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 of the book, saying of the car "I don't care for her much, or the values she stands for" and, of the writing, that "we have the adult writer at play rather than the children's writer at work. The style is avuncular, the writing down too evident." The reviewer for "The Times" noted that "junior Bonds-men ... can cut their teeth on" the novel. Concerning volume one of the book, "The Sunday Times" reviewer Oscar Turnill wrote that "Fleming was right in judging the children's market ripe for the ... cliff hanger" and praised his "avuncular and knowledgeable storytelling", which