(MGM, 1968) This is the car, nay, character, that has sparked the imaginations of countless children from the 1968 classic based on James Bond author Ian Fleming’s novel. This is the fully-functional road car purpose-built for principal shooting. Production designer Ken Adam stood firm in his belief that if the film was to be about a car, a real car would have to be built—not a mock-up. Along with Rowland Emmett, who had been assigned the task of creating a series of mad inventions to appear in the film, and the Ford racing team headed by Alan Mann, Adam set about building Chitty. No detail was spared in her creation. Built on a custom ladder frame chassis, many old world forms of car building were employed, and modern technology stepped in to create a vehicle which was both accurate enough to fool veteran and classic car experts, when held under the scrutiny of 70mm cinema cameras, and durable enough to withstand everything from driving in sand, cobbled streets and down staircases. The bonnet is crafted of polished aluminum; the boat deck is hand-crafted of red and white cedar built by boat builders in Buckinghamshire, and the array of brass fittings were obtained from Edwardian cars. Even the alloy dashboard plate is from a British World War I fighter plane! The car weighs approximately 2 tons and measures 17 ½ feet in length and is powered by a Ford 3 litre V-6 engine mated to an automatic transmission. Chitty rolled out of the workshop in June 1967 and was registered with the number plate “GEN 11” given to her by Ian Fleming in his novel (“GEN 11” had significance in that if you read the number ones as “i’s”, it spelled out the Latin word “Genii” meaning magical person or being). Due to the outlandish capabilities of Chitty, the studio built other non-driving, versions for various stunts including the flying scenes and sea-faring chase. This hero “close-up” car was used in all of the road-driving sequences and is the only car to bear the legitimate “GEN 11” registration plates (the other versions all bore “GEN 11”, but this was purely cosmetic). Chitty has been owned and meticulously maintained by Pierre Picton since the early 1970s. Pierre first became involved with Chitty during filming in England in 1967-68 when he was responsible for maintaining the car during production and for some “double” driving sequences. When filming was completed, Pierre transported and cared for Chitty as she toured promoting the film; a few years later he acquired her from the production company. Chitty remains, to this day, in excellent operational condition. In October of 2010, one of the famous 1964 Aston Martin DB5 cars used in the James Bond film Goldfinger sold for an astounding $4,500,000.
A truly once in a lifetime opportunity to acquire the most famous and magical car in cinema history.
Critically irrelevant: Chitty Chitty Bang Bank is up for sale
$2M bid could land you the coolest car ever to play a major role in a kid movie
By Kevin Fogarty Add a new comment
April 26, 2011, 4:44 PM — Two vitally important bits of trivia about the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, one of the most cheerfully pointless movies ever made:
First: The book behind the movie was written by Ian Fleming, who wrote the James Bond stories after becoming obsessed with guns, gambling and slinky femmes fatale with highly suggestive last names. (I'm sure everyone else knew this, but I just found out, so it's still cool to me.)
Second: Chitty herself is up for sale.
Stretching the meaning of its "Hardware" section The Register reported today that the original, mirror-polished aluminum-bonnetted, red-cedar-planked, brass-fitted original Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is for sale on British Columbia-based auction site iCollector.com.
It's as shiny as the day it was designed as a real, working automobile built by Ford racing team engineers and mechanics to be able to do its own stunt driving, powered by a 3 liter V-6 engine and automatic transmission. Non-driving versions were used for closeups, flying and other scenes. This one was used in sequences showing Chitty driving over roads, flights of stairs and Vulgarians.
It's 17 1/2 feet long, weighs two tons and carries both the original GEN 11 license plate (Genii) Fleming gave it in the book to show who was really doing the stunt driving and the original dashboard, taken from a World War I British fighter plane.
It won't make you Caractacus Potts (played by Dick Van Dyke in his prime) or land you a date with Truly Scrumptious (OK, Fleming already had the suggestive-name fetish).
And it won't come cheap. Starting bid is $1 million. It will probably sell for about $2 million, according to the auction site (which sells art and collector's items but is owned, oddly enough, by SinoCoking, a Chinese company that specializes in mining, washing and processing coal into coke).
Anyone who saw Dick Van Dyke's portrayal as Caractacus Potts as a career goal rather than a warning about going around with your head in the clouds can justify serious interest, though possibly not $1 million for something you wouldn't want as an everyday driver.
"Those were the days when we still associated Bond with suave, old school actors such as Sean Connery and Roger Moore,"
"Daniel didn't have a hint of suave about him," - Patsy Palmer
