CHITTY-BANG-BANG Car. Chittys I, II, and III (data for Chitty I) Built by: Count Zborowski, Britain.

CHITTY-BANG-BANG

Chittys I, II, and III (data for Chitty I) Built by: Count Zborowski, Britain. Engine: World War I-type Maybach aero-engine. Six-cylinders, in line, (six separate cylinders on cast-iron crankcase). Four overhead valves per cylinder, operated by exposed push-rods and rockers. Bore and stroke 165mm by 180mm, 23,092cc (6.50in x 7.09in, 1,409cu.in). Compression ratio 595:1. Originally one hori-zontal Maybach carburettor, later progressively modified to triple Claudel-Hobsons on separate manifolds. Dry-sump lubrication develooed by Zborowski. Maximum power 305bhp at 1,500 rpm. Maximum speed at least 115mph. Transmission: Mercedes scroll clutch and four-speed gearbox, with output drive. to externally mounted sprockets. Final drive to rear axle by exposed chain. Starting of engine by means of crowbar attached to nose of crankshaft. Chassis: Lengthened 1907 Mercedes 75hp type, with straight channel-section side members. Half elliptic front and rear springs. No dampers originally, but Hartford units in final form. Chassis side members stiffened with flitch plates. Rear wheel and transmission brakes, no front brakes. Centre-lock wire-wheels. 895 x 135 tyres. Originally two-seat 'sports' type of coachwork by Blythe of Canterbury, including radiator cowl and swept 'boat type' tail in Brooklands racing form. Up to 8001b (363kg) of sand carried behind driving seats to help driving wheel adhesion. History: The three Chitty-Bang-Bang cars were all exciting and outrageous 'one-off" designs built for Count Louis Zborowski, an English/ American who lived in a stately home— Higham —in Kent. His main interest was motor sport, and these cars were intended to give him the fastest and most impressive transport in the world. In each case, the theory was that a simply (even crudely) engineered chassis, would have a vast aeroplane engine installed, would be geared up accordingly, and would have simple touring or sporting bodies appropriate to the purpose. Chitty I was purely a Brooklands racing car,

Chitty II another racing four-seater which also earned its keep as a fast touring car, while Chitty III was originally intended as a racing machine, but was also used for touring. Chitty IV, a much more advanced car, was only partly-built when Zborowski was killed in a factory-owned Mercedes racing car at Monza in 1924, and was never completed. It was to have been a saloon car Chitty. The idea of Chitty I was born due to the enor-mous surplus of allied and enemy aeroplane engines immediately after World War I. Zborowski purchased a 23-litre, six-cylinder Maybach engine from the British Disposals Board (it had evidently been used in a German Gotha bomber), took it back to Higham and asked his engineering consultant Clive Gallop to build a car. The chassis frame, a lengthened 1907 75hp Mercedes type, kept its original transmission and radiator. Final drive by chain was normal for Edwardian if not Vintage cars (but the Mercedes was an Edwar-dian chassis). Gallop had to devise dry-sump lubrication to get sufficient ground clearance. Blythe Bros. of Canterbury (owned by Zborow-ski) built the crude but brutal body, and the car first raced in Easter 1921. At Brooklands, Chitty won several races, and proved that it could approach 120mph, in spite of having poor road-holding and negligible brakes! However, even before the end of 1921. the Count had decided that he wanted an improved car. Chitty I was 'retired' and Chitty II was born.

Above: There was an obvious link with Mercedes in every Chitty—as can be seen from the radiator style fitted to Chitty-Bang-Bang II in 1922.

Above and right: Function and speed were more important than comfort in Chitty II—the hood was more for show than for weather protection.

The second car was built on similar lines. The chassis, as before, was from a pre-war Mercedes, but with a rather shorter wheelbase. The engine, an aero-engine in the same philosophy, was an 18,882cc six-cylinder Benz unit with a nominal 230bhp. Chitty II was intended more as a high-speed touring car, and was given a splendid four-seat touring body by Blythe Bros. It only raced once at Brooklands, in the autumn of 1921, lapping at 108.27mph, but it did not win its race. Chitty III, built in 1922, was a much-modified Mercedes 28/95 chassis, imported originally as a complete car with a rudimentary test body. The 7*-litre Mercedes engine was removed and a 14,778cc six-cylinder Mercedes aero-engine, of 160 nominal horsepower, installed. The Mercedes

transmission was retained, so this was the only Chitty with propeller-shaft drive to a 'live' axle. During 1924, Chitty III won races at Brooklands, and could lap at more than 112mph, almost as quickly as the original Chitty I. The first car, incidentally, raced at Brooklands again in 1922, but nearly killed Zborowski in an enormous high-speed accident when a front tyre burst on the steep banking. The car finished up in the infield, but was scarcely damaged and was eventually rebuilt. After Zborowski's death, Chitty I was bought by the Conan-Doyle brothers, neglected for some years, finally abandoned at Brooklands and later cut up. Chitty II, which had been sold to make room for Chitty III at Higham, was sold and resold

and eventually restored, and it is now in the United States. Chitty III, raced at Brooklands as recently as 1939, was sold for road use then broken up.

Chitty II is therefore the only such legendary aero-engined car still in existence today. One other car built by Gallop for Zborowski in the same period, not called a Chitty but unmis-takeably related to them, was the Higham Special Brooklands car. This car, with its 27-litre Ameri-can Liberty V12 engine, was sold to Parry Thomas, renamed 'Babs' and improved. It took the World Land Speed Record, then killed its owner in a crash on Pendine Sands in Wales. It was buried there, but was exhumed in 1969, and it is now being restored by Owen Wyn Owen in North Wales.