8 Interesting Facts About Cars That You Probably Didn’t Know

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Interesting Facts About Cars You May Not Know

image - closeup of headlight of classic Chevy Bel Air, red and chrome and shiny.

Most people consider cars to be the best invention to date. Cars, whether small, big, fast or slow, help us get to our destinations faster than the obsolete horse-drawn carriages. These beauties also go a long way in lightening our luggage.

Commuting is much easier since the invention of cars and the economy has also grown by leaps and bounds since then. Many car owners treasure their cars more than anything. It is always a great feeling when a person gets their first car and takes it for a spin. For most car lovers, one can never know enough about cars. So here are some interesting facts about cars that you probably didn’t know;

1. Do you know the origin of the word automobile? It is a mixture of two words, auto and mobile. The word auto was coined from French and it means ‘self’ while the English word mobile means ‘moving’.

2. The first engine powered vehicle was made in Mannheim, Germany by a person known as Karl Benz in the year 1885. 25 units of this engine were sold between the years 1888 and 1893.

3. The longest traffic jam in the world happened in the year 1980 between the cities of Paris and Lyon on the French auto route. This jam was 110 miles long. The most recent traffic snarl-up that comes close to this happened in 1993 near Hamburg, Germany and it was 100 miles long.

4. The largest fine for speeding ever paid is one million dollars. A Swedish man was caught driving at a speed of 180mph in Switzerland. Unfortunately for the Swedish man, Switzerland has no fixed speeding penalty fees. As a result, the price of a speeding ticket is usually based on the salary of the driver who is caught speeding.

5. The Austin maestro was among the first cars to be built with a talking digital dash. Actress Nicolette Mackenzie’s voice read out warnings to drivers to alert them of different situations such as low oil pressure. In other markets like Germany, the warnings were given by the male voice of Austin Rover.

6. The last car to have radio cassette players was the Ford Crown Vic. Today, most cars have switched from having CD players to iPod integrated information and entertainment systems. Cars that have cassette players are no longer being manufactured so you can no longer play your mix tapes in your car.

7. Airbags are deadly. This is why there are inbuilt safety mechanisms in most cars to determine whether a child is riding in the front seat so as to deactivate it. If such safety mechanisms were not in place, there would many more car accident fatalities than there are. In fact, even with this technology, airbags still kill one person for every 22 that are saved.

8. The left side ignition key in a Porsche is not a design feature that is meant for left-handed drivers. It is there because of tradition. In the early days during the Le Mans race, drivers would jump into their cars and turn the key with their left hands for a faster start.

This article was written by Frank Jefferson. He is a mechanical engineering student who hopes to narrow down his niche of study to automobiles. He loves blogging in his spare time and you can read some of his contributions on answersafrica.com

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