top o' the mornin'® 3/17/2014

[earendel]

My new branch chief has decided that the reports that I used to run over two days now need to be completed in one day. It isn't easy.

The Trivia Knights' run of 1st place finishes came to an end last Saturday night - we tied for 4th place. Our downfall wasn't sports, but rather a category called "Car History". Questions we missed included "Who invented the modern automobile?" We had no idea how to define "modern" and the judges were no help. We also didn't know the year in which Ford sold the most Mustangs, what the most popular automobile of all time was, what muscle car was known as "the Judge", what car Pontiac introduced to compete with the Mustang, what the "Big 3" auto companies were in the 1920s

answers

Karl Benz
1966
Toyota Corolla
Pontiac GTO
Firebird
Ford, GM and Chrysler (same as today)

The other category that hurt us was "Luck o' the Irish". We didn't know the national gem of Ireland, the Irish-American heavyweight boxing champion in the 1880s, or what the "o'" stands for in names like "O'Reilly".

answers

connemara marble (marble isn't a gem as far as I'm concerned)
John L. Sullivan (we got close - I said "John O' Sullivan")
grandson of (we thought it was "son of", but somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered having this question before and said it was "grandson" but I wasn't convincing enough, not even for myself)

[Bob Juch]

I had all but the Mustang year and the marble; I agree it's not a gem.