Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (car) 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 engine was from a Zeppelin dirigible. The name reputedly derived either from the sound it made whilst idling, or from a bawdy song from World War I. Six versions of the car were built for the film and
Chitty Bang Bang was never as successful as its predecessor, but took part in several road races, including a Sahara Desert expedition in 1922. It later became the property of the Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum in Cleveland, Ohio. It is now part of the private collection of Bob Bahre at his home in Paris Hill, Maine (the former mansion of Hannibal Hamlin, Lincoln's first Vice-President). Chitty 3 was based on a modified Mercedes chassis with a Mercedes single-overhead-camshaft six-cylinder aero engine, tuned to produce . The car recorded a lap of Brooklands at . Louis Zborowski later used it as his personal transport, and