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-Chitty-Bang-Bang two months after his death. "Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang" was first published in the UK in three hard-backed volumes by Jonathan Cape, each costing 10s. 6d. The first volume was launched on Thursday, 22 October 1964, the second on 26 November 1964 and the third on 14 January 1965. In July 1968, the three volumes were released in one single volume by Pan Books. Alexander Muir, in the "Daily Mirror", considered that the first two volumes of "Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang", "would make wonderful Christmas presents for everybody's young ones", declaring that they were "thrilling cliff-hanger adventures". Writing in "The Guardian", John Rowe Townsend was damning