What is that Chinese cargo plane?
Anyone know what that 4 engine aircraft that delivers the gold is??
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MovieChat Forums > The Italian Job (1969) Discussion > What is that Chinese cargo plane?
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IT's a refurbished B-29
shareHas some B29 cues, but it's not a B29. The Chinese were sold aircraft by the Russians, the Russians did copy the B29 bolt for bolt and nut for nut and called it the Tupolev Tu4, looked exactly like the B29 superfortress. The plane in the movie does not have the nose, cockpit nor engines of the B29.
When the "bomb bay" doors open to lower the gold, it looks like a mockup they made for the movie.
The plane is a C-74 Globemaster I. It is basically an enlarged DC-4. Although the cargo bay looks false, it is actually a real feature of the plane. For more info, check the following link
http://www.air-and-space.com/Douglas%20C-74.htm
It shows a photo of the actual plane used in the movie, and also shows the cargo lift.
This plane had me buggered for years as well, it was only when I was glancing at the history of Douglas aircraft that a saw a photo of a plane that looked mighty familiar.
Cheers,
Scott
Somebody give that man a ceeegar.
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Dunno about the plane, the coach, if anyone cares, is a Bedford VAL "chinese six" chassis with Harrington legionaire bodywork. I have been trying to find one for ages, they seem to have all gone. The one from the film was converted into the vehicle you see on screen(with opening back end, all seats removed) after filming it was returned to coach work and was scrapped a long long time ago
shareSorry to hear TIJ bus was scrapped. Outside of large trucks, construction equipment and a few vintage Scania trucks, double axles are very rare. There was a Bedford bus in Montevideo (Uruguay) with the double front axles, I saw it when I was there about 10 years ago. It was tucked in the corner of the cities bus yard, near the port. It had been picked over a bit, but most of it was still intact. I don't know if it's still there, but if my travels take me to Uruguay in the near future I'll check into it.
Also, is it common for buses in Right Hand Drive countries to have the cabin on the Left Hand side of the bus?
no, definately not. you want the entrance/exit door to be next to the pavement/sidewalk
Bedford VALs went out of production in about 1972, the six wheel chassis had been introduced 10 years previously to get around the weight restictions in place and allow them to carry more passengers. the regs were changed in the early 70s allowing larger buses on four wheels. Bedford was a world famous name and exported to all corners of the globe, in fact many commercials are still in use in parts of africa as they just keep going and going so finding one in uruguay is not that surprising, but its good to hear of another survivor. there are probably only about 20 of those 6 legger buses left in existance, at the last count 3 of those were the harrington bodied version as seen in the film. They had a knack for rotting out in a very short space of time.
I believe greyhound used 6 wheelers, but with the double wheels at the back. (sound on that GMC 2 stroke diesel is superb!)
There is evidently ONE left in Europe. Here's a link to a video with the last survivor and what that "idea" may have been:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqAg44dmNW0
The plane is a Douglas C-74 Globemaster . It was an huge USAF transport plane built in the late 40' and later tranformed in the more big and fat C-124, largely utilised before C-141 Starlifters..
I really sow the movie plane in Turin in the late sixties. As a matter of fact, a cargo company (Aeronaves de Panama)owned the last 3 survivors of the breed and operated them as civil cargoes (horses , mainly) . Then, since the company was in bankruptcy, the 2 planes were confiscated by Italian Authorities in Turin and Milano. The third C-74 crashed duringt take-off in Marseille, France.
No examples of the C-74 survive in the world. The planes in Italy languished for years on Torino caselle and Milano Malpensa airports and were consequently scrapped in the early seventies. The Turin one vindicated the scrapping , killing 2 workers that cut the wing tanks with oxygen flame and exploded.....
Nasty!
The film makers apparently noticed the thing standing unused in a corner of the airport and asked if they could use it. They slapped a coat of paint on it and that was that.
Thanks for the additional info, but you were beat to the punch by almost 5 years.
"if it was any good they'd have made an American version by now." Hank Hill