Insights

There is a reason why rush hour is practically an all-day event here. Los Angeles has more cars than people—an average of 1.8 per household—for a population of 3.9 million.

An extreme driver from Limburg, Germany, reached an elevation of 21,804 feet (6,646 m). No one has ever driven higher in a production car. The record was set by a 15-member team in May 2007 with two Jeep Wranglers on Ojos del Salado, the world’s highest volcano.

Twenty lanes, 460 feet (140 m) from curb to curb: Avenida 9 de Julio in Buenos Aires is the widest street in the world. The narrowest is found in the town of Reutlingen in Württemberg, Germany. Spreuerhof-straße is an average of 15.7 inches (40 cm) wide, and at its narrowest point is only 12.2 inches (31 cm).

New York’s SoHo neighborhood has the most expensive garage parking spaces in the world. A 99-year lease on a space can be yours for a million dollars—paid in advance—which is more per square foot than an apartment in the same building.

More jet than car: Englishman Andy Green, a former Air Force pilot, wants to set a land speed record in the Bloodhound SSC supersonic car. He intends to hit at least 1,000 mph (1,610 km/h) on an 11.8-mile (19-km) stretch of South African desert in late 2017. The current record is 763 mph (1,228 km/h).

If you love good cars, you need serious money. A Ferrari 335 S Spider Scaglietti built in 1957 was auctioned for 32.1 million euros in 2016. That makes it the most expensive car in the world. Rumor has it the buyer was soccer star Lionel Messi.

Living space in the desert: Sheikh Hamad bin Hamdan Al Nahyan from Abu Dhabi had the world’s largest mobile home built for short trips. It is 65.6 feet (20 m) long, taller than a single-family house, and weighs 120 metric tons. It has eight rooms and eight bathrooms.

A good third of the world’s population lives in countries where people drive on the left side of the road. Most of these countries are former British colonies like Australia. Left-hand traffic has a historical basis, because knights held their swords in their right hands. They could use them to better effect if they rode their horses on the left.

Cars have long been the number one means of trans-port in China too. A good 150 million passenger cars are registered there, more than in any other country. The number is expected to reach 200 million by 2020.

The Toyota Corolla is the best-selling car in the world—at a good 40.72 million since coming onto the market in 1966. This figure includes both the sedan and variants sold under many different extensions to the name.

Heroes of electromobility: Apollo missions 15, 16, and 17 each used a lunar roving vehicle (LRV). Its (unofficial) top speed was 12 mph (18 km/h). No LRV made it into a museum—all three were left on the Moon.

From Strawberry and Caramel to Piña Colada and Ocean Paradise, “Little Car” air fresheners for rear-view mirrors come in almost forty different fragrances. They were invented in New York in 1952 by Julius Sämann, a German from Uffenheim. A milkman had complained about the smell of spilt milk in his delivery truck.

It’s always a good idea to check your car before driving. In Denmark the law even requires you to take a look underneath. For if you find someone lying there, it’s illegal—who would have thought?—to drive off.

Three wheels, rear-wheel chain drive, and a peak speed of 44 mph (70 km/h). At just 4.40 feet (1.34 m) in length, the Peel P50 is the smallest production car ever. The Peel Engineering Company built 120 of them from 1961 to 1963. The car was relaunched in 2011—with either an electric motor or a 4-stroke 50-cc engine.