Sunday 24 April 2011

For Sale: Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang


Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is a 1968 musical film with a script by Roald Dahl and Ken Hughes, and songs by the Sherman Brothers, loosely based on Ian Fleming's novel Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: The Magical Car. Now that car is for sale on eBay. The car is powered by a Ford 3 litre V-6 engine mated to an automatic transmission. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang rolled out of the workshop in June 1967 and was registered with the number plate 'GEN 11' given to her by Ian Fleming.

The vehicle is being offered by Profiles in History, a dealer in historical manuscripts and original entertainment memorabilia. The current bid is $1,000,000.

1 comment(s):

soubriquet said...

Count Louis Zborowski was the owner/driver of the first chitty bang-bang.
Chitty number 1 was a monster racing car with a 23 litre Maybach aero-engine, Zborowski followed it with three others carrying the same name.
When he died (in a racing crash), Chitty IV, with a 27 litre V12 was unfinished, and was bought by a welsh racing driver, J.G.Parry-Thomas, who renamed the car "Babs", and set a new world land speed record with it on Pendine Sands in south Wales, at 171.02 mph in April 1926. A year later, trying to improve on that speed, he was killed when one of the two drive chains broke and the car rolled at speed.

The name? It was said, the engine when idling made a soungd like "chitty-chitty" and often backfired, but it's also said there was a first world war song about officers getting a "chit" (a note authorising leave), to go to paris where they sought girls to "bang-bang!" with.
Chitty, chitty bang-bang!