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Warbirds and Wheels to display winged wonder — Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

7 February, 2015

Even though we’re in the futuristic year of 2015, any mention of flying cars is still more likely to bring to mind memories of a certain childhood movie, rather than any winged automobile available off a showroom floor.

That car, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, will be on display at Wanaka’s Warbirds and Wheels museum for the month of April, on loan from its owner, Sir Peter Jackson. During the month, Warbirds & Wheels will raise funds for the Upper Clutha Children’s Medical Trust, a local charity assisting sick children and their families.

The Warbirds and Wheel exhibit will be the first time the car has been on display for such a time period. Originally owned by Pierre Picton of the UK, the car was bought by Sir Peter Jackson in 2011, before he shipped it to New Zealand.

Though there were several Chitty Chitty Bang Bang cars made for the 1968 movie, only one of them actually worked — this is that car, known as GEN11.

GEN11 was designed by Ken Adam and built by the Ford Racing Team. It is powered by a Ford three-litre V6 engine and has a dashboard plate from a British World War I fighter plane.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was completed in 1967 and registered with the number plate GEN11, given to her by Ian Fleming, who wrote the novel the film was based on. The registration spells the Latin word ‘genii’, meaning magical person or being.

The exhibit coincides with the Easter school holidays, making it a perfect event for the family. There will be many exciting and interactive ways for locals and visitors to get up close with Chitty during the month, including an artist-in-residence week, movie showings, dress-up ‘cars over coffee’ day, kids colouring competition, as well as movie memorabilia for sale. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang will be on display from April 1–30, and the museum is open seven days a week, from 9am to 5pm.

Lunch with … Cary Taylor

11 September, 2024

Many years ago — in June 1995 to be more precise — I was being wowed with yet another terrific tale from Geoff Manning who had worked spanners on all types of racing cars. We were chatting at Bruce McLaren Intermediate school on the 25th anniversary of the death of the extraordinary Kiwi for whom the school was named. Geoff, who had been part of Ford’s Le Mans programme in the ’60s, and also Graham Hill’s chief mechanic — clearly realising that he had me in the palm of his hand — offered a piece of advice that I’ve never forgotten: “If you want the really good stories, talk to the mechanics.”
Without doubt the top mechanics, those involved in the highest echelons of motor racing, have stories galore — after all, they had relationships with their drivers so intimate that, to quote Geoff all those years ago, “Mechanics know what really happened.”

ROTARY CHIC

6 September, 2024

Kerry Bowman readily describes himself as a dyed-in-the-wool Citroën fan and a keen Citroën Car Club member. His Auckland home holds some of the chic French cars and many parts. He has also owned a number of examples of the marque as daily drivers, but he now drives a Birotor GS. They are rare, even in France, and this is a car which was not supposed to see the light of day outside France’s borders, yet somehow this one escaped the buyback to be one of the few survivors out in the world.
It’s a special car Kerry first saw while overseas in the ’70s, indulging an interest sparked early on by his father’s keenness for Citroëns back home in Tauranga. He was keen to see one ‘in the flesh’.
“I got interested in this Birotor when I bought a GS in Paris in 1972. I got in contact with Citroën Cars in Slough, and they got me an invitation to the Earls Court Motor Show where they had the first Birotor prototype on display. I said to a guy on the stand, ‘I’d like one of these,’ and he said I wouldn’t be allowed to get one. Citroën were building them for their own market to test them, and they were only left-hand drive.”