MOTORSPORT TRIVIA - Q13 AND 14

[Graham]

Okay... let's try some road car questions...

Q13. The first motor car was stolen in Paris in 1896. What was it?

Q14. How many Gordon Keeble were produced, and what was the marque badge?

[TimD]

Yippee, beat Gerard tonight.

Don't know the stolen car, but...

Total Gordon Keebles built = 99 cars.

Of which I believe the owners club knows the whereabouts of 65. Always fancied one, myself.

The badge was a prancing tortoise, the story goes that an unbadged prototype was undergoing a photo shoot, when someone grabbed hold of a real, live tortoise and placed it on the bonnet. The factory liked the idea so much they adopted the tortoise for a motif.

[Gerard]

Q13 = Not exactly an answer to the question.
My library says the first motorcar was stolen in 1905 in St. Louis. It doesn't say anything about a car stolen in Paris.

Q14 = Gordon Keeble was founded in 1960.
Eighteen months later they went broke.
They produced 80 cars during that period.
But the company was re-started, failed again to survive and was liquidated in 1968, bringing the total number of cars produced to 104.
On the badge was a turtle.

Gerard.

[TimD]

Oh, dear - reference checking time again!

I still say 99 (in total)!

I love this game!

[TimD]

Ah, the Gordon Keeble. Don'cha just love it?

Well, I went away and checked, and came up with the researcher's nightmare.

Peter Nunn writing in Classic & Sportscar April 1983 says 99 cars, but allows that there is argument over the figure.

Quentin Willson on BBC Top Gear in 1993 categorically says 104 cars.

He also interviewed Jim Keeble, builder of the car, who declared the creature to be a tortoise, which disgraced itself on the bonnet of the prototype and the paint peeled off.

I think over to Mr Question Master.

What's your official decision, Graham?

[Graham]

Okay chaps,

The answer to the Gordon Keeble (nice looking car, ain't they?) is, not surprisingly seeing it's the Top Gear board game, 104.

It was indeed a Tortoise on the badge.