a sports drink to set against Coca-Cola's Powerade.
Q 20Which aircraft did Pepsi have painted blue in 1996 to publicise its switch to blue cans?
A Concorde
A Concorde leased from Air France wore the new colour for the launch. The darker paint ran hotter than white, so crews were advised to hold twice the speed of sound for only 20 minutes at a time.
Space Invaders became Pepsi Invaders, with rows of letters marching in place of the aliens. Only 125 copies were made, as gifts for executives at a Coca-Cola sales convention.
Q 24Which drink overtook Pepsi in 2010 to become America's second best-selling soda behind Coca-Cola?
Diet Coke
Diet Coke had never outsold Pepsi before, and the result left the Coca-Cola Company holding first and second place. Pepsi took the runner-up spot back in 2014.
Q 25Which TV drama's 2015 finale closes by cutting to Coca-Cola's famous 1971 Hilltop commercial?
Mad Men
Mad Men leaves viewers to decide whether its adman hero, Don Draper, went on to create the commercial. In real life it was the work of Bill Backer at McCann Erickson, the agency that employs Don in the final season.
Q 26Which Hollywood studio did Coca-Cola own from 1982 until selling it to Sony in 1989?
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures released Tootsie, Ghostbusters and The Karate Kid during its years under the soft drink company, which sold the studio on to Sony in 1989.
Q 27Which sporting event has Coca-Cola sponsored at every edition since Amsterdam hosted it in 1928?
The Olympic Games
The Olympic Games have had Coca-Cola as a sponsor for longer than any other company. The partnership came home in 1996, when the Summer Games were held in Atlanta, the company's base.
Q 28Which annual televised spectacle did Pepsi sponsor from 2013 to 2022, including one staged in Coke's home city?
The Super Bowl halftime show
The Super Bowl halftime show carried Pepsi's name for a decade. When the 2019 game went to Atlanta, Pepsi filled the city with cheeky adverts aimed at its hometown rival.
Q 29Which ABC soap opera did Peter Jennings interrupt in July 1985 to announce that old Coke was coming back?
General Hospital
General Hospital viewers got the news as a special bulletin. One US senator went further and called the return of the old formula a meaningful moment in American history.
Q 30Which TV character replaced Bill Cosby as the face of Coke adverts in 1986?
Max Headroom
Max Headroom was billed as computer-generated but was really the actor Matt Frewer. Cosby had quit, saying that adverts praising the new formula had damaged his credibility.