Set in circa 1910, the story opens with a montage of European Grand Prix races in which one particular car appears to win every race. In the final race, the car crashes and catches fire, ending its racing career. The car ends up in an old garage in rural England, where two children, Jeremy (Adrian Hall) and Jemima Potts (Heather Ripley), have grown fond of it. However, a man in the junkyard intends to buy the car from the garage owner, Mr. Coggins (Desmond Llewelyn), for scrap. The children, who live with their widowed father Caractacus Potts (Dick Van Dyke), an eccentric Inventor, and the family's equally peculiar grandfather, implore their father to buy the car, but Caractacus can't afford it. While playing truant from school, they meet Truly Scrumptious (Sally Ann Howes), 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.