10 Amazing Car Facts

OMG factor: car facts. We take a look at some amazing car facts from around the world.

Amazing Car Facts

#1 The pollution caused by a Formula 1 race is less than a passenger plane flying from Paris to New York.

In other words, the emissions from F1 cars during one race is less than the emissions of a single average passenger plane flying from Paris to New York. This car fact always pops up when F1 races are in town.

#2 The average car contains over 30,000 unique parts.

Bearings, pumps, fuses, wiring… It is surprising cars don’t break down more often and explains why car design is such a long, complicated and expensive process.

#3 The largest speeding fine ever produced was €1,000,000 (AU$1,559,300).

A pretty expensive car fact! It happened in Sweden where speeding fines are proportionate to the amount someone earns – the higher your income, the more money the fine is. The speeding driver was clocked at nearly 290km/h in his Mercedes SLS AMG.

(A Mercedes SLS AMG. Source: media.daimler.com)

With AU$1,559,300 you could buy:

• 105 average houses in Melbourne (based on $1,037,923 median house price in late 2021)
• 4.1 Nissan GT-R Nismos (based on 2020 model)
• 297 top-tier MacBook Pros (based on 16-inch 10-Core CPU processor)
• 283,509 Cheeseburger Happy Meals (based on McDonald’s menu)

#4 The highest mileage on a car is over 4,828,000 km.

That’s on a personal car. The vehicle in question is a 1966 Volvo 1800S with the driver clocking up over 160,000 km per year by driving to different car shows around North America. Amazingly, the car still has the original clutch in it – yep, close to 5 million km in a manual.

4,828,000 km in comparison;

• 40,075 km – equatorial circumference of Earth
• 384,400 km – Earth to the Moon
• 177,030 km – the average distance a human will walk in a lifetime

(A 1966 Volvo 1800S)

#5 At top speed, a Bugatti Chiron consumes as much air per minute as an adult human does in 5 days.

60,000 litres of air to be precise. The 16-cylinder, quad-turbo monstrous Chiron produces 1500 horsepower (nearly 8 Toyota Camrys worth). At its incredible top speed of 490 km/h, it needs a lot of air. In your driveway for around $6 million.

#6 Hong Kong drivers pay over $3.00 per litre for petrol. Venezuelan drivers pay around 3 cents.

That’s in AUD. The average price per litre of petrol in Hong Kong was $3.14 for regular unleaded. At the opposite end of the scale is Venezuela where prices in early 2022 were around $0.03 per liter.

Based on an 80-litre tank, filled to the brim in Hong Kong, you’ll pay A$251.20. That tank comes down to just $2.40 in Venezuela.

#7 An F1 could drive upside down at around 195 km/h.

These incredible cars generate a lot of downforce at high speeds. At around 195 km/h they start generating more downforce than they weigh, so could drive upside down in a long tunnel without falling. At top speed, the downforce increases up to five times the car’s weight.

#8 The fastest production car in the world (top speed) is the SSC Tuatara which was clocked at a lightning 508.73 km/h.

Definitely a fast car fact. In October 2020, the Tuatara set the record with several high-speed runs averaging a top speed of 455.3 km/h – lightning pace in anyone’s books. The highest speed recorded by the Tuatara – a record-smashing 508.73 km/h!

At that speed, you could get from Melbourne to Sydney in less than two hours.

#9 In South Africa, drivers can legally install flamethrowers on their vehicles.

Especially in Johannesburg, the carjacking capital of the world, motorists have the option to install a flamethrower or “blaster” which fires 5-meter plumes of flame upward into anyone trying to carjack the vehicle. The flames are operated by a switch inside the vehicle. 

#10 For the last five years, the Toyota HiLux has been Australia’s top selling vehicle.

Aussies love utes. The Toyota HiLux and Ford Ranger are our country’s top-selling vehicles respectively.

Find out car facts.

• • A well-known car fact about the McLaren F1 is its gold-plated engine bay.
  • In another McLaren F1 car fact, the infamous chassis 039 was known as the ‘El Chapo’ F1.
  • Heavy car fact: cars are getting bigger.