33 Car Facts You’d be Shocked to Hear

Here at Junk Car Nation, it’s no secret that we love our cars. The leather, the burning rubber from the tires, the little red tree hanging from the rear-view mirror, the tuna sandwich you realized you left in your car last week. And those are just the smells.

Driving a car utilizes all 5 senses and even a sixth if your a good driver ( ” i see dumb people – dumb people driving aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh”). Today we are not celebrating the feel of the grip of the  steering wheel or the sound of the engine as you pass an old lady in the left lane driving 40 mph (the sound of you cursing the life of that driver, and then seeing how old she was, then immediately feeling guilty also counts). No, today we are observing some statistics and facts regarding anything remotely related to cars. Just random info we think might possibly save your life one day or win you a million dollars on the final question of “Who wants be a millionaire”. You never know. You’ll thank us.

1. Four of the top five appreciating used cars had S in their names: Jaguar S Type, Volvo S40, Volvo S80, and Audi S4.

2. Overall in 2003, there were 3.7 billion hours of travel delay and 2.3 billion gallons of wasted fuel for a total cost of more than $63 billion.

3. There were approximately 6.4 million auto accidents in the United States in 2005. The financial cost of these crashes is more than $230 Billion dollars. 2.9 million people were injured and 42,636 people killed. About 115 people die every day in vehicle crashes in the United States — one death every 13 minutes. (I know, why can’t they update these stats once in awhile?)

4. The fastest production car in the world is the 257mph SSC Ultimate Aero. When it broke the world speed record, it was driven by a 71-year-old called Chuck Bigelow.

5.The fastest non-jet powered car is the wheel-driven Vesco Turbinator, which was driven by Don Vesco at 458mph on the Bonneville Salt Flats on October 18 2001.

6. The fastest car of all time is the jet-powered Thrust SSC, driven by Wing Commander Any Green, which reached speeds of 763mph on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, USA on October 15 1997.

7. The first ever land speed record was set on December 18 1898, when French race car driver reached a speed of 39.23mph in an electric car.

8. The Porsche 911 was originally designated as the ‘Porsche 901’ (901 being its internal project number). Peugeot protested on the grounds that they owned the trademark to all car names formed by three numbers with a zero in the middle. So, before production started, the new Porsche had its name changed to 911. It went on sale in 1964.

9. The Rolls Royce hood ornament is called the Spirit of Ecstacy.

10. A Rolls-Royce Phantom’s leather interior is made from 15 different hides.

11. The Bugatti Veyron takes ten seconds to stop from its top speed of 253mph.

12. The paint on a Ferrari F40 is so thin you can see the carbon fibre weave through it. More layers would have added undesirable weight.

13. Ferrari makes a maximum of 14 cars a day.

14. The first car was the three-wheeled Benz Patent Motorwagen, built in 1885.

15. The best-selling car of all time is the Toyota Corolla.

16. In 2007 Toyota became the world’s biggest car manufacturer, taking over from US giants General Motors.

17. If a car is hit by lightning its occupants will generally be safe. The Faraday effect (discovered by Michael Faraday in 1845) causes the electricity to dissipate around the car’s metal frame.

18.The engine bay of a McLaren F1 road car (pictured right) is gold plated because it’s the best material for reflecting heat.

19. Game designer Kazunori Yamauchi, the man behind Gran Turismo, helped develop the Nissan GT-R.

20. The first traffic lights were installed in Cleveland, Ohio in 1914.

21. The onboard computer in a typical modern car is more powerful than the one used to send astronauts to the moon in the 1960s and 1970s.

22. The fastest time for removing a car engine, and replacing it, is 42 seconds for a Ford Escort, on 21 November 1985.

23. Porsche is the world’s most profitable car manufacturer.

24. The world’s widest road is widely believed to be the Monumental Axis in Brazil and that it fits 160 cars side by side. This is untrue, as the road consists of two avenues with six lanes on either side; a total of twelve lanes. However, it was in the Guinness Book of Records as having the widest median of a divided highway in the world.

25. The world’s longest car is the 100 foot limousine built by Jay Ohrberg of Burbank, California. The car features a king-size waterbed and a swimming pool, complete with diving board, and a helicopter landing pad.

26. The world’s lowest street-legal car is the 19 inch-tall ‘Flatmobile’, built by Perry Watkins from Buckinghamshire. The record was previously held by Andy Saunders, whose car ‘Flat Out’ stands 21.5 inches off the ground.

27. On August 20 2004, 21 people squeezed into a Mini Cooper in Athens, Greece, setting a new world record.

28. The most expensive car sold at auction was the 1961 Ferrari 250 GT SWB California Spyder for $10,894,900.

29. In 1916, 55 per cent of the cars in the world were Model T Fords.

30. The U.S. uses about half of the world’s gasoline.

31. Traffic congestion wastes three billion gallons of gas a year.

32. U.S. aircraft used 19,704 gallons of fuel and traveled 848 billion passenger miles in June 2007 to May 2008, which works out to 43 pMPG.

33. In the 1960’s, 90% of children who lived within a mile of their school walked or biked to school. Today? Only 31% do so.