Hot Rods
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40 free Hot Rods trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Hot rodding began when young Californians stripped old Fords of everything that added weight and tuned what was left to go faster. A backyard hobby grew into a culture with its own slang, magazines, artists and heroes, and it has shaped car design, toys, television and pop music ever since. This quiz covers the whole scene: the cars and engines that builders prized, the body tricks and nicknames every rodder knows, the early speed trials and the rise of organized drag racing, and the customizers whose work ended up on screen and on album covers. It is written for anyone who likes cars, from casual fans who know the films and songs to garage veterans who can name a parts maker by a manifold. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which 1950s concept car was rebuilt into the Batmobile for the 1966 Batman TV series?
Lincoln Futura
The Lincoln Futura was already a decade old when a Hollywood custom shop reworked it in three weeks, because filming was about to begin.
Q 02Which actor had a pinstriper letter 'Little Bastard' on his Porsche 550 Spyder in 1955?
James Dean
James Dean drove the new Porsche to the Lynwood shop of Dean Jeffries, a young hot rod striper who went on to build cars for television.
Q 03Which toy line did Mattel launch in 1968 as wild custom cars with big rear tires and flame paint?
Hot Wheels
Hot Wheels began when Mattel co-founder Elliot Handler watched his son play with Matchbox cars and pictured exaggerated customs instead of scale models of showroom cars.
Q 04After World War II, hot rodders built streamlined racing bodies from which surplus aircraft part?
Drop tanks
Drop tanks built for fighters like the P-51 Mustang sold as surplus for $35 or $40 each, and they were already shaped to slip through the air.
Q 05Which rock band put a customized 1933 Ford coupe on the cover of its hit album Eliminator?
ZZ Top
ZZ Top named the album for a drag racing term, and the guitarist's coupe went on to appear in the band's MTV videos.
Q 06In hot rod slang, what does the 'deuce' in the name of a Ford deuce coupe refer to?
Its model year
Its model year is the clue: the two stands for 1932, when Ford became the first maker to put a V8 in a low-priced, mass-market car.
Q 07Which 1960s TV family rode in an 18-foot custom hearse built from three Ford Model T bodies?
The Munsters
The Munsters drove the Munster Koach, whose ornate rolled-steel scrollwork alone took 500 hours to form by hand.
Q 08Which pinstriper, born Kenny Howard, had his nickname turned into a 2000s trucker-hat fashion brand?
Von Dutch
Von Dutch is remembered as the father of modern pinstriping, and the clothing label was launched by other people after his death in 1992.
Q 09In which film does drag-racing king John Milner cruise Modesto in a yellow deuce coupe?
American Graffiti
American Graffiti gave the coupe the license plate THX 138, a nod to THX 1138, the science-fiction film George Lucas had made just before it.
Q 10Which Nordic country has a lively hot rod scene built around meetings like Power Big Meet?
Sweden
Sweden has so little vintage American steel that local rods often ride on a home-made frame with a Jaguar or Volvo rear axle.
Q 11Which California band first recorded the hot rod songs Little Deuce Coupe and 409?
The Beach Boys
The Beach Boys got the words of Little Deuce Coupe from a local radio DJ, Roger Christian, and it became their highest-charting B-side.
Q 12Hot rodders gather every August for Speed Week at which famous land speed racing venue?
Bonneville
Bonneville, in Utah, hosts Speed Week and an October finals meet, both run by a club association founded in 1937 to make speed trials safer.
Q 13Hot Rod magazine's first editor founded which body in 1951 to move drag racing off the streets?
NHRA
NHRA was the work of Wally Parks, who also sent Safety Safaris around the country to teach local tracks how to run drag races.
Q 21On what kind of terrain in Southern California did the first hot rodders race in the late 1930s?
Dry lake beds
Dry lake beds northeast of Los Angeles drew the first racers, and the sport swelled after 1945 as returning soldiers brought home technical training.
Q 22Which 1973 shock turned carmakers away from performance and revived interest in hot rodding?
The oil crisis
The oil crisis turned carmakers from performance to fuel efficiency, so fans who wanted speed went back to building it themselves.
Q 23Which engine, launched by Ford in 1932 as the first affordable V8, became an early hot rod staple?
Flathead V8
Q 14Which Ed 'Big Daddy' Roth monster, usually drawn in red overalls, became an icon of hot rod culture?
Rat Fink
Rat Fink was conceived as the antithesis of Disney's best-known mascot, so Roth drew him green or gray with bulging, bloodshot eyes.
Q 15Which hot rod technique cuts down a car's roof pillars and windows to lower the roofline?
Chopping
Chopping began with racers who wanted less frontal area, and some cut so deep that the side glass was nicknamed mail-slot windows.
Q 16On a hot rod, the 'suicide doors' of a three-window deuce coupe have what unusual feature?
Rear-mounted hinges
Rear-mounted hinges are said to have earned the grim name before seat belts: if a door opened at speed the wind flung it wide, and a passenger reaching for it could fall out.
Q 17In drag racing, the 'Christmas tree' is the nickname for which piece of track equipment?
The starting lights
The starting lights stand in a column for each lane: staging bulbs on top, then three ambers, a green and a red.
Q 18Which Prohibition-era drivers tuned their cars to outrun police, an early forerunner of the hot rod?
Bootleggers
Bootleggers needed speed to evade revenue agents, and the stripped Model T speedsters of the same years are the hot rod's other ancestor.
Q 19By one theory, the 'rod' in hot rod is short for which lightweight two-door body style?
Roadster
Roadster is one theory; a rival one says the rod was the camshaft, a part tuners often swapped to make more power.
Q 20What is the principal ingredient of the fuel burned by drag racing's Top Fuel dragsters?
Nitromethane
Nitromethane is also an industrial solvent and cleaning fluid, and drag racers usually blend it with a little methanol.
Flathead V8 production for American buyers ran for 21 years, and Ward's named it one of the ten best engines of the 20th century.
Q 24Chrysler's FirePower V8, a favorite in 1950s hot rods, is better known by which short nickname?
Hemi
Hemi is short for the hemispherical combustion chambers, which leave room for two large valves and make more power at the cost of a bigger, heavier engine.
Q 25Chevrolet's small-block V8, a hot rod favorite, was nicknamed after which cartoon character?
Mighty Mouse
Mighty Mouse caught on with stock car racers and was soon cut to plain Mouse; more than 100 million of the engines were eventually built.
Q 26Which Hollywood customizer, builder of the Hirohata Merc, popularized spelling 'Kustom' with a K?
George Barris
George Barris and his brother Sam built the Mercury for Bob Hirohata at their shop, which traded as Barris Kustoms.
Q 27Which builder, once a Disneyland machinist, starred in the TV series American Hot Rod?
Boyd Coddington
Boyd Coddington grew up in Idaho, opened Hot Rods by Boyd in 1977, and became known for a clean, elegant style called the Boyd Look.
Q 28Which star designer of TV's Overhaulin' won the Detroit Autorama's top prize with a 1935 Chevrolet?
Chip Foose
Chip Foose began working on cars at age seven in his father's design shop, and that 2002 winner, called Grand Master, was the first of several.
Q 29Which drag racer perfected the rear-engine dragster after an explosion took part of his foot?
Don Garlits
Don Garlits, drag racing's Big Daddy, built his first racer under an oak tree at home in Tampa, and his Swamp Rat XXX was later enshrined in the Smithsonian.
Q 30What name is given to a hot rod built to look deliberately unfinished, often rusty or unpainted?
Rat rod
Rat rod builders were reacting against high-priced show cars that were seldom driven, and their parts can be as odd as a wrench for a door handle.