Incredible Car Trivia That Puts Things Into Perspective
You may know who made the first car but do you know how many parts there are in a car? Don't worry if you don't! This post is all about car facts. Not raw, senseless facts that you cannot fathom, no. In this listicle, we will help you visualize some of the weirdest car facts and stats.
Toyota Sells Four Corollas Every Minute
The Toyota Corolla is the best-selling car of all time. Toyota has sold more than 46 million of these cars over the nameplate's production run. But what do 46 million cars look like? Let's break that down to understand it better.
According to Toyota Global, 5,850 Corollas are sold every single day. That means Toyota is averaging a Corolla sale every 15 seconds, with 4 people driving off the showroom floor with a brand new Corolla every minute.
There Are as Many Cars in the World as There Are Cattle
Here's an interesting car fact that also involves cattle! We now have more vehicles than domestic cows in the world.
As of 2020, there are around 1 billion domestic cattle all around the world. Cars? We have an estimated 1.44 billion vehicles driving around the roads of the planet. That speaks of how much we want to move around compared to how much beef we have to eat.
An F1 Car Costs More Than a Private Jet
Ever heard of the little cars that drivers race around circuits all around the world? Those weird ones with no roof or doors, or anything? They pretty much look like a driver is strapped to an engine.
These cars are the absolute epitome of automotive engineering and cost a fortune to make. How much? Well, the exact prices are not revealed but estimates put the worth of one of these at $12.2 million. For reference, a Honda Jet will cost you just under $5 million.
There is a Car That can Go 0-300mph in 4 Seconds
You might be excited to own a Dodge Demon or Tesla Model S Plaid because those things accelerate crazy fast, right? Well, they are nothing compared to the fastest accelerating cars. There are race cars, called Top Fuel Dragsters, which can accelerate from 0 to 300mph+ in under 4 seconds.
The engines of these cars produce 10,000hp and the forces acting on the internals of the engines are of such monstrous proportions that an engine typically lasts one run. What's even crazier is the fact that specialized mechanics rebuild the engine at the race venue in under 40 minutes.
An F1 Driver Earns More Than 1,000 US Citizens
Remember the crazy expensive cars we just talked about? Well, the people who drive them earn a crazy lot of money. By a lot, I mean more than we, commoners, can ever begin to imagine.
Lewis Hamilton, the lead driver of the Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 team, who drives this car, has a base salary of $55 million. For reference, the average income of an American citizen is around $52,000. That works out to be 1,059 times the income of an average American. That's still not counting the estimated $7 million he'll earn in bonuses for winning races this season.
There's a Toyota that Cleans the Air as it Drives
Toyota has a fuel cell electric vehicle called the Mirai. It works by combining hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity that powers the motors to move the wheels.
This setup, obviously, does not produce any emissions and the by-product of this process is just water. What's amazing is that it uses a filter to screen out any particle over 3 microns in size from the atmospheric air that it takes in to extract oxygen. The gauge cluster even shows how much air the car has cleaned so far.
The Most Expensive Car Ever Was Sold For $44 Million
If you think a Ferrari Pininfarina Battista is too expensive, wait till you know about the price of this 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO. It made headlines for being the most expensive car to be sold ever in 2017.
It was bought by British car collector Gregor Fisken for $44 million from Washington DC-based lawyer Bernard Carl. For reference, you can buy a 5-bed apartment in the world's highest building, Burj Khalifa, for just $10 million. How can this car, or any car for that matter, be worth FOURTY FOUR MILLION DOLLARS?
Volkswagen is the Parent Company of 12 Car Brands
It might not make you feel very good but many of the parts in your Audi S8 might also be present in the Volkswagen Passat. Or to feel good, you can consider that many of your car's parts are shared by a Bentley.
That is because German conglomerate Volkswagen Group owns ŠKODA, SEAT, CUPRA, Audi, Lamborghini, Bentley, Porsche, and motorcycle brand Ducati. They also owned Bugatti up until a few weeks back.
The First Hybrid Car was Made 60 Years Before the Seatbelt Was Invented
If you think that the Toyota Prius that debuted in 1999 was the first hybrid car, you could not be more wrong. The first hybrid car was designed by the founder of the sports car brand Porsche, Ferdinand Porsche.
The Lohner-Porsche Mixte was made in 1899 and was so well received by the public that Porsche made 300 examples of it. 300 was a pretty big number for 1899. For comparison, the modern three-point seatbelt we are all used to today was developed by Volvo engineer Nils Bohlin in 1959.
