RAY: Hi! We're back! You're listening to Car Talk with us, Click and Clack, the Tappett Brothers, and we're here to talk about cars, car repair, and, duh, the answer to last week's Puzzler.
TOM: I can't remember it.
RAY: Well, here it is. Murray Priceling and I conspired on this Puzzler. Many, many, many years ago when Crusty, our old mechanic was a young man and courting the girls, he decided to take one of his dates out for a ride in the country one evening. He took them all out into the country. And his plan, of course, was to park by the lake and do a little smooching. So, they parked the car. They go off for a little walk in the woods and end up by the water's edge. Very romantic, you know.
TOM: Yeah. I love it.
RAY: And an hour later, to his horror, he remembers that he left his headlights on. So, he runs back to the car, leaving his date at the lake, and turns off the now-dim headlights.
TOM: Oh.
RAY: He puts the key into the ignition. He tries to start the car, but he gets that awful rrrrrr-rrrrrr dead battery sound. The engine is just turning over barely, and clearly not fast enough to start the engine up. Now, he knows if he doesn't get his date home in time, her father, or maybe it was her husband, is going to be waiting with the shotgun. So, he's got to think of something quick. The car is parked in such a location that he could never hope to push it out of there, and in any event, he couldn't push start it because it's an automatic transmission car.
TOM: Oh, man!
RAY: Anyway, in the trunk, he's got a gallon of Filippo Berrio Extra Virgin Olive OilÉ
TOM: Doesn't everybody.
RAY: -- family-sized tube of Preparation H --
TOM: Doesn't everybody.
RAY: -- a pair of pliers, and a set of jumper cables, but, alas, no one to get it jumped from. And yet, in about five minutes, he gets the car running. He does get his date back in time, and her father never finds out.
TOM: Wow.
RAY: The hint was, he used the pliers. How did he do it?
TOM: Used the pliers.
RAY: He used the pliers. Now, the hints are all there, of course. They're all embedded.
TOM: Did he have a cell phone?
RAY: Yeah. What he did have was an old car, one of those cars where you could take out the spark plugs with a pair of pliers.
TOM: Oh, man!
RAY: And what he does is he takes out two of them. If it's a six-cylinder car, he takes out two plugs, like number one and number six, which is halfway through the firing order.
TOM: Right.
RAY: And now, he's got a four-cylinder car, and he's got better than that. He's got two less cylinders to compress the mixture in.
TOM: Yes.
RAY: So, he turns the key, and now with the available energy in the battery --
TOM: Now it cranks.
RAY: -- it cranks up. Admittedly, it sounds like a Gatling gun when it starts, but he can run it long enough to charge up the battery.
TOM: Put the plugs back in.
RAY: Put the plugs back in. All the neighbors, of course, from miles around come, because they think someone's being shot at. He then can put the plugs back in and fire the thing up.
TOM: This was brilliant!
RAY: And drive home.
TOM: Brilliant!
RAY: Do we have a winner this week?
TOM: Who cares?
RAY: The winner is Murray Priceling!
TOM: No, the winner is Robert Cantabrega.
RAY: I would say Cantabrega.
TOM: Cantabrega. From Lebanon, New Hampshire. Good work, Robert. For having --
[ Car Talk Puzzler ]
