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50 free Sports Car trivia questions with answers — technology quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
46 free sports car trivia questions with answers. From the Jaguar E-Type that Enzo Ferrari supposedly called the most beautiful car ever made to the Bugatti Veyron and the Koenigsegg Agera RS, this sports car trivia quiz covers the machines that made people pull over and stare. It runs through the icons in turn: the Porsche 911 and why it was almost called the 901, the Chevrolet Corvette and its fiberglass body, the Ferrari prancing horse, the Lamborghini bull and the tractor magnate who was tired of Ferrari clutches, the Miura, the Countach, the Testarossa, the Ford GT40's revenge at Le Mans, the Shelby Cobra, the Mazda MX-5, the McLaren F1's centre seat, the Dodge Viper, the Acura NSX and the Nissan GT-R. Easy questions cover badges, countries and famous film cars; harder ones cover top-speed records, engine layouts, production numbers, founders and the stories behind the names. It suits a car-club quiz night or a solo test of how much you really know about the poster on your childhood wall. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on the individual cars and marques, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Porsche 911 was originally going to be sold under which number, until Peugeot objected?
901
Peugeot claimed exclusive French rights to three-digit names with a zero in the middle; 82 cars had already worn the 901 badge.
Q 02Where is the engine in a Porsche 911?
Behind the rear axle
Every 911 has had a rear-mounted flat-six; the engines were air-cooled until the 996 series arrived in 1998.
Q 03In what year did the Porsche 911 go into production?
1964
It replaced the 356 and was first shown at the 1963 Frankfurt Motor Show; the millionth 911 was built in 2017.
Q 04How many cylinders does a Porsche 911 engine have?
6
It is a horizontally opposed "flat" or "boxer" six, and it has been that way since 1964.
Q 05In which Italian town is Ferrari based?
Maranello
The factory moved there from Modena in 1943 to escape Allied bombing raids.
Q 06Ferrari's prancing horse emblem was originally painted on the plane of which World War I flying ace?
Francesco Baracca
Baracca's mother suggested Enzo adopt it as a good-luck charm; the yellow background is the colour of Modena.
Q 07Why is the background of the Ferrari badge yellow?
It is the colour of Modena, Enzo's home town
The horse first appeared on Scuderia Ferrari's Alfa Romeo 8C in 1932.
Q 08For which company had Enzo Ferrari been a racing driver and team manager before founding his own?
Alfa Romeo
A non-compete clause meant his first company had to be called Auto Avio Costruzioni for four years.
Q 09What was the F40 built to celebrate?
The company's 40th anniversary
It was the last car Enzo personally approved, and at $400,000 it was five times the price of the 288 GTO it replaced.
Q 10What does "Testarossa" literally mean in Italian?
Red head
It refers to the red-painted cam covers on the flat-12 engine, honouring the 1957 250 Testa Rossa racer.
Q 11Which 1980s TV series made the white Ferrari Testarossa an icon?
Miami Vice
It arrived in the 1986 season, the same year Sega put it in the arcade game Out Run.
Q 12What did Ferruccio Lamborghini manufacture before he started building sports cars in 1963?
Tractors
Lamborghini Trattori, founded in 1948, still makes tractors as a separate company.
Q 13Famously, what Ferrari component annoyed Ferruccio Lamborghini so much that he built his own cars?
The clutch
His 250 GTs kept needing clutch rebuilds at Maranello, and Enzo Ferrari dismissed his complaints.
Q 21What is the best-selling two-seat convertible sports car in history?
Mazda MX-5 Miata
More than a million have been sold since its 1989 Chicago Auto Show debut, using the Lotus Elan as a design benchmark.
Q 22Which classic British roadster did Mazda use as the design benchmark for the MX-5?
Lotus Elan
The MX-5 launched when small roadsters had almost vanished, with only the pricier Alfa Spider left in production.
Q 23Which car did Enzo Ferrari reputedly call "the most beautiful car ever made" in 1961?
Jaguar E-Type
New York's Museum of Modern Art added a blue E-Type roadster to its permanent collection in 1996, one of only six cars so honoured.
Q 14Which group has owned Lamborghini through its Audi division since 1998?
Volkswagen
It changed hands several times after the 1970s oil crisis before Audi took control in 1998.
Q 15The Lamborghini Miura is named after what?
A Spanish fighting-bull breeder
It was the first production road car with a rear mid-engine layout, and the fastest car in the world at launch in 1966.
Q 16The name of the Lamborghini Countach comes from what?
An exclamation of astonishment in Piedmontese dialect
The wedge-shaped Bertone design first appeared as the LP500 concept at Geneva in 1971.
Q 17The Chevrolet Corvette's original bodywork was made of what unusual material?
Fiberglass
All 300 hand-built 1953 convertibles were Polo White; the car was named after a small, nimble warship.
Q 18How many Corvettes were built in the first model year, 1953?
300
It began as a show car at the GM Motorama at New York's Waldorf-Astoria; production has been in Bowling Green, Kentucky, since 1981.
Q 19The Corvette was named after what?
A small, manoeuvrable warship
The suggestion came from Myron Scott, an assistant PR director at GM, in 1953.
Q 20Which Corvette generation finally moved the engine behind the driver?
C8
The first seven generations, through 2019, were front mid-engined.
Q 24What was Jaguar's 1961 roadster called in North America?
XK-E
It claimed a 150 mph top speed and sub-7-second 0-60 time in 1961.
Q 25The Shelby Cobra was built by dropping a Ford V8 into which small British roadster?
The AC Ace
AC in Thames Ditton completed the first prototype in January 1962 and air-freighted it to Carroll Shelby in Los Angeles.
Q 26In which James Bond film did the Aston Martin DB5 first appear?
Goldfinger
The DB stands for David Brown, who built up the company from 1947; the DB5 was styled by Touring of Milan.
Q 27What do the letters DB in Aston Martin DB5 stand for?
David Brown
The tractor magnate bought Aston Martin in 1947 and put his initials on every car.
Q 28How many years in a row had the rival Ford set out to beat won Le Mans before the GT40 ended the streak?
6
Ferrari's run lasted from 1960 to 1965; Ford then won four straight from 1966.
Q 29In what year did the Ford GT40 first win Le Mans, with three cars crossing the line together?
1966
It made Ford the first American manufacturer to win a major European race since a Duesenberg took the 1921 French Grand Prix.
Q 30What is unusual about the seating in a McLaren F1?
The driver sits in the centre with a passenger on each side
Designer Gordon Murray had wanted a three-seat sports car since his youth; the engine bay is lined with gold foil.