One final festive quiz to round out 2020.
Question 1:
Who are we looking for, and what happened to him in France in 1968?
Question 2:
What is significant about this car (don’t think mechanical / technical)?
New Year Teaser
One final festive quiz to round out 2020.
Question 1:
Who are we looking for, and what happened to him in France in 1968?
Question 2:
What is significant about this car (don’t think mechanical / technical)?
Driven To Write 
q1 George Romney and took over AMC
q2 first Honda car built?
Question 1:
Mitt Romney. He went to France as a Mormon missionary, which was a tradition in his family. In 1968 he became a zone leader in Bordeaux and eventually became assistant to his mission president in France, the highest possible position for a Mormon missionary. He also got involved in a car crash where he nearly lost his life.
Question 2:
Honda S360. I thought it was an S500 at first, but the license plate gave it away. Significant as this car wasn’t available to the market, the S500 was seen as a better fit for the market.
Congratulations Freerk,
Your answer to question 1 is correct:
In 1968, Mitt Romney stayed in Bordeaux as a Mormon missionary, and was driving a DS Pallas at the time. On june 16, Romney, then 21, left Bordeaux for a mormon Seminary in Pau.
In his car were five passengers, including Duane Anderson, the senior member of the mormon congregation.
Near the village of Bernos-Beaulac, Romney’s DS was involved in a collision with a Mercedes as a result of an aborted overtaking manoever.
Romney was injured by the frontal crash and in a coma for a few days (that last point has been disputed however). He ended up with a broken arm other injuries, but Leola Anderson, Duane Anderson’s wife, was killed, while the other three passengers escaped relatively unscathed. The Mercedes, whose driver and passengers were more or less unharmed, was driven by Jean Vilnet, the Catholic bishop of Saint Dié. For many years, Mitt Romney claimed
that the accident killed a drunken priest named Albert Marie, who had caused the collision by swerving at high speed into Romney’s lane. That story was not true. The “priest” did not die, was not drunk, not traveling at high speed, was not at fault and was not a priest but a bishop.
Although Mitt Romney actually spoke French quite well, he apparently didn’t understand how nomenclature works in France: The final part of a male first name may be a traditionally female name, attached with a hyphen — and in religious families, that name is often Marie. As it happens, the full name of the man Romney hit was
Jean-Félix-Albert-Marie Vilnet. The irony of the Catholic and Mormon faiths colliding was not lost on most.
Your answer to question 2 however is true but it’s not what we’re looking for.
A hint for question #2: it’s a visual thing
no amber turn indicators?
The only thing that strikes me as odd in the photo of the Honda S360 is the position of the license plate: half on the bumper, half on the rest of the metalwork. Maybe a consequence of the license plate light fixture mounted to low? Or was it supposed to have two half bumpers?
Pip Bip and Freerk- no sorry, that’s not it. I will wait a while before I reveal the answer to see if any other DTW readers know it!
i see it now (i cheated – so i won’t spoil it)
The ‘wire wheels’ are fake, just covers over regular steel wheels?
I think I found it now. Took me a long while to get it. The S360 in the photo is red. Until then the use of red or white paint was reserved for emergency vehicles in Japan. Permission had to be granted before Honda could legally use this particular shade of red. Other manufacturers in Japan started to use red paint for their vehicles soon.
And we have a (repeat) winner! Freerk is correct; the Honda 360 was the first passenger vehicle allowed by special governmental permission to be painted red.
Well done Freerk. I’d never have worked that out!
Thanks, Daniel and Brrruno. The second question was really hard to solve, but with some perseverance and luck I managed to find the answer and it’s always great to learn new things. I wonder where you got this lovely bit of information from, Brrrruno.
that’s not what i thought of. i wasn’t aware of the colour restriction, i thought it was something to do with the rear bumper
Freerk: I can not remember exactly where and when I found this trivia (and I was unaware of the red cars regulation in Japan myself before I found this); it’s one of those things that one comes across when researching for material to produce an article on DTW. When I spot something like this I jot it down for possible later use in a quiz of some sort.
Well done to you for finding the answers to both questions!
Thanks, Brrrruno. I shared this information with one of my friends, who is a Honda aficionado and he was unaware of this fact too. Everyday you learn something new is a good day.