We’ve all been there. Standing in a small circle at a cocktail party while your peers discuss the coolest new cars and latest automotive trends. It’s your turn to finally drop some serious knowledge
on your friend group. Jerry
, the car ownership super app
, delivers fun facts about cars—icebreakers that are sure to strike up some good conversation.Fun facts about cars: International
Did you know that Dubai police have the fastest police car? An Audi R8 and Lamborghini Aventador
decorate The Dubai Police Department’s fleet, which includes 14 supercars. Coming in at 253 mph, the Bugatti Veyron is tricked out with a light bar on top and painted with the department’s official green and white colors. It may be hard to believe, but Porsche’s first car was actually electric. According to MotorBiscuit
, BBC reported that “In 1898, 22-year-old Ferdinand Porsche’s first car design was the Egger-Lohner electric vehicle C.2 Phaeton model, nicknamed the P1.” The P1 had a 49-mile driving range and could go up to 21 mph. Since the young engineer moved on to different projects, the vehicle remained in an Austrian shed until 2014.
No one likes to be pulled over for a speeding ticket, but what if the ticket costs you $1 million? Swiss police pulled over a Swedish man in 2010 and gave him a million-dollar speeding fine. The man was seen driving his Mercedes SLS AMG almost three times the local speed limit at 186 mph.
“In Switzerland, speeding fines are based on driver income and how much the speed limit is exceeded,” according to MotorBiscuit. The 570-hp Mercedes has a top speed of 196 mph and actually took a third of a mile to come to a complete stop.
If you live in South Africa, you can add flamethrowers to your car. During the ‘90s violent crime was an epidemic in South Africa, particularly in Johannesburg (the car jacking capital of the world). The Blaster aka BMW Flamethrower was developed by Charl Fourie and is able to be mounted on the sides of vehicles.
MORE: The Longest Car in the World Just Got a New Look
Fun facts about cars: U.S.
It’s hard to imagine a massive halt in the auto industry, but U.S. auto production nearly stopped entirely during World War II.
More than 3 million cars were produced in 1941, but during World War II, only 139 more vehicles were manufactured. Prominent carmakers like Ford and Chrysler were busy assembling engines for airplanes, fuselage, tanks, and guns for the war.
Who doesn’t love a quirky mid-century car? Unfortunately, ones that were American-made posed quite a big safety issue.
According to MotorBiscuit, “Following World War II, cars made in the U.S. became bigger, heavier, and fancier.” But that doesn’t mean their safety and reliability improved. If you drove a car off the lot in the mid-’60s, you were looking at an average of 24 defects in your new vehicle.
What percent of Americans do you think can actually drive a stick shift? 18%. It seems as though most U.S. citizens aren’t interested in manual transmissions anymore. Maybe that’s why only 5% of cars sold in America are manual; is it even worth it to learn how?
The record for the best-selling car in history used to be the Model-T. Over 15 million units were sold during its run from 1908 to 1927. In 1972, the Volkswagen Beetle surpassed it, only to be beaten out by the Toyota Corolla which has now sold over 50 million autos.
Fun facts about car parts
The current world record to remove and replace an automobile engine is 42 seconds. According to MotorBiscuit, “On November 21, 1985, five Royal British Marines removed and replaced the engine of a Ford Escort in a mere 42 seconds.”
Apparently, the men practiced their routine for two weeks. How easy the Ford Escort’s engine is to remove and replace is still questionable.
If you thought 8 million lines of code written for an F-35 fighter jet was a lot, think again. We never would have guessed that the Ford F150 is programmed with over 150 million lines of code. Most of it is written in proprietary computer languages. Maybe that’s why the F150 is a top-tier performer in every category of its class.
Did you know that the man who invented cruise control was blind? When he was 5 years old, Ralph Teetor lost his vision. “The mechanical engineer was inspired to invent cruise control, or “Speedostat” as it was originally trademarked, after riding with his lawyer,” MotorBiscuit tells us.
Teetor observed the lawyer speeding up when listening and slowing down when talking. Because the unstable motion bothered Teetor, he used magnets and springs to design a device to control the speed of a car.
Until 1973, whale oil (that’s right, whale oil) was used in the transmission of some motor vehicles. Sperm whale oil was an ingredient used by the auto industry in automatic transmission fluid. In fact, General Motors utilized the oil from World War II until 1973 when the Endangered Species Act banned its use.
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