RAY: Hi, we're back. You're listening to car Talk with us, Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers, and we're here to talk about cars, car repair, and the answer to last week's Puzzler. Now, this Puzzler was folkloric.
TOM: Yeah.
RAY: Historic and quasi-automotive. And that was the hint.
TOM: Quasi-automotive?
RAY: Yeah.
TOM: You said that last week, too?
RAY: I did. Wasn't that a good hint?
TOM: I lost that.
RAY: Yeah. Well, that's why you have to --
TOM: That went right by me, man.
RAY: You have to pay attention.
TOM: You're usually spewing out such nonsense that we don't know what to believe.
RAY: That's my strategy.
TOM: Quasi-automotive, that slipped right past me.
RAY: [Well?]
TOM: [Go ahead?], say [it again?].
RAY: It didn't slip past those who --
TOM: Got the right answer.
RAY: -- got the right answer. And this, by the way, came from some guy named Larry Hall. And he writes, "John knew he had secured his fortune. After his father died in Dearborn, Michigan, John began cleaning out the attic. And while going through a scrapbook, he came across the treasure of a lifetime." It was an original letter to none other than Henry Ford, signed by President William McKinley himself. And it came on White House stationery. In the upper left-hand corner, it said The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC, March 3rd, 1898, and it was addressed to Henry Ford, 58 Bagley Avenue, Detroit, Michigan, dah-dah-dah-dah.
TOM: Yeah.
RAY: "Dear Mr. Ford, we received your letter dated February 1st. This letter is written to thank you for your offer to present a gift of one two-cylinder, four-cycle gasoline engine-powered quadricycle that you have developed in your workshop in Detroit for use by the President. And while such a vehicle is of high interest to machinists and hobbyists, I do not feel the automobile can be perfected to replace the safety and comfort of the carriages we have available to us here at The White House. Please feel free to write again should you ever design or manufacture standard horse-drawn buggies. I will happily forward that information to my Treasury Secretary, Lyman Gage for possible procurement. Till that time, I must thank you for and yet decline your generous offer. Sincerely, William McKinley."
TOM: William McKinley, President of the United States.
RAY: Yeah.
TOM: Knowing that this letter --
RAY: There's a lot of stuff in there. I mean, could be that's Ford's wrong address, Bagley Avenue. Who ever heard of Bagley Avenue? I mean, a lot of things here.
TOM: Right. 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Maybe it was 1601 back then. What do we [???}, man. This is tough.
RAY: There are lots of things. There are. Well, that's why it's folkloric, historic.
TOM: Actually, what was the question?
RAY: I didn't get to the question yet.
TOM: Oh, I remembered the question, but you didn't get it yet. ??
RAY: So anyway, he figures it's going to be worth a fortune and he takes the letter to the curator of the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit. Another ??. The curator expressed surprise and great interest at the find. But after several readings, he looked at John and said it's bo-o-o-o-o-o-gus. How did the curator know? Yeah, boy. And the biggest hint was it was quasi-automotive, so it didn't have anything to do with the fact that he didn't make this thing in 1898 or hadn't ??
TOM: Yeah.
RAY: You know, there was something that was wrong with some of the history as far as the automotive end of it was concerned. But what was wrong was that in 1898 it was not called The White House. It wasn't called The White House until --
TOM: What?
RAY: -- Theodore Roosevelt became President, after McKinley was assassinated. In 1898, it was called The Executive Mansion.
TOM: Get out! And it couldn't have come from The White House in 1898 because The White House didn't exist as such.
RAY: As such. Do we have a winner?
TOM: Ooh, the winner is Rich Block from Antrim??, New Hampshire. I wonder if he is related to my friend, Les Block --
RAY: Must be.
TOM: -- ?? a President of University of Minnesota.
RAY: And for having your answer, Rich Block, correct selected at random from the small pile of correct answers that we did get, you're going to get a $25.00 gift certificate to the Shameless Commerce Division at the Car Talk Section of Cars.com. And with that gift certificate, you can get our newest CD, "Car Talk Car Tunes, the Car Talk Compendium of Disrespectful Car Songs."
TOM: Now, if he ordered that like right now, would he have it in time for Christmas?
RAY: Oh, sure. What? You mean this Christmas? By the way, many people have asked where the songs on the CD are from. And they're the songs about cars that we play when we say we'll be back in a minute.
TOM: Yeah. Most of them were sent in by the performers themselves or sometimes by their mothers. And this is a collection of the best of them in our opinion.
RAY: Anyway, we'll have a brand new Puzzler coming up in the third half. I think I'm going to use one from the famous -
TOM: String collection?
RAY: No.
TOM: Toy collection.
RAY: No, no. Match sticks. Match sticks. So, that'll be coming around the third half of the show. So don't leave.
TOM: No. Stick around as a matter of fact.
RAY: And while you're waiting, you might as well call. The number is (888) CAR-TALK. It's 88-82-27-82-55. Hello, you're on Car Talk.
[ Car Talk Puzzler ]
