Not that often that we have a colour photo on the quiz, but this week we do have one as the answer to last year's quiz. A 1901 FN is what we see. A Belgium arm manufacturer that got into cars in the begin of the last century. This car is still on display at the Bruxelles Autoworld. We received quite some good answers. One even with a copy of a post stamp with the car on it.
The first good answer came from Alan Spencer, who told us more about the FN name: Fabrique Nationale. An abbreviation of Fabrique Nationale d'Armes de Guerre. He also told us more about the car. Michael Hortig also added 'This particular car was discovered by Henry Malartre in southern France restored and moved into the Chateau of the Museumpark near Lyon. Later Malartre changed it with his longtime friend Mahy Gislain for a 1900 Noel Bennet Two-seater with four-wheel drive, cause both cars fit better in the hands of the other'
Not all answers were correct, as the car wasn't a Scania, nor was it a George Richard or a Brunn. Another question mark is the number of cars produced. Leon Mitchell said there were 100 produced, John Hughes was certain there were exactly 189 examples of this model produced and Luc Ryckaert said they built 100 cars with a 3,5hp engine and 280 in total. Fried Stol said the same thing about the total number as Luc did. As we don't know the exact number ourselves, we won't take this in our judgment.
As a lot of you had a correct and complete answer, we had a hard time choosing the winner. Finally, we decided that this week's winner is Fried Stol. He will receive the full 5 points for his answer: "FN started in 1886 as a company in armory, but when a few years later the German Lowe group took over the assembly of the Mauser rifles it was time to look for other means of business, e.g. bicycles followed by motorcars. The first car was designed by Italian J. de Cosmo it had an air-cooled 3.5 hp 2 cyl engine, a two-speed belt transmission, and final drive was by chain. This is a 1901 Tonneau with a water-cooled engine of 4.5 hp in that year 280 cars were built with illustrious names like Duc, Jardinière, Victoria and Wagonette."
Other good answers (and therefore will receive 3 points) came from: Alan Spencer, Michael Hortig, Robert Hafner, Gerd Klioba, Ace Zenek, Leon Mitchell, John Hughes, Neil Beadle, Luc Ryckaert and Henk Visscher.
Thank you all for your participation. All that rest us is to wish you a good weekend and the top 5.
1. Gerd Klioba - 39 points
2. Alan Spencer - 36 points
3. Henk Visscher - 32 points
4. Luc Ryckaert - 28 points
5. Fritz Hegemann - 27 points