Quiz Archive

About # 178 April 1st

Surely nobody got fooled by last weeks quiz, the snag of course being that the assembled tin ware was not one car, but two. In fact although the background looks the same, the pictures were taken at a distance of several hundred miles. One near Broken Hill in New South Wales, the other near Hawker in South Australia. So this time we didn’t expect you to come up with an identification of the car(s), although we think that one correspondent came very close by identifying the remains as a 1977 Chevrolet Vega of which “legend has it that the bodies were made of compressed rust.” But, not unexpected, the majority of stories came from Australia. We especially liked Jon Baker’s description of a “rack and ruin” steering, and “only the original sump plug seems missing”. But the winner is Martin Frosh from Fitzroy Falls, NSW with his suggestion of a “disguised prototype put together by a consortium of Tatra, Aston Martin and General Motors Holden (Australia), to test a revolutionary 7 cylinder engine, intended to run on a mixture of cigarette ash and weed killer, on diesel principles.” See “read more” for his full story. Congratulations Martin, the optimistic size M is on its way! \n This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it '>(RB) “I am quite surprised that you have difficulty with this one, and I hope that whoever is shown as handling these remains, remains in good health. First, the location; the Woomera Firing range covers many square miles of useless territory, and has been used for fifty years, and to this day, for various kinds of rocket and nuclear testing. Parts are clearly marked, in plain English as “no-go” zones, where residual radiation and explosive material are serious hazards, and will remain so for another 186 years. Quite how you managed to reach the site of this well known remnant is a mystery; I suggest urgently that all persons involved should immediately report to the nearest nuclear medicine establishment for a Geiger counter test; in the meantime may I suggest that lead clothing, including underpants, should be acquired and worn 24/7.
Do not be mislead by apparent recognition points for the tinware remaining; it may seem to stem from a mid-thirties “ordinary” American, and that was part of the original plot to disguise what was really going on. In fact these are photographs of a well disguised prototype put together by a consortium of Tatra, Aston Martin and General Motors Holden (Australia), to test a revolutionary 7 cylinder engine, intended to run on a mixture of cigarette ash and weed killer, on diesel principles. An unusual feature of the engine configuration was that horizontally opposed cylinders 1,3,5 and 7 were of different capacities to the other three. Valve and ignition arrangements were quite different for each type of cylinder, utilising both a distributor and magnetos.
Long term testing was carried out at Woomera due to its remoteness, and for secrecy. Initially the engine was tested on a purpose built chassis only, but in response to heat and fly problems, eventually an old body was retrieved from the target range ? where a model town for destruction had been built for other purposes ? to provide some protection for the test drivers. As the result of the successful testing program, pre production planning was well underway, but the entire project failed following legal action by the patent holder for the ash/weedkiller fuel mixture.
(I am really surprised that you are seemingly unaware of this important development, more fully described in my book ?GREAT AUSTRALIAN INVENTIONS THAT ROCKED THE WORLD - Lunatic Press ? 2006).”

Friday, 07 April 2006