The story opens with a montage of European Grand Prix#As an honorific title races in which one particular car appears to win every race it runs in from 1907 until its final race in 1909, when the car crashes and catches fire, ending its racing career. The car eventually ends up in an old garage in rural England, where two children, Jeremy and Jemima Potts, have grown fond of it. However, a man in the junkyard intends to buy the car from the garage owner, Mr. Coggins, for scrap. The children, who live with their father Caractacus Potts, an eccentric inventor, and the family's equally peculiar grandfather, implore their father to buy the car, but Caractacus cannot afford it. While playing Truancy from school, they meet Truly Scrumptious, a beautiful upper-class woman with her own motor car, who brings them home to report their truancy to their father. After she leaves, Caractacus promises the children that he will save the car, but is taken aback at the cost he has committed himself to. He looks for ways to raise money to avoid letting them down.