Diesel Engines
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50 free Diesel Engines trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The diesel engine began as one engineer's attempt to beat the wasteful steam engine, and it ended up moving most of the world's freight. It has no spark plugs, it thrives on fuels a petrol engine would choke on, and its inventor's own story ends in an unsolved mystery at sea. This quiz covers the whole subject: how a diesel actually works, the people and companies that developed it, the fuels and exhaust-cleaning systems that keep it legal, and the locomotives, ships, tanks, record cars and airships that have run on it. You will also meet a scandal or two and some trucker slang along the way. It is written for mechanics, truck and tractor people, engineering students and anyone who has ever asked what makes a diesel different. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you can play straight through or print the questions for a quiz night.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which European capital was Rudolf Diesel, the diesel engine's German inventor, born to Bavarian parents?
Paris
Paris was home because his father, a bookbinder from Bavaria, had settled there to make leather goods. The family was deported to England when the Franco-Prussian War broke out.
Q 02Which German airship crossed the Atlantic on four Daimler-Benz diesel engines, each with sixteen cylinders?
Hindenburg
Hindenburg carried each diesel in its own engine car outside the hull, where a mechanic stood watch at all times to carry out orders sent from the control car.
Q 03Which American beer baron bought the rights to build Rudolf Diesel's engines in the United States?
Adolphus Busch
Adolphus Busch, co-founder of Anheuser-Busch, set up the Diesel Motor Company to assemble the engines in America, having licensed the rights for the US and Canada in 1897.
Q 04Which carmaker was caught in 2015 using hidden software to cheat American emissions tests on its diesel cars?
Volkswagen
Volkswagen fitted the software to about 11 million cars worldwide and later pleaded guilty to criminal charges, in a scandal that was soon nicknamed Dieselgate.
Q 05A small diesel engine shown at a world's fair in 1900 ran unnoticed on which plant-based fuel?
Peanut oil
Peanut oil was tried at the French government's suggestion, and Rudolf Diesel wrote that the engine worked so well on it that very few people were aware of the switch.
Q 06The world's largest reciprocating engine, the Wärtsilä-Sulzer RTA96-C diesel, was built to drive which vessels?
Container ships
Container ships get the fourteen-cylinder version, which stands 13.5 metres high, is more than 26 metres long and weighs over 2,300 tonnes.
Q 07What ignites the fuel inside a diesel engine, which unlike a petrol engine has no spark plugs?
Hot compressed air
Hot compressed air does it: squeezing the air in the cylinder raises its temperature until the injected fuel ignites, which is why engineers call the diesel a compression-ignition engine.
Q 08Which tank, the most-produced of the Second World War, was powered by a V12 diesel engine?
T-34
The T-34 ran on diesel fuel that was less flammable than petrol; earlier Soviet tanks with petrol engines had often burst into flames when hit.
Q 09In which famous American race did an early Cummins diesel car run the whole way without a single pit stop?
Indianapolis 500
The Indianapolis 500 entry of 1931 was a Duesenberg fitted with an 85-horsepower marine diesel, and it finished the race on a single tank of fuel at an average of 86 mph.
Q 10Which carmaker's R10 TDI became the first diesel-powered car to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans?
Audi
Audi won with the R10 in 2006, about six months after unveiling the car, and it went on to take three Le Mans victories in all.
Q 11In which Belgian port did Rudolf Diesel board the steamer Dresden on the night he vanished at sea?
Antwerp
Antwerp was the start of an overnight crossing to a business meeting in London; by morning his cabin was empty, and his hat and folded overcoat lay beneath the afterdeck rail.
Q 12The first 170 examples of the Mercedes-Benz 260 D, the pioneering production diesel car, served only as what?
Taxicabs
Taxicabs made up that whole first batch, built as landaulets in 1936 and 1937; the car's four-cylinder engine produced just 45 bhp.
Q 13Which pencil-shaped device in a car's diesel engine helps it to start in cold weather?
Glow plug
Glow plugs are mostly fitted to smaller engines; larger heavy-duty diesels use flame-start systems instead.
Q 21Which German engineer's name is given to the spark-ignition counterpart of the Diesel cycle?
