Goofs

The bonnet of Charlie's Aston Martin is hinged at the nose of the car. When the car gets thrown off the cliff, the hinges are near the cockpit. This is because the car which was thrown off the cliff was in fact a Lancia Flavia convertible.

The Coopers have only one person in them when driven through the tunnels, but close-ups show them having passengers.

When the plow comes out of the tunnel with the Miura on its fork, you can see the arm of the driver leaning on the door. Later, when the plow starts pushing the car off the rocks, it's empty. Yet we see something which looks like a body fall down the cliff when the car is pushed over the edge.

During the race around the Fiat test track, a police motorcycle manages to pass in front of the Minis. But in the next shots, the police are all still behind chasing.

During the opening sequence, most of the shots from inside the car show a cloudy day with no shadows, yet most of the exterior views show a sunny day.

There is supposed to be £4m in gold bullion, this equates to around $10m in 1969 when the cost of gold was about $40 per Troy ounce. Each Troy ounce is 31 grammes, meaning there would have been 7.5 tonnes of gold or 500 15kg ingots. A mini wouldn't be capable of containing 166 ingots without them being visible, and with 2.5 tonnes of gold would have been undriveable at anything but a crawl, even if heavily modified.

In the cliffhanger, there's at least 8 cubic feet of gold at the far end of the coach, weighing about 10,000lb. The combined weight of the 10 men at the other end couldn't be more than about 2,100lb - far too little to counterbalance the gold as shown.

When Michael Caine is seen waving the convoy up the ramp to the Free Enterprise one ferry, they are going up the top ramp. Problem is the ramp 'fingers' can be seen raised, not lowered ready for traffic and if they were lowered that vessel did not have a top deck anyway so the parking would have been wet.

Whilst in the workshop, prior to leaving the UK, Charlie Crocker points to the rear of the first Mini, which is on axle stands, as says they are having trouble with the differential. A Mini doesn't have a rear differential gear as it is front wheel drive and the engine, gear box and drive shafts are all integrated at the front of the car.

When the Coopers are being prepped in the garage prior to the job, one car has the rear end jacked up. The mechanic says something is wrong with the differential. Swapping the diff in a Mini (a front-wheel drive car) requires the removal of the engine and gearbox which are at the front, not the back. However, this could be an intentional 'mistake' left in by the writers/film-makers. When this film was made front wheel drive cars were not as commonplace in the UK as they are today and most mechanics where used to working on the standard rear wheel driven cars. Asking an inexperienced mechanic to change the diff on a Mini was apparently a common practical joke/jape. The film maker may have also been implying that one of Charlie's mechanics wasn't up to scratch as there are various other gags in the film referring to their ineptitude (i.e. "you're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!").

When Charlie Croker leaves prison, Freddie tells Mr. Bridger that Charlie is planning a job in Italy, but at this point of the story, Charlie doesn't yet know of the job (Charlie learns of the job when reviewing the documents given by Miss Peach shortly after leaving prison) and so could not have been planning for it. However, Beckerman presumably had already planned the job, and he plainly intended Charlie to carry it out. Perhaps he'd discussed it with Camp Freddie.

Just after the last Mini is driven onto the bus Croker is shown inside instructing the drivers to begin unloading and it appears that the cars are facing the rear of the coach which would have required them being backed up the ramp.

However, they are still actually facing the front. There is a blind separating the driver's compartment from the rest of the coach and the open door is in fact the passenger loading door. Both the blind and the open front door can be seen more clearly a few minutes later, particularly when Croker is hanging out of it.

During the heist, Charlie shouts "Now! Now! Go! Go! Go!" in order to get the minibus to force its way into the traffic jam. But in the long shot showing the minibus pulling out after the bullion van, there is clearly a huge gap left by patiently waiting cars which allows the minibus to complete the manoeuvre. This would never have happened in a real traffic jam, particularly in Italy.

At the beginning of the film, just after the Lamborghini enters the tunnel we see a brief shot of the Bulldozer as the car's tyres screech. If you look very carefully you can see the Lamborghini has already been secured to the front of the machine. After the explosion the Bulldozer reverses out of the tunnel mouth, there is a rope leading from the front of the wheel arch down the main beam of the Bulldozer blade.

Gold weighs 19300 kg/m³, so the mentioned and stolen half ton (be it metric or not makes no big difference) of gold would be a cube with a side length of about one foot. However, the amount of gold shown looks more like one cubic meter.

When the Lamborghini Miura is rammed by the snow plow and gets thrown off the cliff into the water, the engine lid opens and the engine is not there. This is because the Lamborghini used for this accident was already a wreck when it "met" with the snow plow.

The Chinese characters on the plane from China are basically nonsense: "China Government Fly". They are also traditional characters, which were replaced by simplified characters in the 1950's in Mainland China.

The men guarding the gold appear to be armed with rifles and pistols, which they don't use, and a water cannon which they do, and somewhat unsuccessfully at that. Hardly an effective security force.

The Mafia boss lurks ostentatiously in the background of Beckerman's black-and-white DIY movie, even managing to draw the camera over to cover him. He then walks directly towards the camera, and when he removes his sunglasses, he is full-frame in the picture, only yards away. And yet, somehow, Mr Bridger is the first to realise that the Mafia are a threat.

Despite a head-on collision at high speed with a huge bulldozer blade and then a vast fireball, the Miura seems to have done nothing more than gently come to rest on top of the bulldozer's blade. It, and the bulldozer's driver, seem untouched by the fireball.

When the Mafia wreck the first E-Type Jaguar, Charlie says to the mafia boss "You just cost him his no claims bonus!" No claims bonus is a British term and would not have been understood by an American audience. It was re-dubbed as "You just cost him his insurance bonus!"

In the opening title sequence, the car's engine noises and the speed of the passing scenery suggest hi-speed driving. The speedometer and the tachometer, often visible in the bottom left corner, suggest otherwise. It suggest that footage was filmed and then sped up.

Dummies were clearly noticeable piloting the police car during and after it crashed through the gate at the end of the sewer.

In the chase down the palazzo steps, the protective covering for the marble stairs is plainly visible.

During the attack on the bullion van in Turin a roadworks sign says "WORK IN PROGRESS". Surely this should have been in Italian.

During the introductory sequence, the car is seen driving up the Italian side of the Grand St. Bernard pass and then driving down the same side again, whereas it's evidently intended that it crosses the pass.

During the escape, the Mafia don says, " Check for departures at Linate and Malpensa." The robbery is in Turin, Linate and Malpensa are the airports for Milan.

$4 million at 1969 prices would have weighed 3 tonnes in weight and not 1/2 tonne as specified. Each mini would had to have transported a whole tonne or twice its curb weight (calculated at $41 / troy ounce, 32 troy ounces to 1 kg = $1,312. $4 million divided by $1,312 / kg = 3,048 kg).

The entire Mini chase / escape is completely unnecessary. The Dormobile has no difficulty driving through the traffic and catching up with the bus.

The Minis are driven up ramps and onto a moving bus. Since the road they are travelling on is virtually deserted and the police are no longer in pursuit, they could easily pull over to drive the Minis onto the bus without the need for the dangerous maneuver.

The car used when Charlie came out of prison was supposed to have been stolen from the Pakistani Ambassador (as Charlie points out to Lorna when they're in it and he shows her the flag). As a member of the Commonwealth (which they still were in 1969 although they left three years later), Pakistan did not have an Ambassador in London, but a High Commissioner.

When the three Minis are pursued up the ramp onto the aircraft museum by the police car as there is only one entrance and exit the best way to apprehend the minis would be to park on the ramp and wait for assistance rather than follow them on.