Puzzler Answer 1/6/97: Paint It Black

Ray: This summer when I was on vacation I had an occasion to go to a yard sale. It was some old house they had a barn and lots of old junk there and they were about to throw it all out and then...

Tom: They said, "Hey, Ray would like this,"

Ray: So I received a personal invitation. But I found one interesting item. it was a headlight and half of it was painted black.

Tom: The front of it?

Ray: Yes, the front of it. Yea the part that the light comes out of it. What is called the lens. I could not find a mate. It was the only one there. The only thing I noticed was that it was old and that it was a 6 volt headlight which means it was at least 45 years old.

Tom: Can I have it?

Ray: And the question it why was the headlight painted half black?

Tom: I know the answer to that ... they ran out of paint.

Ray: The hint is where I was. I was on vacation on Cape Cod. The other hint is you wouldn't be likely to find one of these in say Chicago.

Tom: What about Cleveland or one of those other Ohio cities...

Ray: You wouldn't find a similar one in Dayton, etc.. How come?

Here's the answer: Because it was during World War 2 and areas which were along the coast had to paint half of their car headlights black so that cars driving at night could not be detected by enemy planes.

[ Car Talk Puzzler ]