Did you know Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is a Ford at heart?

It is one of the most iconic and instantly recognisable cars to ever grace the big screen, but did you know that Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is a Ford at heart?

This unique vehicle was designed by Ken Adam to look like a pre-war car and was actually built by the Ford Racing Team in 1967.

Weighing 2 tons and measuring 17 feet long, Chitty was built on a custom made ladder frame chassis and ran on wheels moulded in alloy to replicate the timber wheels typical of the 1920s.

The car’s deck was fabricated from red and white cedar, while the alloy dashboard plate was borrowed from a British World War I fighter plane. Under the long, polished aluminium bonnet was a 3.0-litre Ford V6 engine.

Chitty was registered in the UK with the number plate GEN 11, 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.

In the film, which debuted exactly 50 years ago, Chitty is driven by Dick Van Dyke, who plays an eccentric inventor who takes his children on the adventure of a lifetime.

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