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Ford vs. the White Gold Rush
Answers for Globle, Metazooa, Stocktangle and more from Dec 15 - Dec 21
Abe Train
December 22, 2025
Coming to your inbox every Monday with a brand new fun-fact and all the answers to Trainwreck Labs games from the past week.
This week, we have…
Trainwreck Wrapped 2025!
A fun fact inspired by Elemingle
Answers to last week's games
Reader survey
Trainwreck Wrapped 2025 is live!
You already know you’re smart, but you also want to know how smart you are compared to everyone else. Now you have proof with Trainwreck Wrapped! Check out your year in review of daily, educational web games and see how well you stack up against your fellow Globlers, how much you improved at Metazooa this year, and how much you still have to learn to master Stocktangle!
Ford vs. the White Gold Rush
Ford had to do something with all that extra palladium on their hands. Why not paint the cars a shiny new colour?
In 2001, Ford Motor Company made one of the most expensive panic buys in corporate history, and it wasn't cars, factories, or technology. It was palladium (Elemingle element #328).
This silvery-white metal, essential for the catalytic converters that clean car exhaust, had become the center of a global supply crisis. Russia, which controlled over 60% of the world's palladium exports, had been delaying shipments throughout the late 1990s, sending prices skyrocketing from around $100 per ounce to nearly $1,100. That briefly made palladium worth more than four times the price of gold, and earned it the nickname “white gold”.
Fearing their production lines would grind to a halt, Ford's purchasing department stockpiled massive quantities of palladium at these record-high prices. But they made a critical mistake: they never consulted Ford's own R&D department, which had already developed new catalytic converter designs that used far less palladium. And they never hedged their bets with futures contracts.
When Russia resumed exports and prices crashed by more than 75%, Ford was left holding a mountain of overpriced metal. The result? A staggering $1 billion write-off in early 2002, one of the largest commodity losses in automotive history.
So the next time you hear about a precious metal, remember: palladium once cost a car giant a billion dollars, not because they couldn't get enough of it, but because they panicked and bought too much!
Learn more: The Wall Street Journal
Trivia
What was the fake name used by William Hyde Wollaston, the discoverer of palladium, when he put his new metal up for sale? |
Answers to last week's games
Monday, December 15 to Sunday, December 21.
Globle
| Globle: Capitals
|
Chronogram
| Fictogram
|
Metazooa
| Metaflora
|
Linxicon
The following are the shortest paths from last week:
#672 scientific → subject → specific → specifically
#673 study → laboratory → tube
#674 fill → filled → charged → prosecutor
#675 plan → idea → interesting
#676 could → give → leave → abandon
#677 capacity → lots → most → really
#678 chamber → hallway → step → continue → nevertheless
#679 Play now!
Elemingle
| Stocktangle
|
That’s all for this week. Thanks for reading!
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