Nicolaus Otto
Nicolaus Otto built the first working four-stroke engine, a stationary machine that burned gas rather than liquid fuel.
Q 22Carl von Linde, the Munich professor who gave Rudolf Diesel his first job, made his name in which technology?
Refrigeration
Refrigeration made Linde's fortune, and the young Diesel began his career helping him build an ice plant before running one of his research departments.
Q 23Which exhaust-driven device, patented by Swiss engineer Alfred Büchi, forces extra air into a diesel engine?
Turbocharger
Q 14Which compound makes up about a third of the diesel exhaust fluid sold as AdBlue, the rest being water?
Urea
Urea breaks down into ammonia in the hot exhaust, and a catalyst then uses it to turn smog-forming nitrogen oxides into plain nitrogen and water.
Q 15The first commercial diesel engine went to work in 1898 at a Bavarian factory making which product?
Matches
Matches were the business of the Kempten plant where the engine was installed, in the same year that Rudolf Diesel became a millionaire.
Q 16Which Dutch-devised device let late-war U-boats run their diesel engines just below the surface?
Snorkel
The snorkel was at first viewed by the German navy only as a way to bring fresh air aboard; it saw no need to run the diesels under water.
Q 17What do truckers call the compression-release retarder that makes a slowing diesel rig growl loudly?
Jake brake
The Jake brake is named after Jacobs, its first maker, and its jackhammer-like bark has led many towns in the United States, Canada and Australia to ban it within their limits.
Q 18Germany's first fast diesel train ran from Berlin and was nicknamed, after its destination, the 'Flying' what?
Hamburger
The Flying Hamburger, a two-car diesel-electric set, is credited with establishing the fastest regular railway connection in the world in its time.
Q 19Which British Rail diesel express, in service from 1976, was also known as the High Speed Train?
InterCity 125
InterCity 125 was named after its 125 mph top service speed, and one set reached 148 mph between Darlington and York in 1987, a world record for diesel trains.
Q 20Which country built Selandia, often called the first large ocean-going diesel ship, for a 1912 maiden voyage to Bangkok?
Denmark
Denmark's East Asiatic Company ran her without a funnel, venting the exhaust through a mast, and Winston Churchill came aboard when she called at London.
The turbocharger proved itself in 1925, when Büchi fitted it to ten-cylinder diesels and lifted their output from 1,750 to 2,500 horsepower.
Q 24Which American main battle tank is unusual in being driven by a gas turbine instead of a diesel engine?
M1 Abrams
The M1 Abrams got its 1,500-horsepower turbine after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made one a requirement over the Army's objections.
Q 25What colour is the dye added to low-tax diesel sold in Britain for tractors and construction machinery?
Red
Red diesel carries a much lower tax than road fuel, so British authorities regularly carry out roadside checks to catch drivers misusing it.
Q 26Which element has been almost eliminated from road diesel fuel since the 1990s to cut pollution?
Sulfur
Sulfur had to go so that modern exhaust-cleaning equipment could work, but the refining that removes it also strips out the fuel's natural lubricating agents.
Q 27What is the two-word name for tuning a diesel pickup so that it belches black smoke on purpose?
Rolling coal
Rolling coal is sometimes aimed at hybrid and electric cars as an anti-environmental protest, and it breaks clean air laws in some jurisdictions.
Q 28Which RAF officer, who set the outright land speed record in ThrustSSC, drove the JCB Dieselmax past 350 mph?
Andy Green
Andy Green took the diesel record at Bonneville in 2006 in a car with two tuned JCB engines, one driving the front wheels and the other the rear.
Q 29Which stainless-steel streamliner made a diesel-powered 'Dawn-to-Dusk' dash from Denver to Chicago in 1934?
Pioneer Zephyr
The Pioneer Zephyr covered 1,015 miles non-stop in 13 hours 5 minutes, a run that inspired the film The Silver Streak.
Q 30The troubled Oldsmobile V8 diesel of 1978 reused a petrol engine's pattern for which parts, which then failed?
Head bolts
Head bolts laid out for a petrol V8 could not cope with a diesel's far higher compression; the engine was dropped after the 1985 model year, its reputation ruined.