Family of James Bond creator commissions sequel to magic car tale
In 1964 it was a fictional Paragon Panther; in 2011 the all-new Chitty Chitty Bang Bang will be a souped-up VW camper van.
It was announced on Tuesday that the family of Ian Fleming, creator of the original Chitty, had asked author and screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce to write a sequel, to be titled Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again, the first of three new titles.
Cottrell Boyce, whose first book, Millions, was made into a film by Danny Boyle, said he had "no idea" why he had been asked: "I haven't asked them in case it's all a case of mistaken identity."
Boyce has gone back to Fleming's book for the first time since he was a child and was delighted, he said, to conclude that it is crying out for a sequel. "I've had a lot of fun writing these books, but somewhere among all the fun I found it strangely emotional to revisit myself as a boy and ask if he could help me restore an old-fashioned contraption and make it fly again."
Fleming originally made up the Chitty tale, about a family whose car develops unusual powers, as a bedtime story for his son Caspar. When the writer had a heart attack and his wife banned him from his typewriter, he wrote the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang stories out in longhand instead of working on his next Bond novel.
The book was published in 1964 and became even more famous when it was made into a 1968 film with Dick Van Dyke as Caractacus Potts.
The new novel, to be illustrated by Joe Berger, will be published on 4 November. It follows the new Bond novel by Sebastian Faulks, Devil May Care.