RAY: Many, many years ago, when I was 23, I was engaged in the noble profession of pedagogy in the frozen state of Vermont. I was teaching science to seventh and eighth graders. And anyway, there I was one Saturday morning sitting in front of my TV watching some educational program--I think it was "Mighty Mouse"--and the phone rang. I knew who it was. It was one of my fellow teachers, who happened to live across the street. And he was calling to ask me to help him move a cast-iron stove into his house. He explained to me that he didn't have the stove. He was going to pick it up at the factory and he'd be back in a few hours, and then, would I help him? And I said, "What about that no-good brother-in-law of yours?" And he said, no, he wasn't due back into town until late that night, and I guess I was it. So I said, "Go get the stove and call me when you get back." But as I waited for the dreaded call, a wonderful thing began to happen: The snow that was falling changed to freezing rain, and I said to myself, This could be good! Right now they're loading the stove into his VW Microbus at the factory, but he's never going to get up his steep driveway when he returns and I'll be off the hook. Sure enough, there I am, hiding behind the drapes as he pulls up, and he's slipping and sliding even with the extra weight of the cast-iron stove in the back. He gets out and throws some sand under the wheels, but, of course, what? That doesn't help. He gets out of the van again, slams the door, opens the engine compartment, and he does something, and the next thing I know, he's climbed the driveway, and he's on the phone saying, "Hey, babe, come on over and help!" The question is, What did he do that literally took a second and that enabled him to get up the icy driveway?
Now here's the answer, believe it or not. Here's a Volkswagen bus that's transmitting too much torque--it's hard to believe--to the wheels, to enable him to negotiate this steep, icy grade.
TOM: It's like, if you tried to run on the ice, you'd be on your butt in two seconds. But, if you walk very, very slowly...
RAY: But he couldn't transmit a small enough amount of power to the wheels to walk, that's right. So, what he did is, he opened the back and he pulled the coil wire off so the engine wouldn't start. He got back in, and with the thing in first gear, he turned the key--and all that worked now was the electric motor that would ordinarily start the engine, but he was using the electric motor to take him up the driveway in first gear, albeit slowly, but not slowly enough. And he crept up the driveway with just enough torque to get him up without slipping at the top.
TOM: The equivalent of walking gingerly on the ice so you don't fall on your butt, as opposed to running on the ice, where you would.
[ Car Talk Puzzler ]
