Rattle Rattle Bang Bang

Oh, sure - we all knew that the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang had its roots in the book from the guy who created James Bond. But where did Ian Fleming get the idea?*

Y'don't suppose...

 A couple days ago we saw this cover tucked into a big batch from Treasure Chest Of Fun & Fact...

That cover is from 1966 - dead between the release of the book (1964) and the movie (1968). But Where's Henrietta? is a sequel to a story from six years earlier. The Enchanted Flivver debuted in the first issue published for the 1960/61 school year. Written by Capt. Frank Moss, the stories were illustrated by Frank Borth - the artist mentioned on my favourite cover in the above-mentioned post.

Young'uns - a 'flivver' was an automobile that did not possess an electric starter. You had to manually turn a crank mounted on the front to kick the engine over and get it running.
One of the things i found particular fascinating with this first chapter is the driving lesson information. For most folks these days manually operating the gears is too complicated. How many could manage to get from here to there if it was still like this...

Indeed - to be continued...

page art by Frank Borth for Treasure Chest Of Fun & Fact v16 #1 (1960)

*(Yes, we are absolutely ignoring Fred MacMurray here, just like everyone else did with Shazam!)