Car Flake Trivia Quiz

Answer: The Gran Turismo Hawk

The Hawk had a number of incarnations. There was the tastefully styled Hawk of the mid-50s, the finned monstrosity visited on the same body in the late 50s, and then there was the tastefully styled, pipe-and-slippers model that was obviously aping the very successful '58-'60 model Ford Thunderbird. Raymond Loewy, a very famous industrial designer who handled more than just automobiles, designed this model as well as the Avanti!

Answer: True

The 1949 concept Le Sabre, very advanced for its time, had a convertible top that would rise if a sensor on the surface of the car detected rainfall. The original Mustang and Cougar were two-seaters. The Probe concept was the basis for three models: The European Sierra, the first domestic production Ford Probe and the second. Both of the latter cars were mechanically based on the Japanese Mazda MX-6.

The Sting Ray was originally designed to be a racer, but GM resigned from official racing, so....

Answer: Gene Bordinat

Bordinat was responsible for the Mustang and Cougar concept cars. Harley Earl was chief stylist for GM in the late forties and fifties. Bill Mitchell, the sixties and seventies. Virgil Exner was the universally ridiculed chief stylist for Chrysler during the 50s, 60s and 70s.

He was known among industry types as "Virgil Excess" for his wild fin-and-chrome dependent designs of the late 50s and early 60s.

Answer: Zora Arkus-Duntov

Duntov oversaw the creation and development of the Sting Ray, and improved the original Corvette to the point that it was taken seriously as a sports car. Jack Brabham, Bruce McClaren and Carroll Shelby were all former race car drivers that became small-output carbuilders.

Answer: The Citročn DS and ID models.

This car also had its tail lights mounted on the roof, right above the rear window and a _one spoke_ steering wheel! For all its oddness, it was probably the most comfortable car on Earth, at one time!

Answer: True

Like the car that bore his name, poor Edsel was canceled prematurely, dying rather young in the 1940s while president of Ford Motor Company. His father, who had retired, took over for him until Edsel's son, Henry II, could take over after returning from World War II. Edsel was responsible for the original Lincoln Continental.

Answer: Oakland

GM has the distinction of being the only motor car company whose every division was actually named after a person at one time: There really was a Louis Chevrolet, a David Buick, a R. E. Olds, a Chief Pontiac and an Antoine De La Mothe Cadillac, founder of the city of Detroit.

Answer: 9

Baffled? Though Ford only designates eight for the Mark, there were actually TWO Continental Mark IIIs! During the 1958-60 model stretch, there was a model, essentially a Lincoln Premier/Capri with a different roof that had an odd, reversed backlite with a retractable center section, that was given the designation Mark III at the time.

However, when Ford revived the Continental Mark model in the 70s, the late 50s' Mark III was completely forgotten, and a new Mark III was debuted.

Answer: The Corsa

Though the problem that Ralph Nader pursued in "Unsafe At Any Speed", that of Corvairs overturning because of their "swing-axle" suspension setup, was remedied in the 1963 model year, Nader brought out his book in 1966, three years after it was solved!

The car was considered a performance bargain by most automotive journalists in its Monza and Corsa iterations, bringing comparisons with the Porsche 356 and 911, whose rear-engined configuration it shared.

Though the top of the line Spyder was superceded by the Corsa, the Monza was still produced until the Corvair's demise in 1969.

Answer: One - Morgan

Sadly enough, due to an awful, empirically derived reputation for unreliable cars garnered through years of customers suffering from shorted out Lucas electrical systems, stalling engines and leaking roofs, not to mention gosh-awful general quality control, just about every familiar British automaker has either gone out of business or been bought up by a foreign concern. Morgan, maker of the famous trike roadster and the Plus 4, plus the new Aero 8, is now the only one left. TVR, until recently the only 'other' British car company that stayed Brit, unfortunately just succumbed to a takeover by a Russian billionaire.

MG and Rover are no more, having died in 2005. AC, Fairchild, Austin, Triumph and the Rootes Group have been dead for some time now. Aston Martin, Jaguar and Land Rover are owned by Ford; Bentley and Rolls Royce are owned by Volkswagen and BMW, respectively! GM even had Lotus for a while, but, according to one source, sold it in 1993! GM also has a brand called Vauxhall in England, a nameplate that has existed there for some time under their auspices.

There may be some other obscure, old, independent automotive companies still bopping around Britain besides Morgan, but I haven't heard hide nor hair of them yet.

Scary, isn't it?

Answer: The Lancer

The Lancer lasted for exactly one year, 1961-1962, dying a quick, unlamented death. Later in the early 60s, the original Valiant would prove so popular that the 1962 and '63 Plymouth Fury and especially the full-size Dodge Dart had styling cues that were obviously taken from it.

The succeeding, bland Valiant model, in 1964, was the basis for the forlorn Plymouth Barracuda, a car that never did find a solid popularity base. This model initially featured an enormous rear window that was supposed to give the car a sleek appearance. It didn't. The Barracuda eventually ended up looking like an Iso Grifo that could have had four doors, a 61-64 Corvair coupe, and an un-sculpted 64-66 Mustang.

Answer: The Dart, made by both Dodge and Daimler

The Daimler Dart, also known as the SP-250, was a car that was so ugly, it was gorgeous! It looked for all the world, like the marriage of the front end of a Citročn ID/DS model and the rear end of a 1957 Chevy, and believe it or not, it worked! Another unique feature of the Dart/SP-250 was the razor thin V-8 that was squeezed into its engine bay. The windshield was almost vertical.

Daimler was not affiliated with Daimler-Benz of Germany, but with British Jaguar. In fact, the medium-sized, four door Daimler "saloons" were essentially Jaguar sedans with different grilles. There was an awful lot of badge-engineering in Britain! Daimler was also a well known maker of "veddy" stately limousines, used largely by the royals, parliament and funeral parlors. Jaguar is giving serious consideration to reviving the marque's name in a super-luxury car range.

Our Dart, alas, was Chrysler Corporation's reliable little cash cow for 16 years, offering bulletproof and apparently very trustworthy service, unlike other Chrysler products before Lee Iacocca! The name was also applied, for a time, to full-sized Dodges in the very early 60s.

Answer: The Travelall

Quite a popular model, it was made during the early 60s to mid-seventies, only changing its styling once, as far as I know! International Harvester went out of business in 1985, bought out by the Case Corporation.

Answer: The Sunbeam Tiger

This was a very popular model in the 60s, due to its low cost and good straight-line performance. This car was basically the tiny Sunbeam Alpine, a car that once looked like a paper airplane with wheels, with a Ford Mustang 260 cu. in. V-8 somehow stuffed into it. It was manufactured by the Rootes group.

The Cobra, oddly enough, had a much larger engine eventually put into it in 1967 when it became the Cobra 427, up from 289!

Answer: Its chassis and frame were made out of wood

The Marcos GT had a chassis and frame made entirely out of wood. Sheesh! What if it overheated?