Antique & Classic Cars Blog
Friday Fun
Friday, October 19th, 2007It’s Friday, you’re working. Are you working? Ok, you’re at work. Physically. But your mind is planning your Halloween costume, wondering about dinner tonight, trying to remember what’s at the dry cleaners and how long the dog’s bladder can hold out if you grab a beer after work before his evening walk….
You need a break! Nothing serves your employer better than relaxing your brain–the whole reason they hired you–with some car trivia. If you won’t do it for yourself, do it for The Man. Here’s some movie and TV vehicles. Can ya name ‘em? We’ll start with an easy one:
1. What did Steve McQueen drive as Frank Bullitt?
2. What do the villains chasing and shooting at him drive?
3. What British drop top does Maxwell Smart drive (seen in the opening credits of Get Smart?)
4. Name the car in Vanishing Point. (Extra credit: this is not the car they actually crash at the end. Name that one)
5. Peter Fonda mans a tough set of wheels in Dirty Mary and Crazy Larry. Name it.
6. What A$# kicking American muscle car does Gary Busey share driving duties with in Gumball Rally?
6a. What’s Raul Julia pilot in Gumball?
7. Car in Back to the Future (eeeeaasy one).
8. What kind of bike did Fonzie ride (come on–this was a Friday fun from a couple weeks ago).
9. Dean Martin played Matt Helm in a short lived 1960s TV series. What’d he drive?
10. Tougher: what car was the Batmobile based on (I’m talking the real Batmobile here, the Adam West one.)
Bonus question: In what film does a scary bloke comment that the lead is driving “the last of the V8 Interceptors” ?
Answers at the bottom of this entry
——————————————————————————
Answers to the 11/2 Friday Fun: Car Trivia
1) A blue fiberglass dune buggy
2) Yes. Chitty Bang Bang, which was actually a series of cars built and raced by Count Zborowski. http://www.chittybangbang.com/chittybangbang_car.html
3) 40 inches high.
4) Pinking
5) Made of magnesium
6) A corruption of the letters G.P., for general purpose (vehicle). A character on the cartoon Popeye with the power to go anywhere including through walls.
7) The British A.C. Ace. 
False. Race engines run wide open can be hampered by back pressure, but at lower engine speeds having some back pressure helps with exhaust-gas scavenging and improves performance.
9) “Deuce” comes from the number, or more accurately year, ’32. The Beach Boys are singing about a ’32 Ford coupe (which came with a flathead V8 and is the quintessential hot rod).
10) a) 60 miles per hour. (Remember, this is average speed: the piston comes to a full stop twice with each revolution to change directions between upward and downward motion.)
5 Responses to "Friday Fun"
Without looking at the answers, and with no cheatin’. (Google)
1. What did Steve McQueen drive as Frank Bullitt?
A: A 1968 Ford Mustang.
2. What do the villains chasing and shooting at him drive?
A: A 1968 Dodge Charger.
3. What British drop top does Maxwell Smart drive (seen in the opening credits of Get Smart?)
A: A sunbeam Tiger, I think.
4. Name the car in Vanishing Point. (Extra credit: this is not the car they actually crash at the end. Name that one)
A: A dodge Challenger RT 440. A Chevy Camaro did the crash.
5. Peter Fonda mans a tough set of wheels in Dirty Mary and Crazy Larry. Name it.
A: A 1969 Charger.
6. What A$# kicking American muscle car does Gary Busey share driving duties with in Gumball Rally?
A: Don’t no. (See, I’ll admit it if I don’t know!!)
6a. What’s Raul Julia pilot in Gumball?
A: See answer to #6 (Never seen Gumball. Gonna have to rent it, I guess.)
7. Car in Back to the Future (eeeeaasy one).
A: Delorean
8. What kind of bike did Fonzie ride (come on–this was a Friday fun from a couple weeks ago).
A: Wasn’t it a BSA?
9. Dean Martin played Matt Helm in a short lived 1960s TV series. What’d he drive?
A: Ford Thunderbird. Not exactly sure which year. It had a doohicky to scroll a message across the tail lights, if I remember correctly.
10. Tougher: what car was the Batmobile based on (I’m talking the real Batmobile here, the Adam West one.)
A: A Lincoln concept car named Futura, customized by George Barris. (I hated the TV show, but I’m a big fan of George.
Bonus question: In what film does a scary bloke comment that the lead is driving “the last of the V8 Interceptors” ?
A: Mad Max.
OK, I’m gonna post this, and then will be back to report my score.
Woohoo!!! I only missed two! Not shabby if I do say so myself 
Does this give me official gearhead status??
Good work. Check out Gumball Rally. Probably my favorite car movie, though it made its impression while I was young and such movies have an advantage over those viewed for the first time through well-lived eyes.
I edited the book, Cannonball, by Brock Yates for Motorbooks and learned what happened here. Canonball Run was, of course, a real race across the country filled with great cars and stories. Yates pitched a movie idea about it but his efforts got bogged down in Hollywood rigamarole and another outfit end-ran him and put out Gumball Rally, obviously based on the real cross-country race. Yates is justifiably dismissive of Gumball, but I’m just a humble movie viewer–and especially was as a kid seeing it for the first time–and I love it.
Hearing a Cobra’s 427 side-oiler boom, watching a 600-hp Camaro blast across the desert, seeing a Ferrari Daytona fully unwound (Dan Gurney drove one in the real race)…. This movie put sights and sounds in my head that sealed my fate as a gearhead. It embedded the high-performance engine’s primal roar into the portion of my subconscious mind reserved to the most awesome and respected forces. As Busey’s character rightly proclaims, “Yeehah!”
(And yes, through the power usurped by me as the quiz creator, I dub thee Gearhead Oh-fih-see-al.)
One more comment. The movie Cannonball Run wasn’t up to Gumball in this viewer’s eyes. Too cheesy. The big disappointment in CR, though, is its failure to maximize Jackie Chan–something Hollywood has done for decades.
The reason performance car lovers love cars is because they’re thrilling–and they empower us. They allow us to move with a speed and power we lack in our pedestrian lives. Chan and other martial arts greats like Jet Li, Samo Hung, Yuen Biao, Michele Yeoh, do not share our physical limitations. The stunts he has pulled with cars, boats, planes, motorcycles, bicycles, shopping carts, ladders, saw horses–you name it–are more amazing than the most life-threatening pileup on a race track. The director of Cannonball Run should have cut Jackie loose, letting him help to design stunt sequences and show viewers something new and compelling.
Failing to utilize that extraordinary asset left CR to compete with Gumball wheel to wheel, and in that contest Gumball pulls away clean.
I plan on renting both this coming weekend. I’ll provide you my own personal reviews later.
Thanks!!
Please leave a comment
MotorMouth Kris Palmer, freelance auto writer and editor, blogs about vintage cars, the collectible auto scene and just about anything else that goes vroom.
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