May 18, 2024
Our puzzler today came from an avid car restorer.
He was driving across the country one day years ago and he was delighted to rescue an old derelict car from a farmer's field.
Anyway, he finds this '42 Chevrolet sedan in this field, and a quick check of the car serial number reveals to him that this was one of the last Chevrolet's built before production at the Chevrolet plant switched over to building B-24s for the war effort.
He can't believe it. He is so happy. He takes the car home and begins to disassemble and refurbished every nut, bolt and everything on the old Chevy.
About 15 months later after all that work, this car was glistening in it's new original color paint. The interior was spotlessly restored and the chrome sparkled in the engine rim like new.
However, when he entered the car into a competition for classic cars, it failed to beat several cars which were clearly not as carefully restored as this one. In fact, he was almost disqualified from the entire competition.
Why did this happen?
Good luck.
So, why was this restored 1942 Chevy almost disqualified?
The answer is embedded in the puzzler itself. So we said the car was glistening in it's new original color paint. The interior was spotlessly restored and the chrome sparkled in the engine rim like new.
However, there was no chrome in 1942. The chemicals used to make chrome were considered vital to the war effort. So in 1942, they were not using it in cars. So the parts of the car that would have used chrome were painted instead.
So when he restored his car, it was one of the cars that had never had chrome on it. He thought the chrome had worn away. So when he added it, the car was almost disqualified.
Good one.