Lamborghini was Originally a Tractor Company
Who does not like the classic roar of a Lamborghini V12? How about the fact that this supercar company started as a tractor maker? Ferruccio Lamborghini, the man who founded Lamborghini Tractor Company was a customer of Ferrari, that's where it started.
In 1963, Ferruccio went to Enzo Ferrari to complain about the many faults in his cars, aka Ferraris. Enzo reportedly made fun of Ferruccio, saying that a tractor manufacturer has no business telling him how to make cars. Ferruccio being an honorable Italian took that as a challenge and ended up making Ferrari's archrival, Automobili Lamborghini.
Jaguar and Land Rover are Not Owned by a Brit
Jaguar and Land Rover are British brands, right? Well, partially! It was 2008 when these two brands were struggling against the worst odds and a man from India came forward as the savior, Ratan Tata.
Ratan was the chief executive of Tata Sons, one of the biggest Indian companies, at that time. Ratan purchased Land Rover and Jaguar in 2008 and combined them into Jaguar Land Rover Limited in 2013.
SSC Tuatara is Not the Fastest Production Car in the World
The Tuatara, a car made by SSC North America was recently claimed to be the fastest car in the world with a top speed of 316.7mph. But after the backlash from people who dissected their claimed top speed run, SSC North America has finally acknowledged that their record was not true.
That means the fastest production car in the world is still the Bugatti Chiron Super Sport. This 1,600hp street-legal freak of a car can rip a hole through time at 304mph, thanks to the gigantic 8.0 liter quad-turbocharged W-16 engine.
You Can Fence a Football Field Five Times with the Wires in an Average Car
Modern cars depend on electronics for a lot of things. Even the accelerator pedal has no direct mechanical contact with the throttle body. An electric wire carries signals from the potentiometer in the gas pedal to the throttle body. That's just one example.
To maintain all the electric connections in a modern car, a lot of wiring is needed. An average of 5,000 feet of wire is used in a car. That is enough wire to go around the entire perimeter of a football field 5 times.
An Average Car has More Parts than all Cities, Towns, and Villages in the US Combined
Cars are made up of a lot of parts, but how many to be exact? Well, that varies from car to car but an average figure for the number of parts in a car stands at 30,000.
To better understand that number, consider this; there are 19,495 cities, towns, and villages combined in the US. These even include the ones with a population under 5,000. So, if you disassemble a car and send one part to every human settlement in the US, you'd still have, like, half a car.
A Car's Engine Revs 1 Billion Times in its Lifetime
The engine in your car is constantly revving when it is turned on. No matter if it is cruising, racing, or just idling, the engine is in constant motion. What we fail to appreciate is how much an engine actually revs.
If we assume that a car is driven at 70mph for the entirety of its 200,000 miles age, a car's engine will go through more than 1 billion revolutions over the course of its existence.
Only 20% of the Energy in Gasoline Powers the Car
No process in the universe that includes converting energy from one form to another is 100% efficient. You will always lose some of the energy in the conversion process. However, gas-powered cars have ridiculously low efficiency.
It is true that gas engines can be made to have up to 50% thermal efficiency but normal road car engines can hardly top 25%. That, added to the fact that up to 20% of the energy is lost between the engine and the wheels, means only 20% of the chemical energy in the gas you fill in your car actually moves it, the rest is lost.
The Bugatti Chiron's Engine Can Power 55 Homes at Peak Load
Remember the Chiron, the four-wheeled piece of automotive engineering famous for ripping holes through time at staggering speeds? The engine that makes this feat possible for this machine is insanely powerful.
The W16 motor in this car spits out a formidable 1,500hp. Let's think of it this way: 1500hp equals 1,100 kilowatts and the average load energy load of a typical residence is 20kw, with all the appliances turned on. That means you can power more than 50 homes by mating a powerful enough generator to the W16 of a Chiron.
An F1 Car Generate Enough Aerodynamic Downforce to Drive Upside Down in Tunnel
F1 cars are very lightweight. The weight limit is 743 kg. To make sure that such a lightweight car stays glued to the track when cornering at 100mph, engineers use downforce. The car has a lot of surfaces that are designed to produce a force on the car. The principle is the same as in airplanes, but instead of lifting the car up, downforce pushes it down.
An F1 car can produce 750kgs of downforce at 100mph. This means that if you drive an F1 car upside down in a tunnel at 100mph, it can support its own load with the help of downforce.
There is a 1966 Volvo With 3,000,000 Miles on the Odometer
For most of us, the age of a car is 100,000 miles, 200,000 if it's a resilient Japanese car. That all pales in comparison to the most mileage a car has covered in one lifetime. A man named Irvin Gordon has a 1966 Volvo with more than 3,000,000 miles on the odometer.
