Sports Car Trivia
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7correct to beat the crowd
46 free sports car trivia questions with answers. From the Jaguar E-Type that Enzo Ferrari supposedly called the most beautiful car ever made to the Bugatti Veyron and the Koenigsegg Agera RS, this sports car trivia quiz covers the machines that made people pull over and stare. It runs through the icons in turn: the Porsche 911 and why it was almost called the 901, the Chevrolet Corvette and its fiberglass body, the Ferrari prancing horse, the Lamborghini bull and the tractor magnate who was tired of Ferrari clutches, the Miura, the Countach, the Testarossa, the Ford GT40's revenge at Le Mans, the Shelby Cobra, the Mazda MX-5, the McLaren F1's centre seat, the Dodge Viper, the Acura NSX and the Nissan GT-R. Easy questions cover badges, countries and famous film cars; harder ones cover top-speed records, engine layouts, production numbers, founders and the stories behind the names. It suits a car-club quiz night or a solo test of how much you really know about the poster on your childhood wall. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on the individual cars and marques, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 46 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which carmaker's objection made Porsche rename its new 901 sports car as the 911?
Peugeot
Peugeot had protected three-digit model names with a zero in the middle, so Porsche switched to 911 after building 82 cars as the 901.
Q 02Where is the engine in a road-going Porsche 911?
Behind the rear axle
Behind the rear axle, where Porsche kept it even when the 911 switched from air to water cooling with the 996 in 1998.
Q 03Where did the millionth Porsche 911 end up?
In its museum
Porsche kept the millionth 911, built in May 2017, in its museum in Stuttgart for good rather than sell it.
Q 04What type of engine has powered every Porsche 911?
Flat-six
Flat-six engines power every 911, while the cheaper 1965 version with the 356's four-cylinder engine was sold as the 912.
Q 05In which Italian town is Ferrari based?
Maranello
Maranello took in Ferrari's workshop in 1943, a wartime move away from Allied bombing, yet Allied bombers struck the new factory there twice.
Q 06Ferrari's prancing horse emblem was originally painted on the plane of which World War I flying ace?
Francesco Baracca
Francesco Baracca's mother, Countess Paolina, urged Enzo to put her son's prancing horse on his cars because it would bring him luck.
Q 07Why is the background of the Ferrari badge yellow?
It is the colour of Modena, Enzo's home town
It is the colour of Modena, Enzo's home town, and the yellow badge made its racing debut at the 1932 Spa 24 Hours, which the Scuderia's cars dominated.
Q 08For which company had Enzo Ferrari been a racing driver and team manager before founding his own?
Alfa Romeo
Alfa Romeo gave Enzo his best results as a driver, and his first aim as a carmaker was to beat the Alfas he knew so intimately.
Q 09What was the F40 built to celebrate?
The company's 40th anniversary
The company's 40th anniversary brought the F40, and buyers queued so eagerly before production began that more than 1,300 were built.
Q 10What does "Testarossa" literally mean in Italian?
Red head
Red head refers to the red-painted camshaft covers, a nod to the 1950s Testa Rossa racing cars whose engines wore them first.
Q 11Which 1980s TV series made the white Ferrari Testarossa an icon?
Miami Vice
Miami Vice put its white Testarossa on screen from 1986, and the car's cheese-grater side strakes became visual shorthand for the Eighties.
Q 12What did Ferruccio Lamborghini manufacture before he started building sports cars in 1963?
Tractors
Tractors came first: Ferruccio Lamborghini built them from leftover wartime military vehicles, and Lamborghini Trattori still makes them.
Q 13Famously, what Ferrari component annoyed Ferruccio Lamborghini so much that he built his own cars?
The clutch
In one telling, the clutch on his Ferraris kept needing rebuilds, so he set out to build a better car himself.
Q 21What is the best-selling two-seat convertible sports car in history?
Mazda MX-5 Miata
The Mazda MX-5 Miata revived the light, fun open roadster of the 1960s, a type that had almost disappeared from the market by the 1980s.
Q 22Which classic British roadster did Mazda use as the design benchmark for the MX-5?
Lotus Elan
The Lotus Elan was the model, so the first Miata, pop-up headlamps and all, looked like a '60s Elan remastered for a new era.
Q 23Which car did Enzo Ferrari reputedly call "the most beautiful car ever made" in 1961?
Jaguar E-Type
The Jaguar E-Type's looks later earned a roadster a place in the permanent design collection of New York's Museum of Modern Art.
Q 14Which group has owned Lamborghini through its Audi division since 1998?
Volkswagen
Volkswagen, through Audi, has run Lamborghini since 1998, but an American carmaker got there first: Chrysler took control of the company in 1987.
Q 15The Lamborghini Miura is named after what?
A Spanish fighting-bull breeder
Named for a Spanish fighting-bull breeder, the Miura became a film star when an orange one drove through the Alps in the opening of The Italian Job (1969).
Q 16The name of the Lamborghini Countach comes from what?
An exclamation of astonishment in Piedmontese dialect
An exclamation of astonishment in Piedmontese dialect gave the name, by designer Marcello Gandini's account after a Bertone workman's habit of saying it.
Q 17The Chevrolet Corvette's original bodywork was made of what unusual material?
Fiberglass
Fiberglass was only meant for the first few hundred bodies before a switch to steel, yet the Corvette went on using it for generations.
Q 18What engine did the Corvette first offer in 1955?
A V8
A V8, the new 265-cubic-inch small-block, arrived as an option in 1955 and helped save a Corvette that GM had considered dropping.
Q 19The Corvette was named after what?
A small, manoeuvrable warship
GM publicist Myron Scott suggested the name of a small, manoeuvrable warship, the corvette, a type later used to escort wartime convoys.
Q 20What did the 2020 Corvette finally switch to?
A mid-engine layout
A mid-engine layout ended a front-engined run dating back to 1953, and Chevrolet dropped the manual gearbox, offering only an automatic.
Q 24What was Jaguar's 1961 roadster called in North America?
XK-E
It claimed a 150 mph top speed and sub-7-second 0-60 time in 1961.
Q 25The Shelby Cobra was built by dropping a Ford V8 into which small British roadster?
The AC Ace
The AC Ace got a new Ford 221 V8 at AC's Thames Ditton works, and Shelby's first Cobra was then tested at England's MIRA track.
Q 26In which James Bond film did the Aston Martin DB5 first appear?
Goldfinger
Goldfinger's novel had given Bond an older Aston Martin, the DB Mark III, but for the film the car was updated to the new DB5.
Q 27What do the letters DB in Aston Martin DB5 stand for?
David Brown
David Brown's initials name the DB5, and his company lent the Bond film-makers the original DB5 prototype for the cameras.
Q 28After Enzo Ferrari backed out of a 1963 sale, which Ford boss ordered a car to beat him at Le Mans?
Henry Ford II
Henry Ford II, enraged when the deal collapsed, told his team to beat Ferrari at Le Mans, or so the legend goes, and the GT40 did it in 1966.
Q 29Which Ford driver lost the 1966 Le Mans win after a staged three-car photo finish?
Ken Miles
Ken Miles had to settle for second: McLaren and Amon had started further back, so officials ruled they had covered more ground.
Q 30What is unusual about the seating in a McLaren F1?
Driver centred, a passenger on each side
Driver centred, a passenger on each side: McLaren built that three-seater, and five F1 LM road cars celebrated its 1995 Le Mans win.