Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (car)

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is the vintage racing car which features in the book, musical film and stage production of the same name. Writer Ian Fleming took his inspiration for the car from a series of aero-engined racing cars built by Count Louis Zborowski in the early 1920s, christened Chitty Bang Bang. The original Chitty Bang Bang's motor was from a Zeppelin dirigible and it was so named due to the sound made when the car was started. Six versions of the car were built for the film and a number of replicas have subsequently been produced. The version built for the stage production holds the record for the most expensive stage prop ever used.

For the 1968 film, six cars were created, including a fully functional road-going car with UK registration GEN 11. This car was designed by the film's production designer, Ken Adam, and cartoonist and sculptor Frederick Rowland Emett, built by Alan Mann Racing in Hertfordshire in 1967, fitted with a Ford 3000 V6 engine and automatic transmission and allocated a genuine UK registration. This car was privately owned by Pierre Picton of Stratford-upon-Avon from the early 1970s until May 2011. Actor Dick van Dyke, who drove the car in the film, said that "the car was a little difficult to maneuver, with the turning radius of a battleship". Public appearances of the car in 2010 are listed on the GEN 11 official website, with a note that there will be no more as the car was sent to Los Angeles, USA, to be auctioned on 22 May 2011. The auction price was expected to reach US$1–2m, but capped at $805,000 (£495,415) with the winning bidder New Zealand film director Sir Peter Jackson, who according to his spokesperson said he would use it as a charity fund-raising vehicle. It is registered in New Zealand as GEN 1I, as the registration GEN 11 had already been issued.

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