The musical fantasy film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, about a family who rescue a magical flying car from the scrapyard, has delighted generations of kids since its release in 1968.
Starring veteran American actor Dick Van Dyke as inventor Caractacus Potts, the tale revolves around two children who find the wreck of a once-famous racing car in rural England in 1910. Learning it’s about to be scrapped, the young siblings, Jemima and Jeremy Potts, played by Heather Ripley and Adrian Hall, beg their father to restore the iconic car to its former glory.
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Caractacus, a widower, is determined not to let his children down, eventually raising the necessary funds through selling some of his zany inventions, including whistling sweets that attract a pack of dogs and a hair-cutting machine that almost scalps a customer!
While attempting to sell his “Toot Sweets” to the famous Scrumptious Candy Company, Caractacus meets the wealthy heiress to the business, Truly Scrumptious, played by Sally Ann Howes, who embarks on a series of fantastic adventures with the Potts family in the unique Chitty Chitty Bang Bang car.
What was the inspiration behind the car’s design?
The story of the flying car was based on English author Ian Fleming’s 1964 novel, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: The Magical Car. The Eton-educated author wrote the story while convalescing from a major heart attack in the early 1960s. Originally intended purely as entertainment for his son Caspar, the idea formed to turn it into a children’s novel.
For Ian Fleming, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang represented a major change from his usual books, as he was already famous for writing the James Bond 007 spy capers, inspired by his work during World War II in Britain’s Naval Intelligence Division.
His change of tack came about thanks to his admiration for a real-life customised Mercedes car from the 1920s, a 23-litre six-cylinder monster with an 8ft-long bonnet and a Maybach engine commonly used in Zeppelins during World War I!
The novel’s fictional car was a hybrid of the unique Mercedes, owned by British racing driver and auto-engineer Louis Zborowski and driven at Brooklands motor racing track in Surrey, and Fleming’s own car, a Standard Tourer which he drove around Switzerland in his youth.
How he came up with the unusual name is the subject of speculation, although it has been attributed to being in honour of Letitia Chitty, an early aeronautical engineer. However, writer Jon Gilbert suggested Fleming knew two brothers called Chitty, the sons of Rev George Jameson Chitty, an Eton school master, so it was possible they inspired the name.
Either way, Fleming was a massive car enthusiast and petrol head who owned several automobiles and was an avid reader on the topic. He believed that the purring sound made by a car was almost as important as its appearance to his overall driving experience.
Technical drawings
Fleming’s knowledge of cars enabled the design of the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang car, but even so, he also enlisted the help of his friend Amhert Villiers, an English automotive and aeronautical engineer and artist, to ensure it was perfect. Fleming asked Villiers to come up with a “snazzy looking” car that would “excite the imagination of children aged between seven and ten”. He said he feared the publishing company didn’t have anyone with enough “imagination and technical know-how” to draw the end product. Villiers provided the technical details for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, based on the famous Bond cars in the 007 novels, while he also provided a sketch of a “low, green and rakish” car that resembled an SSK Mercedes with a French Delaunay Belleville radiator.
Tragically, Fleming didn’t live to see his book published, as he suffered another heart attack, which this time proved fatal, just two months before it went into print on 11th August 1964.
Where is Chitty Bang Bang car today?
Building the car for the film required precise craftsmanship and expertise that was both painstaking and spectacular. The key features included luxurious leather upholstery, brass details and a vintage car style that made it stand out from its peers.
Six cars were used during filming by MGM studios to represent Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, starting with the racing scene, when the supercar was driven in the Grand Prix, but years later ended up in Coggins Junk Yard. This car was also filmed crashing, catching fire and later being towed by a horse to Caractacus’ windmill. Sadly, it was badly damaged and scrapped after filming.
All the normal driving scenes featured the Original GEN 11 Road Car, fitted with a Ford V6 3.0-litre engine and automatic gearbox. Owned by actor Pierre Picton, it was used to promote the film and was sold to New Zealand filmmaker Sir Peter Jackson in 2011.
The car used in the scene when Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was caught by the tide was a different model, with a silver grille and exhaust, rather than the gold of the road car. The brass elements had been replaced by aluminium so they wouldn’t be corroded by the water. It is now owned by the National Motor Museum in Beaulieu, Hampshire.
The fourth car was used for close-up shots, especially when the actors were singing, as it was being carried on a trailer for safety reasons. It is owned by Lord Anthony Bamford, the billionaire British businessman who’s chairman of JC Bamford Excavators Limited.
A fifth fully functional car was fitted with a hidden second steering wheel to give the impression Chitty was driverless as she glided along. This model is owned by Dezer Auto Museum in Florida.
Finally, the flying car had all the aesthetic details of the other models, but didn’t have an engine. Fitted with propellers and wings and filmed to give the illusion it was flying, it has been restored and is owned by an auto enthusiast in Florida.
Lasting impact
The famous film and its magical car have left a lasting impact on classic car culture today, largely because Chitty became a character in her own right, floating in water, flying and more, to the delight of children and the young at heart. The chemistry between the car and the wonderful Dick Van Dyke, still going strong today at 98, made the car’s adventures charming and memorable.
