Ten Surprising Car Facts You’ve Probably Never Heard Before

If you are like us, you love cars, and know a lot about them. But, here is a list of ten surprising car facts that even the most knowledgeable car nerds on the Internet may not know.

Here are our favorite factoids:

10.) The Honda CRV Came With A Picnic Table

The first and second generations of Honda’s winsome compact SUV came with a standard flip-out picnic table. For first gens, there was also an optional shower kit for the back, too. Nobody does car features quite like Honda.

9.) The Ford GT Is So Strong That During The “Roof Crush” Test, It Broke The Crushing Machine.

8.) The Last Car With Cassette Player Was Not A Lexus The very last car to be able to play cassettes was the Ford Crown Vic, which still had an optional player in 2011.

7.) The Pagani Zonda Shares Its Instrument Panel With A Lancia City Car

6.) The First Porsche Sedan Was A Studebaker

Porsche’s first four-door wasn’t the Panamera, or even their four-door prototype from the ‘90s. Porsche actually built a prototype sedan for Studebaker called the Type 542 back in 1952.

5.) The Austin Maestro Was Different Genders In Different Countries

The Austin Maestro was one of the first cars with a talking digital dash. The company had actress Nicolette Mackenzie read out warnings, like low oil pressure or the brakes need servicing. For some markets (like Spain and Germany), Austin-Rover gave the car a male voice, presumably because it didn’t think Germans or Spaniards wanted to take orders from a woman.

4.) You Can Play Pong With A Saab

With all of the computers in cars these days, you’d assume that engineers would sneak some fun hidden-away pieces of code in there. The Swedish nutsos at Saab left us with our new favorite, explains Highball.

3.) The McLaren F1 Gearbox Prototype Used A Chevy V8

McLaren needed an engine to test the gearbox for the F1. The motor needed to have enough torque to replicate what they expected from their eventual production unit, so they picked a good ol’ Chevy 454 big block.

2.) If A Car In Malaysia Is Too Successful, Competitors Can Have That Car’s Price Raised

When a certain car is selling too well within a segment in Malaysia, competitors can actually file a complaint to the authorities and the authorities will them hike up the price of that vehicle (forcefully) to ‘level’ competition-ship.

1.) An Egyptian President Helped Build An Arab Car Called The ‘Frisky’

There have been all kinds of thoroughly unhinged ideas to develop the Middle East, but one of the most unlikely was a proposed all-Arab automobile, built from a British microcar called the Frisky