Tires
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40 free Tires trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
A few hand-sized patches of rubber are all that connect a car to the road, yet most drivers know little about what they are riding on. The tire, or tyre as much of the world spells it, has a longer and stranger history than its plain looks suggest, full of accidental discoveries, patent fights and inventors who never set out to change transport. This quiz covers the people and companies behind the tire, the science of rubber, the codes moulded into every sidewall and the safety basics every driver should know. It also wanders into motor racing, aviation, space travel, film and television, where tires have played some unexpected parts. It is written for car enthusiasts, mechanics, trivia-night hosts and anyone who has ever wondered what the markings on a sidewall mean. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so a wrong guess still teaches something.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which toy company holds the Guinness World Record for producing the most tires each year?
Lego
Lego produced over 318 million toy tires in 2011, more than any car-tire maker manages by count.
Q 02John Boyd Dunlop, the Scot who made the first practical air-filled tire, earned his living in which profession?
Veterinary surgeon
Veterinary surgeon John Boyd Dunlop ran one of Ireland's largest animal practices in Belfast when he turned to tires. He retired from it in 1892 as his invention took off.
Q 03The 80-foot Uniroyal Giant Tire beside a Michigan highway began as which ride at the 1964 New York World's Fair?
Ferris wheel
The Ferris wheel was dismantled after the fair, hauled to Michigan on 22 trucks and rebuilt without its gondolas beside Interstate 94.
Q 04Which powder, mixed into tire rubber as a reinforcing filler, gives modern tires their dark colour?
Carbon black
Carbon black also carries heat away from the tread and belts, and about 70% of the world's supply goes into tires.
Q 05In the American penny test for worn tire tread, which president's head should stay partly hidden in the groove?
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln goes in upside down: if the top of his head shows, the tread is down to about 2/32 of an inch and the tire needs replacing.
Q 06The French tire maker Michelin awards which symbols to top restaurants in a guide first published in 1900?
Stars
Stars were added in 1926 to a guide the Michelin brothers launched to get French motorists driving more and so buying more tires.
Q 07A tire shredded by a metal strip on a Paris runway triggered the fatal July 2000 crash of which airliner?
Concorde
Concorde ran over a titanium strip dropped by another jet, and flying tire fragments ruptured a fuel tank in its wing. The whole fleet was grounded afterwards.
Q 08The Apollo Lunar Roving Vehicle drove across the Moon on tires made from which material instead of rubber?
Woven steel wire
Woven steel wire formed each springy tire, with titanium chevrons covering half the contact area for grip in the lunar dust.
Q 09In a tire size such as P215/65R15 printed on a sidewall, what does the letter R stand for?
Radial
Radial means the cords run straight across the tire from bead to bead, a construction Michelin developed in 1946 that almost every car tire now uses.
Q 10Which super-strong fibre did DuPont chemist Stephanie Kwolek invent while seeking a lighter material for tires?
Kevlar
Kevlar first went on sale in the early 1970s inside racing tires, and now turns up in bicycle tires, racing sails and bulletproof vests.
Q 11Which process, discovered by Charles Goodyear in 1839, heats rubber with sulfur to make it tough enough for tires?
Vulcanization
Vulcanization is named after Vulcan, the Roman god of fire, and Goodyear found it by combining the two ingredients over a hot stove.
Q 12Goodyear, Firestone and General Tire all grew up in which Ohio city, nicknamed the Rubber Capital of the World?
Akron
Akron is still Goodyear's home, although the company's first factory there, opened in 1898, was converted into a research centre in 1978.
Q 13Michelin's mascot, a figure built from stacked white tires, is officially known by which Latin-derived name?
Bibendum
Bibendum comes from a Latin toast about it being time to drink, lifted from a rejected beer poster and first used for Michelin in 1898.
Q 21Only six cars started the 2005 United States Grand Prix after Michelin tires failed at which American speedway?
Indianapolis
Indianapolis saw 14 cars pull into the pits after the formation lap, because their tires were judged safe for only ten laps at full speed through Turn 13.
Q 22Which treadless tires, first produced for 1950s drag racing, give racing cars the most grip on a dry track?
Slicks
Slicks have no grooves, so the largest possible patch of rubber touches the track; M&H Tires made the first production set.
Q 23John Boyd Dunlop made his first air-filled tires in 1887 for which vehicle belonging to his son?
Tricycle
Tricycle parts gave Dunlop his test: he rolled his air-filled wheel across his Belfast yard beside a metal wheel taken from it.
Q 14Which term describes a car's tires riding up on a layer of standing water and losing all grip on the road?
Hydroplaning
Hydroplaning, also called aquaplaning, leaves a driver unable to steer or brake, which is why tread grooves are shaped to channel water away.
Q 15American drivers give which bakery nickname to the small temporary spare tire found in many car trunks?
Donut
Donut spares save weight and trunk space, but they are built only for short trips at up to about 50 mph.
Q 16Which tire maker first published its glamorous trade calendar, shot by famous photographers, in 1964?
Pirelli
Pirelli launched it through its UK subsidiary, and in 1972 Sarah Moon became the first woman to photograph it.
Q 17Which animated TV town is home to a tire fire that has been burning continuously for decades?
Springfield
Springfield, the home of The Simpsons, counts the largest self-sustaining tire fire in its state among its landmarks.
Q 18In Pixar's Cars, which Fiat 500 runs the Casa Della Tires shop in Radiator Springs?
Luigi
Luigi displays his stock in a Leaning Tower of Tires outside the shop, modelled on the famous tower in Pisa.
Q 19Airliner tires are usually filled with which dry gas to limit pressure swings between runway and high altitude?
Nitrogen
Nitrogen is also required on some airliners because oxygen inside severely overheated tires has reacted with fumes and exploded in at least three cases.
Q 20Which tire valve, patented in 1893 and named after its German-American inventor, is used on virtually every car?
Schrader
August Schrader built the valve with his son George in 1891, after hearing of English cyclists' success on air-filled tires.
Q 24The word tire, first used for the iron rim of a carriage wheel, is probably a shortened form of which older word?
Attire
Attire is the likely root: a wheel fitted with its iron band was thought of as a dressed wheel.
Q 25The tree that supplies most natural tire rubber is now planted across the tropics but is native to which region?
Amazon Basin
Amazon Basin forests are the original home of Hevea brasiliensis, a tree whose Latin name still points to Brazil.
Q 26Which milky fluid is tapped from the bark of rubber trees as the raw material for natural tire rubber?
Latex
Latex oozes from vessels in the inner bark when it is cut, and tapping slows growth so much that plantation trees stay smaller than wild ones.
Q 27A dashboard warning light showing an exclamation mark inside a tire's cross-section warns of which problem?
Underinflation
Underinflation sets off the light, part of a monitoring system US law required after a wave of deadly tire failures in the late 1990s.
Q 28American tire pressures are quoted in psi, an abbreviation that stands for which unit of measurement?
Pounds per square inch
Pounds per square inch is used mainly in the United States; one psi equals roughly 6.9 kilopascals in metric terms.
Q 29Which type of tire has stiff sidewalls that let a car keep driving about 50 miles after a puncture?
Run-flat
Run-flat tires let carmakers leave out the spare, though they weigh 20 to 40 percent more than standard ones.
Q 30Tread separation on Firestone tires in the late 1990s was linked to deadly rollovers of which Ford SUV?
Explorer
Explorer crashes tied to the failures killed more than 200 people in the United States, and an insurance researcher's tally of 21 wrecks first alerted regulators.