TOM: As I presented the puzzler, I said that there are many companies that go out of business because technology overtakes them. This is known as the buggy whip syndrome.

RAY: It's left in the dust so to speak.

TOM: They are left in the dust. They are making buggy whips, and there are no more horses.

RAY: No more buggys.

TOM: This was a company that went out of business presumably for the same reason, and yet this company was called The Scott Muffler Company.

RAY: Now you would think with a name like that it's a cutting edge company.

TOM: Sure.

RAY: Around at the time when cars were coming into their own.

TOM: That's right. It was actually 1919.

RAY: Nineteen nineteen.

TOM: Nineteen nineteen. And The Scott Muffler Company had these big ads, and technology put them out of business.

RAY: Get out of town.

TOM: Get out of town.

RAY: And the question was?

TOM: How come is that.

RAY: What technology was it that put them out of business?

TOM: I mean cars still have mufflers. They've had mufflers from Day 3 up until now. The reason that The Scott Muffler Company went out of business is they didn't make mufflers that go underneath the car.

RAY: No?

TOM: Because in 1919 cars --

RAY: They made rooftop mufflers.

TOM: They didn't have any heaters in cars, and they were selling scarves.

RAY: Oh, those kinds of mufflers.

TOM: The Scott Muffler.

RAY: Put on your gloves and your muffler.

TOM: Put on your gloves and your muffler so you wouldn't freeze your tushy while you were driving in your 1919 Ford Model T.

RAY: Wow. Now I want to just show you how to be supportive of a sibling that utters a crummy puzzler. Boy, that was wonderful! That was historic, folkloric, challenging, interesting and what are all those others. I can't come up with any. Try charming and obfuscating.

TOM: Well, just to let you know I'm a man who likes honesty. I mentioned this puzzler --

RAY: To a bunch of people.

TOM: To my wife the other day. And she says, "why did they go out of business? People still wear scarves." I said, "oops."

RAY: Well, not to the same degree that they would be wearing them if cars didn't have windshields. That was the other thing. The wind screen became popular too, at that time.

TOM: They shouldn't have gone out of business.

RAY: No, they shouldn't. They were mismanaged.

TOM: Mismanaged, absolutely.

RAY: What they should have been doing was they should have been stuffing those things in the tail spipes to quiet the cars down.

TOM: All right, do we have a winner?

RAY: Do we have a winner? Our winner this week is William DeBuvitz.

[ Car Talk Puzzler ]