History
In 1970, Ivo Caprino and his small team of collaborators started work on a 25-minute-long TV special, which would eventually become Pinchcliffe Grand Prix. The TV special was a collection of sketches based on Aukrust's books, with no real story line. After 1.5 years of work, it was decided that it didn't really work as a whole, so production on the TV special was stopped (with the exception of some very short clips, no material from it has ever been seen by the public), But about one year after the rejection, Ivo Caprino's son, Remo Caprino, got the idea to make the sketches into a full-length film. Kjell Aukrust, Ivo Caprino, Kjell Syversen and Remo Caprino began at that point to write the script for what would later become Pinchcliffe Grand Prix.
The film is heavily inspired by the birthplace of Kjell Aukrust's father, Lom. The Flåklypa-mountain is a stylized version of a real mountain, where, ironically enough, the valley underneath it is named Flåklypa. It is also widely believed that the characters are carricatures of real persons.
The film was made in 3.5 years by a team of approximately 5 people. Caprino directed and animated; Bjarne Sandemose (Caprino's principal collaborator throughout his career) built most of the props, sets and cars and was in charge of the technical aspects of making the film; Ingeborg Riiser designed the puppets and Gerd Alfsen made the costumes and props. Charley Patey was the camera man.
When it came out in 1975, Pinchcliffe Grand Prix was an enormous success in Norway, selling 1 million tickets in its first year of release. It remains the biggest box office hit of all time in Norway (Caprino Studios claim it has sold 5.5 million tickets to date) and was also released in many other countries. The movie was shown in cinemas every day of the week for 28 years, from 1975 until 2003—mainly in Norway, Moscow and Tokyo. A real Il tempo gigante car was used to promote the film, e.g. driving around the Hockenheimring between races. The car itself has over 550 hp and a jet-engine that can be used if wanted, but due to EU restrictions the vehicle is barely permitted to be used at all save for exclusive TV cameos.
The UK release featured the voice of well-known Formula One commentator Murray Walker. There is also a US dubbed version. In 2005 a new, digitally restored DVD was released which featured soundtracks and subtitles in 5 languages including English. A previous DVD was released in 2001.
The movie aired each Christmas Eve in Norway for several years, until a change of channel from NRK to TV 2 (Norway) changed the airing date to December 23 or 25. In 2009 it showed on 25th.
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