These Are Your Favorite Automotive Fun Facts

Cars are such quirky characters. There’s so much to know about them, and so little time in this mortal life to absorb everything there is to know. Sigh. But enough of my early-onset winter ennui! You guys gave me some fun juicy facts to ponder, and now you’re going to hear all about them. 

I will admit, though, some of y’all put up stuff that was just plain wrong. Seek wisdom outside of the Google AI summary. I weeded those out and decided to share my favorite true entries to my question of the day: What’s Your Favorite Automotive Fun Fact? Will repeating these facts get you laid at parties? Probably not. Will they let your fellow car people know that your mom was also down with the Tylenol? Definitely. 

Kingsford Charcoal has its origins with Ford Motor Company. Early Ford cars used quite a bit of wood for wheels, dashboards, etc. Henry Ford wanted to use the scrap wood and sawdust to produce charcoal. It is a common misconception that the “-ford” in Kingsford came from Henry Ford himself, but it is just a coincidence because Lumber Entrepreneur Edward Kingsford (and first cousin to Ford) helped Henry Ford set up his lumber supply and sawmill. The history is interesting and includes Thomas Edison, the first ever charcoal briquette patent, and the birth of a town:

Ford dealerships used to give away bags of charcoal in the summer time to get people into the showrooms

From Stephen., Jimboy II, The Sequel

NHRA Top Fuel dragsters use something like 15 gallons of nitromethane for each run. It’s pumped so fast into the cylinders that the entire engine is constantly on the verge of hydrolock. If you had all that fuel in 5 gal buckets, kicking them over wouldn’t empty them as fast as the fuel pumps could.

From Aerogrp

That the Toyota GT1 exploited a loophole in the racing rules that the car had to have a certain capacity trunk, so they argued that when empty, the fuel tank had the necessary capacity to count as a trunk. Nobody wrote down that the trunk had to be accessible lol.

From Atomic

The world’s largest manufacturer of tires is LEGO.

From Paul R

Oh boy. I have a massive list of completely useless automotive facts I picked up here, there and everywhere. Some of my favourites:

Alpina uses 20 spoke wheels because it meant they didn’t have to alter the wheel designs between 4 and 5 stud lug patterns (20 is divisible by both 4 and 5)

The Dallara Stradale takes its tail lights from the Audi Q7 (4M), but instead of taking the main units it uses the auxillary units in the bumper that activate when the tailgate is opened on the Q7

Multiple Daewoo models were rejected designs for Fiat or Jaguar

The headlights for the Dodge Viper Mk1 were originally meant for the BMW Z1

The first car to have Apple CarPlay was the Ferrari FF

Ultimate Green on the Ford Focus RS Mk2 is named after BP Ultimate who were sponsoring the Focus WRC at the time

Hyundais have four dots on the steering wheel because that’s the letter H in morse code

The Lamborghini Reventón was offered with the gated manual from the Murciélago, but ALL coupé AND roadster buyers opted for the e-gear, meaning there isn’t a single factory gated manual Reventón

There’s a Nissan Juke Nismo RS that is based on the Mk4 Renault Clio RS, with the key difference being that the Juke was offered with a manual gearbox and the Clio wasn’t

The 1998 Peugeot 206 is still being produced in Iran today

The Subaru Impreza 22B takes its name from ‘555’ in hexadecimal code, a nod to the tobacco brand 555 that sponsored Colin McRae during his time at Subaru

I could go on 😀

From Loek Marcus

Once your car makes it to ~284,000 miles, it has covered the mean distance to the moon (the moon’s orbit, being elliptical, changes a bit). So, you should probably give your car a nice pat on the hood and say: “Good job.”

From semica altoid

Nissan S-Cargo is deliberately styled to resemble a snail due to the pronounciation of its name being similar to escargot. I just love when car makers sometimes make cute looking cars and not everything is about performance or practicality or luxury.

From fabey

By 1900, electric cars had market share of over 30%. Demise of electric cars in the early part of the 20th century had many, MANY, factors, and a minor but telling one is the fact that electric cars were considered feminine.

Another reason electric cars took so long to become main-stream was the invention of the nuclear submarine. Navies all across the world, especially the US Navy, were pouring tons of money into battery research for submarines in the 40’s and 50’s, only to have the nuclear submarine come along and make all of that unnecessary. Probably would have had advanced batteries decades ago otherwise.

From JBJB and Crucial Taunt

I have a few

The horse on Ferrari and Porsche badges is the same horse

The BMW badge is NOT a propeller

There are hundreds of online searches for “KN car” (really, Kia?)

On the bottom of Ford trucks, it says “Wrong Side Up”, so you know you’re screwed.

The Hyundai badge is meant to look like the buyer and seller shaking hands.

On BMW SUVs, it says whatever type it is behind the b pillar.

Racoons attacked a cybertruck thinking it was a dumpster.

On the Lamborghini LM002, there is secret storage under the seats.

From Mustangmania

It’s always been the easter egg in the last gen Chrysler 200. The center console mat (under the cupholders and shift dial) has the Detroit skyline on it…with the GM Renaissance building omitted

From Greasetank

The fixed headlights on a Lamborghini Diablo are from a Nissan 300ZX is one of my favorites. How many supercars that utilized bus taillights is another great one.

From cintocrunch1

A 1980 Countach had about the same 0-60 time as a V6 Camry does today.

From JustSomeGuyYouKnow