The Cars

The three main types of cars that you see used by Charlie and the group are an Aston Martin DB4 Convertible, two Jaguar E-types and three Mini Cooper S's. Beckerman drives a Lamborghini Miura at the start of the film.

The Aston Martin
This was a rather nice example of a DB4 convertible. It has been fully restored.

The E-types
One of the Jaguar E-types has a particularly interesting history, as it was originally the 12th ever E-Type to be built, and was originally registered as 2 BBC. It was the first ever E-type to compete in Motorsport and was subsequently reregistered as 848 CRY.

The Miura
The car that Beckerman is driving at the start of the film is a Lamborghini Miura. A beautiful car.When the car meets its sticky end, however, it is no longer a complete Lamborghini Miura, only a shell.

The Minis
Considering that this is the film that brought the Mini into everyhome around Britain, you would have thought that BMC would ahve given as much help as possible. Not so. They offered 3 Cooper S's at market Price, and all further Minis needed would have to be bought at retail price. Thankfully they weren't deterred by this, and continued with the Minis even though they were offered 3 modified fiat dinos, and as many stuntmen and fiats as they needed by Fiat's Goivanni Agnelli. This possibly would have ended up in a different ending, as they may not have run out of money! It is rumoured though, that BMC did make at least one special Mini for the film. A Mini was prepared with an 1800cc B-series engine from the BMC 1800 'Landcrab', as more torque was needed to climb the stairs in the Subway sequence. Approximately sixteen Cooper S's were used during filming. The cars thrown down the mountainside were standard Minis bought in Switzerland and made up to look like coopers.
The Minis used in the film were Mk1 Minis, which is odd as they have a "G" registration number, and can be identified by their unique moustache grille, sliding windows, hinged numberplate (remember the jump!) and external door hinges. The Cooper S's were pretty much standard and the only major modifications to the engine were a stripped out interior and the addition of a three point roll-cage & sump protector (as used on the rally cars) which was extended, so that the cars could go down steps.