These Car Trivia Questions Are So Hard, It’s OK If You Don’t Even Know Half The Answers

It’s wild to think that Jalopnik has already completed four weeks of Virtual Car Trivia—a way to bring readers together during the coronavirus pandemic. It’s a lot of fun, though, and this week Jason, a special guest, and I brought some darned random questions to the Zoom session. See if you can answer them.

I have to admit that Jason and I might have consumed a bit too much of our beverages on Friday night, because we were acting a bit wacky, and we’re pretty wacky to begin with. I think our hosting skills took a bit of a hit as a result, but luckily we had special guest Chris Boznos, America’s Leading Miniature Golf Historian on hand to keep things sane by asking great minigolf-related car questions.

Thanks to him, and my friend Rochelle helping me host and keeping track of time, the vast majority of the 75 participants who showed up stuck around for the two hours. Here are the 40-ish questions we asked. Let me know how many you get right in the comments below.

Round 1: Technical Questions

1. What is the name of the fine powder used to give tires their black hue? What is the main benefit of including this powder in a tire?
2. Name five heat exchangers found on the Bugatti Veyron.
3. Name the SAE towing standard for certifying a vehicle’s trailer weight rating?
4. What are the rubber flaps that tend to be found behind a car’s rear bumper cover?
5. A typical CV axle on a front-wheel drive car has two rubber boots, each protecting a joint. Give the name of the most common style of inner CV joint. Give the name of the most common style of outer CV joint.
6. What is the name of the newest and most advanced crash test dummy used by NHTSA? How much does it cost to build? With development having begun in earnest in 2009 according to Bloomberg, the dummy “incorporates significantly improved biofidelity and greatly expanded injury assessment capabilities in all body regions” NHTSA says. Per Auto News, its “full rib package, clavicles and softer features replicate humans more accurately than [previous] Hybrid 3 dummies, and it can capture much more information, enabling engineers to better understand how the body interacts with the vehicle in a crash. [The new dummy has] 140 data channels, compared with 43 on a Hybrid 3, as well as some unique instrumentation.
7. Scientists test a fuel’s ability to resist knocking by running a variable compression ratio engine at a given RPM and monitoring the motor’s behaviour relative to how it would behave if run on a mixture of iso-octane and n-heptane.. What is the resulting output from this test? It’s a single number. I want the name of that number (three words). Another test is similar but more stressful, run at a higher RPM, with pre-heated fuel, and with altered ignition timing. What’s this one called? Let’s just say a given blend of gasoline is run through both tests, and it receives a 95 on the first and a 85 on the second. What number will be displayed on a typical American gas pump? What is the name of this number?
8. What is the primary performance advantage of using a liquid-to-air intercooler instead of an air-to-air?

[Answers to round 1]

Round 2: Special guest Chris Boznos, America’s Leading Miniature Golf Historian

1. Long ago miniature golf was referred to, regrettably, as midget golf. Name 4 car models that shared this unfortunate naming convention.
2. Along similar lines, mini-golf goes hand and hand with go-karting, and while bumper cars and karts existed for a long time, in the 1950s who became the fathers of modern go-karting? Where did it start?
3. What part of a car has been traditionally used on many mini golf courses as an obstacle?
4. What popular sci-fi book focuses on both a futuristic mini-golf style game and early automotive mass production to symbolise the empty, frivolous, consumerism-filled lives of its characters?
5. Mary Pickford, the inspiration for Snow White and one of Hollywood’s first super stars was a huge miniature golf fan and owned her own truly amazing course in L.A. She was also known as California “Customer #1.” as the first on the West Coast to take delivery of what famous vehicle?

Bonus: Which of the following cars did she own? Fiat Jolly, 56 Thunderbird convertible, 61 Lincoln Continental?

[Answer to round 2]

Round 3: American Car Companies In Europe

1. The Quad 4 engine—the very first entirely GM-designed dual overhead cam inline-four—was only ever installed in one minivan. Name that minivan. That minivan came with a five-speed manual; Who supplied that transmission to GM?
2. Name the two-letter program code for the Graz, Austria-built first-generation Jeep Grand Cherokee, called ZJ in North America.
3. Name four American cars (i.e. sold by an American car company) built by Magna in Graz.
4. What did Ford call its early Mustangs in Europe because of a trademark issue? Which company held the trademark for the name “Mustang”?
5. In 2002, DaimlerChrysler sold its Graz, Austria-based company, which was a joint venture between Chrysler and Steyr-Daimler-Puch. What did DaimlerChrysler call this company? Which vehicle was this company formed to build in the early 1990s? Magna absorbed the company, but only after stopping production of one quirky Chrysler vehicle. This vehicle’s Toluca, Mexico output had to be assisted due to really high initial demand, but the demand quickly waned and production in Europe was no longer needed. Name that vehicle.
6. What were the names of the European-market models of the Chevrolet Volt and Bolt?
7. What was the Euro-market version of the Pontiac Solstice/Saturn Sky called? What was its predecessor? (2 pts)
8. In which city did Ford build the latest Focus RS?

[Answers to round 3]

Round 4: Name The Toy Car

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[Answers to round 4]

Round 5: Brazil

1. Back in the 1960s, Ford’s Brasil bought a Willys-Overland do Brasil plant, and re-branded the Willys Wagon and Willys Pickup as Fords. What names did Ford give those two vehicles? )
2. What European sports car was built in Brazil and sold as the Willys Interlagos Berlinette?
3. What renewable biofuel has Brazil been using extensively in its cars since 1975, and what is it called there?
4. In 1972, automotive journalist Cláudio Larangeira became the first—and hopefully last—journalist to have an automaker attempt to shoot them when a security guard saw him attempting to take pictures of a yet-to-be released model, and fired at him with his gun. What automaker was the security guard working for, and what was the model the journalist was trying to photograph?
5. The coachbuilder Sulamericana took Ford of Brazil F-100 pickup trucks and turned them into vehicles called the GB Fly. What kind of vehicle was the GB Fly?
6. The first four-door air-cooled VW sedan sold in Brazil, known as the VW 1600, had a nickname based on a famous Brazilian horror movie character. What was that name?
7. What Brazilian carmaker sells fibreglass off-roaders that look almost identical to Jeep Wranglers but are named for a Portuguese adaption of a Scandinavian mythical creature?
8. Volkswagen of Brazil and Ford of Brazil teamed up to build badge-engineered versions of the European Ford Orion. Ford called their car the Ford Verona; what was the VW version called?
9. What Brazilian carmaker built oddly but fascinatingly-styled VW-based off-roaders, vans, and later city cars, complete with their own air-cooled flat-twin engines?

[Answer to round 5]

Winners

1. Team 3: 41 points

2. Team 12, Team 14: 39 points

3. Team 4: 33.5 points

4. Team 8: 33 points

5. Team 13: 29.25 pionts

6. Team 11: 29 points

7. Team 5: 28 points

8. Team Luke Huntington: 25.5 points

9. Team 7: 18.33 points

The top scores was 41 out of 66 possible points or 62 per cent, though the average was 31.55 points. That’s roughly a 48 per cent average. Sounds about right for Jalopnik’s rigorous virtual car trivia night.

This article was originally published in April 2020.