Speed Racer
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49 free Speed Racer trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Elvis's pompadour, James Bond's gadget car and a white racer with a big red M: Tatsuo Yoshida mixed them into Mach GoGoGo in 1966, and the dubbed Speed Racer defined anime for American kids for the next 25 years. These 49 questions cover the manga and the 1967 Tatsunoko anime, Gō Mifune and the Toshiro Mifune homage, Trans-Lux and Peter Fernandez's one-man dub, the Mach 5 and its seven steering-wheel buttons, Trixie's helicopter, Spritle and Chim-Chim, Pops the ex-wrestler, Racer X and the number 9 Shooting Star, Snake Oiler and the Car Acrobatic Team, the Mammoth Car built of stolen gold, the GRX and the V-gas, the 1993 reboot, Speed Racer X, The Next Generation, and the Wachowskis' 2008 film with Emile Hirsch and Christina Ricci. Every answer is cited to a page we checked and each explanation adds one more detail. Play it solo or print it for a retro cartoon quiz.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is Speed Racer's original Japanese title?
Mach GoGoGo
Mach GoGoGo. The comic version came first, launched in 1966 to show wary TV sponsors that a racing cartoon had an audience; the anime followed in 1967.
Q 02Who wrote and illustrated the original Speed Racer manga?
Tatsuo Yoshida
Tatsuo Yoshida. Superman comics brought to occupied Japan by American soldiers made him want to draw, and in 1959 he was hired to draw a Superman series for Japanese readers.
Q 03Which studio produced the 1967 Speed Racer anime?
Tatsunoko Production
Tatsunoko Production. Its name means 'seahorse', and its founders mortgaged their family land in Kyoto to turn a comics studio into an animation house.
Q 04Which two hit films gave Speed Racer's creator the idea for his racing hero?
Viva Las Vegas and Goldfinger
Viva Las Vegas and Goldfinger. The hero got Elvis Presley's race-driver look, black pompadour included, and his car got gadgets in the spirit of James Bond's Aston Martin.
Q 05Speed Racer's Japanese surname honours which film actor?
Toshiro Mifune
Toshiro Mifune. In Japan the hero's family name is Mifune, and the American dub simply renamed him after its new title.
Q 06How did the original Speed Racer anime tell many of its biggest adventures?
As two-part stories
As two-part stories. Starting with its opening adventure, the series often split a tale across two of its 52 episodes, using the extra time for deeper plots.
Q 07Which syndicator acquired the English-language rights and premiered Speed Racer in 1967?
Trans-Lux
Trans-Lux. The company had made its name with stock-ticker displays for trading floors, yet its small TV arm had the dubbed cartoon on American stations by the summer of 1967.
Q 08Who wrote, directed and voiced much of Speed Racer's English dub, including Speed and Racer X?
Peter Fernandez
Peter Fernandez. Told only to 'Americanize' the show and handed very sparse translations, he made up much of the dialogue himself.
Q 09What is the name of Speed Racer's girlfriend?
Trixie
Trixie. She was no cartoon damsel in distress: she worked on Speed's racing team as his spotter and often did the rescuing herself.
Q 10What is the name of Speed Racer's little brother?
Spritle
Spritle. The writer of the American dub coined the name from 'sprite', a fitting label for a boy who never sits still.
Q 11Where do Speed Racer's kid brother and his pet chimp usually hide to tag along on adventures?
In his car's trunk
In his car's trunk. The two stowaways keep popping out of the Mach 5 in the middle of a race, and their mischief often ends up getting Speed out of trouble.
Q 12What weapon do Speed Racer's kid brother and his pet often use against threats?
A slingshot
A slingshot. In the show's opening adventure the pair pelt a gang of thugs with rocks, giving Speed the opening he needs to fight back.
Q 13What was Pops Racer's career before building race cars?
Champion wrestler
Champion wrestler. It is why the hot-tempered car builder can flatten the thugs who come after his family and his engine designs.
