A Car Talk puzzler

RAY: You're listening to Car Talk with us, Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers, and we're here to discuss cars, car repair, and the new Puzzler. Now this was sent in by, I can only assume, a young man whose name is Christopher, from Atlanta. I can't tell anything else, no last name or anything like that, but he's somewhere out in cyberspace. Sent by e-mail. Even though I don't accept e-mail puzzlers, I accepted this because it was grammatically correct and no spelling mistakes.

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RAY: He writes: My friend, Max says to me, I just read that three of the first five presidents of the United States died, ready for this? On the Fourth of July. Did you know that? It was the fireworks that did it, I think. What do you think the odds of that happening are? I reply, No idea. But, I'll give you 10 to one odds that I can name at least one of the three. Now I don't know anything, he writes, about the first five presidents except that their names are: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe. In that order.

TOM: That's four more than I knew.

RAY: Yeah, me too. Well, I knew Lincoln, and Reagan. How am I justified in offering my friend 10 to one odds when guessing randomly, I have only a three-in-five chance? That's the question. Now, if you think you know the answer, write it on the back of a --

RAY: Well, the original one was the Nissan Maxima, which is the plural of maximum. The one that is no longer made is the Acura Integra, which is the plural of integer. And the model that's currently being sold is the Kia Spectra.

TOM: Yeah.

RAY: Which is the plural of spectrum. Now there was another car that kind of sneaked in, in the intervening years, the Mazda Millenium, but it was never a legitimate contender because they spelled it incorrectly.

TOM: Yeah. They only had one N.

RAY: Do we have a winner?

TOM: You bet we have a winner. The winner is Claudia Ellis from Vero Beach, Florida. And for having her answer selected at random from among the compost heap of correct answers that we got, Claudia is going to get a 26-dollar gift certificate to the Shameless Commerce Division at cartalk.com, with which she can get any of our brand-new 20th anniversary items.

RAY: Well, they're not actually new. For our 20th anniversary of not being canceled, we brought back the original designs from the first early days of our show on NPR.

TOM: You think we're old enough now to go nostalgic?

RAY: I've got news for you. There's nothing we're not old for.

TOM: Well, this design, for those of you who weren't there back in the day, is the Car Talk logo with greasy fingerprints factory installed. The T-shirt comes with greasy fingerprints printed right on them.

RAY: Oh yeah, it'll drive your dry cleaner crazy.

TOM: Anyway, something from the 20th anniversary collection is yours, Claudia, for being this week's puzzler winner. Congratulations.

RAY: And don't forget to ask for your free Car Talk Plaza parking permit. It won't help you park anywhere, but it can cover up some bird droppings on your window.