4X4X8
So, imagine, if you will, there is an old man who lives way up in the mountains of New Hampshire. He lives in a very small town deep in the woods.
This man has a flock of sheep that he tends to. A lovely, happy little flock of sheep.
One morning, he comes back from the town and notices that one of his sheep is missing. His favorite sheep is gone. Her name is Elsie.
He decides to figure this out, so he talked to some of the neighbors and asked if they had noticed any strange cars in the area. He wants to know if someone had kidnapped one of his sheep. One of the neighbors said, "Yeah, I did see a car, but I couldn't tell you the make or the model, but it did have an unusual license plate."
So this guy decides to try to find this car. There are not many people who live up there, so he thinks if he has the license plate, he can figure out who took his sheep. And if he has the plate number, he can report it to the police.
So, he asked for the plate number, and the neighbor says, "It was 4 by 4 by 8, as in 4X4X8."
Upon hearing this, the man said, "I know what kind of a car that is, and I know who stole my sheep Elsie."
From that license plate, he was able to tell the make and model of the car, and who kidnapped his sheep.
And the puzzler question is, what kind of a car was this?