Q 21Away from the track, what is Racer X's other line of work in the original Speed Racer anime?
Secret agent
Secret agent. As Agent 9 he battles an international spy ring, which finally works out that he is Speed's brother and rigs a race to lure him into the open.
Q 22Which vehicle does Speed's girlfriend often pilot during races to spot for him?
A helicopter
In the manga her father is president of Shimura Aviation, which explains why she has one.
Q 23Which police officer keeps asking Speed Racer for help catching criminals?
Inspector Detector
Inspector Detector. Whatever country the race is in, he turns up to recruit the teenage driver, which is how so many of Speed's races become crime stories.
Q 14What is Racer X's real first name?
Rex
Rex. Behind the mask he is Speed's long-lost older brother, and he keeps throwing away his own wins to shield Speed from drivers out to hurt him.
Q 15What is Racer X's yellow number 9 car called?
Shooting Star
Shooting Star. In one Alpine race the masked driver abandons it and fakes an injury so that he can ride beside a temporarily blinded Speed and steer him to the finish.
Q 16Which actress plays Speed's girlfriend in the 2008 live-action Speed Racer film?
Christina Ricci
Christina Ricci. She said she wanted far more action for her character, having trained to do her own fights only to see much of that footage cut from the film.
Q 17Why did Speed Racer's older brother leave home before the series begins?
He fell out with Pops over a crash
He fell out with Pops over a crash. Within sight of the finish he wrecked the car his father had built; told he was not ready to race, he left home to make it as a racer on his own.
Q 18How does Speed Racer deploy the Mach 5's gadgets?
Buttons A to G on the wheel
Buttons A to G on the wheel. Pops built a custom device behind each letter, and the show stops in its second episode to walk viewers through all of them.
Q 19Which Mach 5 gadget lets Speed Racer leap obstacles?
Auto jacks
Auto jacks. They were built so the mechanic could raise the car for quick repairs, but Speed also fires them at high speed to leap whatever is in his way.
Q 20Which actor was lined up to star in a live-action Speed Racer film in 1995 before it stalled?
Johnny Depp
Johnny Depp. Director Julien Temple had him ready to star, but the budget ran too high and the film sat in limbo for more than another decade.
Q 24What do Car Acrobatic Team cars use to leap gorges in Speed Racer?
Wings
Wings. The team sails across the chasms of the Alpine course on them, so Pops has to fit the Mach 5 with a pair before Speed can take the same jumps.
Q 25Who leads the Car Acrobatic Team, Speed Racer's rivals in the Alpine race?
Captain Terror
Captain Terror. The skeleton-faced leader watches a team-mate's car blow up at the Alpine finish, and a year later brings the whole team back for a grudge race against Speed.
Q 26Which hotheaded Car Acrobatic Team driver taunts Speed Racer before the Alpine race?
Snake Oiler
Snake Oiler. He ignores a warning that his car is leaking oil, and it blows up within sight of the finish; the 2008 film brought him back among Speed's rivals.
Q 27In Speed Racer, what was the Mammoth Car built almost entirely from?
Stolen gold bars
Stolen gold bars. Racing it abroad was meant to slip $50 million past the police, who searched every car and found nothing until it hit an oil tank and melted.
Q 28Which Speed Racer villain built the Mammoth Car?
Cruncher Block
Cruncher Block. The crime boss's train-like machine is over 200 yards long, and when Speed starts snooping he flies in himself to have the Mach 5 finished off.
Q 29In Speed Racer's first adventure, where does Pops hide the plans for his new engine?
On the car's windshield
On the car's windshield. He copies them there in invisible ink, so the gang after the plans ends up chasing the Mach 5 itself, until Speed smashes the glass with his helmet.
Q 30Which actress plays Mom Racer in the 2008 live-action Speed Racer film?
Susan Sarandon
Susan Sarandon. Mom is missing from many episodes of the cartoon and says little when she appears, but the film makes her the backbone of the family and its racing team.