Trivia time: 20 questions on transport

It’s time to challenge friends or family with Expat Living’s Weekly Quiz. You can get together with a small group, have a glass of wine and try these out – or stick to Zoom, of course. This week, it’s trivia on transport: 20 questions on planes, trains, automobiles, and others methods of moving around!

#1 Which city is home to the gondola?

#2 “You can have it any colour you want, so long as it’s black!” said Henry Ford about which car that he launched in 1908?

#3 Which two-wheeled horse-drawn vehicle was used by the Romans?

#4 “Flying Kangaroo” is the nickname of which airline?

#5 Which Hollywood film features a DeLorean car as a time machine?

#6 Name the cities where you can find these famous roads: Champs-Elysées, Orchard Road, Lombard Street, Abbey Road.

#7 Which country are you in if you’re riding a shinkansen train?

#8 What method of transportation is “shank’s pony”?

#9 Which of these countries is the only one where you drive on the left side of the road: Austria, Saudi Arabia, Fiji, Mexico?

#10 A sloop, a brig and a yawl are all propelled by what?

#11 The first Space Shuttle had its name changed in 1976 from Constitution to Enterprise at the request of hundreds of thousands of fans of which TV show?

#12 Volvo cars are from which country?

#13 In 1783, the Montgolfier brothers successfully trialled a hot-air balloon flight in France using which three animals: rooster, sheep and duck; llama, piranha and iguana; fox, mouse and goat?

#14 What word starting with “h” is another name for an air-cushion vehicle, or ACV?

#15 The original Orient Express train service (the one from Agatha Christie’s famous story) ran between Venice and which other city, Istanbul, Athens or Prague?

#16 Which popular vehicle in Asia takes its name from the sound of its engine?

#17 The spy thriller The Hunt for Red October, starring Sean Connery, is about which type of transportation?

#18 If I fly from LAX to LHR, and then all the way to BKK, which three cities have I visited?

#19 The 1960s music group Gerry and the Pacemakers had a hit song about a ferry that crosses which river in England? 

#20 In Singapore, the metro system is called MRT. What do Hongkongers call their metro system?

BONUS

Who am I?

(If you can answer correctly after the first clue, you get 10 points, but you lose a point for each additional clue you require to identify the person.)

I was born in 1897, in the US state of Kansas. (10)
My childhood nickname was “Meeley”. (9)
I was considered a tomboy as a kid, riding wooden sleds over ramps and collecting worms, moths and toads. I also kept a scrapbook of newspaper clippings about successful women in male-oriented fields. (8)
In my early 20s, I decided to take flying lessons. (7)
Later in life, I would become known as a style icon, and produce my own fashion line; this wasn’t my biggest claim to fame, however. (6)
I suffered as a young patient of the Spanish flu epidemic in 1918, and was hospitalised for a month as a result, suffering lifelong effects from the illness. (5)
In 1937, I disappeared in a plane over the Pacific Ocean and was never seen again. (4)
Ten years earlier, I had become the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. (3)
My first name is Amelia. (2)
I am Amelia who, starting with “E”? (1)

All the answers (no cheating!)

#1 Venice
#2 Model T
#3 Chariot
#4 Qantas
#5 Back to the Future
#6 Champs-Elysées, Paris; Orchard Road, Singapore; Lombard Street, San Francisco; Abbey Road, London
#7 Japan
#8 Walking
#9 Fiji
#10 Wind
#11 Star Trek
#12 Sweden
#13 Rooster, sheep and duck
#14 Hovercraft
#15 Istanbul
#16 Tuk-tuk
#17 Submarine
#18 Los Angeles, London and Bangkok
#19 Mersey
#20 MTR

BONUS: Amelia Earhart

This article first appeared in the July 2020 edition of Expat Living. You can purchase a copy or subscribe so you never miss an issue!

Shamus Sillar

While he has worked as a magazine editor since 2003, Shamus also has a PhD in Roman History (useful!) and is a published author. He writes mostly on travel but also covers food, history, sport, trivia and more, across Expat Living’s publications and websites in Singapore and Hong Kong.