As for the tips for making a car last long, Irvin said that he changed the engine oil every 3,000 miles and transmission oil every 25,000 miles. What's the most astonishing thing about Irvin's record-holding Volvo is that its stock clutch lasted 450,000 miles. The average life of a clutch is hardly 50,000 miles.
The First Mass-Produced Car Was the Ford Model T
When cars appeared as a consumer product at the start of the 20th century, they were only made on order. Typically, a car company would only sell the chassis and engine and the buyer had to commission a coach maker to build the body.
It was not until 1908 that Henry Ford invented the assembly line and started mass-producing cars for the general public. The first car to roll out of the assembly line was the Ford Model T.
We are Making More than 78 Million Cars Every Year
Remember how we have more than 1.44 billion cars driving around the roads worldwide? Well, our production rate is equally astonishing. In 2020, 78 million new cars were made around the world.
Considering that more or less 2,400 lbs of metal are used to make an average car, 187 billion lbs of metal are used to make cars every year. Put together, all that steel will make a cube with each side measuring in at 735 feet.
The First Mass-Produced 4-Wheel-Drive Car was Jeep
It was the early 1940s when the US army realized they need a vehicle that can drive on any type of terrain. The product of that was Willy's Jeep of 1940. The initial purpose of this car was military use but it opened the path for generations of utilitarian vehicles.
The Willy's Jeep was such an amazing piece of machinery that you can still find these in working conditions, still conquering formidable terrains.
The Characteristic NEW CAR Smell is Made of 50 Chemicals
Everyone likes the smell of a new car, but it is not something to enjoy, rather one to stay away from. According to a recent study, the smell of a new car is a result of the volatile chemicals used in the production of the interior.
These consist of brominated flame retardants, chromium, and lead. All these substances are harmful to health and car manufacturers are looking for ways to eliminate this smell from new cars.
There's a Car With its Engine Sound Tuned by Yamaha
The LFA is a Japanese supercar made by Toyota's brand Lexus. There are a lot of cool things about this car, but the sickest aspect of this machine is the sound it makes.
Toyota hired people from Yamaha to tune the car to have a perfect sound. As a matter of fact, it is the only production car that sounds like an F1 car. The sound is channeled through special structures and echoed inside the cockpit to give the driver an original feel of the engine as they drive.
The Most Expensive New Production Car Was Purchased by Ronaldo
When Bugatti revealed the La Voiture Noire (Black Car) at the Geneva International Motor Show in March 2019, it was branded the most good-looking car in the world, and it obviously had a price tag to match that.
Soccer player Christiano Ronaldo bought one of these last year. Ronaldo, who has a net worth of $500 million, paid a hefty sum of $10 million to add this car to his collection.
Bugatti was Recently Bought by an EV STARTUP
Remember we mentioned that Bugatti is no longer owned by Volkswagen? That's because Rimac Automobili, a 2009 EV startup from Croatia, has acquired a 55% stake in Bugatti. VW still owns the remaining 45% through Porsche, but Rimac is in control now.
Rimac has purchased this prestigious company to use the Bugatti name that's synonymous with speed. Moreover, this deal will give Porsche access to the EV research of Rimac and Rimac will have access to the superior engineering expertise of Porsche.
Most Lamborghinis are Named After Bulls
The founder of Automobili Lamborghini, Ferruccio Lamborghini, was inspired by his friend Don Eduardo Miura and his bulls. So, when he stepped into the supercar game, he wanted to pay tribute to the bulls by naming the cars after them.
The Miura, Huracan, and Aventador models are all named after bulls. The Espada was named after a famous bullfighter. The Urraco (meant to be a smaller model) literally means 'small bull.' Sesto Elemento, meaning the sixth element, is an anomaly - but that's a cool name nonetheless.
China has 10 Million More Cars Than the US
America historically had the most cars in the world but that changed in 2009 when it was surpassed by China. There are currently 286.9 million cars in the US and 297 million in China.
That's not a fair comparison though. The population of the US is 329.5 million, meaning there is a car for every 1.15 people in the US. China is home to 1.4 billion people, hence there is a car for every 4.7 people.
The Fastest a Car has Ever Gone is 763mph
This is the fastest car to ever be, except that it rides on skinny billet aluminum wheels with no tires and is powered by a jet engine. This is the Thrust SSC, a car made with the aim to go above 1000mph.
So far, this jet-engine powered car has managed to reach 763 mph in the Black Rock Desert. That location was selected because it's the only surface on the globe straight and flat enough for this absurdity. The team behind this thing is planning to strap an afterburner and a couple of rockets in the rear to make it go beyond 1000mph.
