Order by the year each brand became a carmaker: the founding year for firms set up to build cars, or the year of the first car for firms that began in another trade. You place all 43 cards on one timeline, one at a time. You start with three lives, and ten right in a row wins a lost one back.
Each card is a car brand, from pioneers of the horseless carriage to luxury labels and electric upstarts, with its home country printed underneath. You order them by the year each became a carmaker. For companies set up to build cars that is the founding year; for firms that started out making something else, like bicycles, looms or aircraft engines, it is the year their first car appeared. One brand begins on the line with its year in view. Slot each new card into a gap. A correct guess reveals the year; a wrong one still puts the card in its real place and costs one of three lives.
The early years are crowded with European and Detroit names that sprang up almost together. Several famous brands spent decades in another business before building a car, so a company's age is not the same as its first car. Later cards include luxury spin-offs launched by bigger automakers and a fresh wave of electric companies. Country of origin is a handy clue to which era a brand belongs to.
Want a longer game? On the deck tree you can tick this deck alongside any other one measured in release years and dates, and they shuffle into a single timeline together.
Here are 28 of the 43 cards you might be dealt, with 15 more in the deck. Their values stay hidden until you place them.