Quiz Whizzes

Last month’s quiz by Paul Dean (“From VIP to RIP: a Crash Test”) posed a bonus question: “The 1927 death in France of this famed American was caused by a silk scarf that tangled in the back wheel and snapped her neck. Who was she?”

* The short answer: Isadora Duncan (U.S. dancer, 1878-27).

* The long answer, courtesy of Richard Dowdy of Carlsbad: “The lady whose shawl caught in the spokes of a Bugatti Type 37 was Isadora Duncan. As a side note, the shawl was given to her by her close friend Mary Desti, the mother of famed Hollywood writer-director Preston Sturges. Two reference books I consulted both identify the car driven by an unknown male as being a Bugatti. In Desti’s own words in a letter to her son, she identified the garment as ‘a painted red shawl . . . which she had taken away from me.’ ”

Mr. Dowdy (and 24 others among the 300-plus entrants), your prize of a Highway 1 commuter mug is in the mail. Quizmaster Dean will return Feb. 25 with another set of autos-themed brainteasers.