There is Currently a Passenger Car in Outer Space
What do you do if you have a car company and a space exploration company? You obviously put a car on a rocket and send it right to Mars. Oh, and do not forget to put a mannequin in the driving seat to freak out any aliens.
The Tesla Roadster that Elon Musk sent to Mars was used as a dummy payload for the Falcon Heavy Rocket. It, however, strayed from the path. As of now, it is 17.3 million miles from the Red Planet, moving at 20,189 mph. That makes it the fastest production car, technically.
80% of Your Car Might Have Been Another Car in the Past
Cars are made of a variety of different materials. They have everything from metal to fabric and everything in between. The good thing about cars is that as much as 80% of all the materials used in a car are recyclable.
That means, your brand new Mercedes might have been a VW Beetle back in the day or a Lamborghini's engine might contain aluminum from a former Corolla. However, it is good for the planet and we should recycle as much as possible.
Most of the Cars in the World are White
A red Ferrari is the dream car for a lot of people, but what most people prefer is a plain white car. Around 29% of all the cars sold in the world are white. That is followed, in order, by black, grey, and silver.
White is the most preferred color because white cars tend to have more resale value and white color does not fade as much as others due to the action of sunlight and other environmental factors.
The Beetle Was Developed on Hitler's Orders
When Adolf Hitler realized that Americans have a lot of cars, he wanted to make that possible for Germans too. He commissioned Ferdinand Porsche to develop a car for the average German.
The result was Volkswagen (people's car) Beetle. Many decades later, the Beetle is still considered an icon of the 1930s to 1960s. It is an affordable, reliable, and practical car that made personal mobility possible for a lot of people.
The World's Cheapest Car Costs $2,750
Ratan Tata, the same guy who owns Jaguar Land Rover Limited started what can be called the most ambitious affordable car project of the world in 2008. The aim was to make a car that would cost 100,000 ($1,600) Indian Rupees.
That turned out to be too ambitious, and the car debuted with a starting price of 200,000 INR ($2,700). Since cost-saving is the theme of this car, it comes with a tiny 2-cylinder engine, three lug nuts on a wheel, and very limited safety features. But you can only complain so much about a sub $3,000 car.
Cars Produce 75% of Carbon Monoxide
The combustion process that makes a car's engine work produces carbon dioxide as a by-product. While that gas is a huge environmental concern on its own, what's even more dangerous is carbon monoxide; another by-product of the process.
It is estimated that 75% of all carbon monoxide produced by the US comes from cars. This gas is poisonous and can even be fatal. If you run a car engine for too long in a closed space, the carbon monoxide levels can get lethal. I'm not sure if you'd known this but Frank Underwood from House of Cards definitely did!
Dubai Has the World's Fastest Police Cars
Dubai is known for a lot of crazy things but what's the most amazing of them is the fact that cops in this city don't drive an average car. Instead, they have the fastest sports cars to chase criminals.
The police have all the famous sports cars in their fleet from the Lamborghini Aventador to Audi R8. They even have a Bugatti Chiron in their use. So if you are in Dubai, be sure to check the car of the cops before deciding to run from them.
A Car is Made for Every Two Babies Born Every Day
We are making new cars at a staggering rate. Every single day, 165,000 cars roll out off the assembly lines of automakers all over the world. But, how many cars are 165,000? Well, here's some perspective.
The total number of babies born in the world every day is 385,000 per day. That means, for every two babies that come into the world, one car is made.
Ferrari Manages to Crank Out Just 14 Cars a Day
We've talked about how Toyota sells a Corolla every 15 seconds and how we are making 78 million cars a year, but how about the top-tier car makers? Out of the 165,000 cars made a day, just 14 are Ferraris.
It's not because Ferrari cannot make more cars. It is because, in order to keep the value of the cars high, they have to keep the supply low so that people are forced to pay the premium price. That's Economics 101!
BMW South Africa Once Offered Flame Throwers
In the late 1990s, carjackings got so common in South Africa that BMW had to resort to military-grade weapons. For $600, you could have your car fitted with flamethrowers on both sides.
If someone's about to rob you, all you need to do is to press a button from inside the car and it will roast the thug into barbecue right then and there, no questions asked.
You are More Likely to Die in a Car Crash Than From a Snake Bite
According to the National Safety Council, if you are involved in a car accident, there is a 1 in 107 chance that you'll not make out of it alive. Those are not very good odds, but do you know they are very, very worse than surviving a snake bite?
The chances of dying of snakebite, in the US, are next to zero, thanks to the excellent healthcare and availability of antivenoms. Each year 7-8,000 cases of snake bites are reported and the probability of dying if you are bit by a snake is one in 50 million.
