Hang on a minute Lads---

**Pedro_The_Swift** · 25th January 2009, 07:45 PM

IT manager sorts Italian Job cliffhanger

A Surrey IT manager has won three nights in Turin for sorting The Italian Job's cliffhanger ending, having successfully forged a cunning, highly practical plan to save the gold.
Michael Caine's Charlie Croker and his gang are left in a bit of a tight spot at the film's finale, as their bus teeters over a ravine and they have have to decide whether to save their own lives or try to retrieve the 3.2 tons of ingots whose weight threatens to take the vehicle over the edge.
The Royal Society of Chemistry last year invited the public to suggest what Croker's famous "great idea" for securing the booty might be, and received over 2,000 entries.
Of the shortlist of five, the honours went to 39-year-old John Godwin of Godalming.
The Telegraph explains that the plan starts with the robbers smashing outwards two large central windows just "air-side" of the bus's pivot. One of the gang can then lean out and smash two smaller windows above the front axles - in this case inwards, to retain their weight on the land-side of the pivot.
This allows someone to be lowered by his feet to let the air out of the front tyres, described by Godwin as "springs" which were exaggerating the bus's rocking motion.
The "key to surviving this predicament", Godwin noted, is to then drain the estimated 36 gallons of fuel left in the tank, which weighs about 300lb (139kg). Godwin went as far as to "track down one of the last existing VAL14s buses to a depot near Cambridge to check his details, confirming that the fuel tank was located towards the overhanging rear".
He suggested Croker "could have emptied the tank by removing an access plank on the bus floor and reaching down to take out the drainage plug". Once this weight had been removed, one of the gang could safely exit the bus to get rocks to further weigh down the front, and the gold would be within reach.
RSC chief exec Dr Richard Pike said: "We are delighted to have found such a deserving winner. Mr Godwin's entry is just the kind of practical thinking Croker would have used - but he ably demonstrates the science behind the idea as well."

**Sleepy** · 25th January 2009, 08:04 PM

It only took him 30 years to work that out!

What a great movie.

Here's a tune while you're pondering!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064505/

**Blknight.aus** · 25th January 2009, 08:08 PM

Id have just gotten croker away from the gold towards the front to lower the front end, smashed out the windshield and then balanced the crew on the front barwork of the bus. this gives a big weight transferance forwards.

The lightest should be able to get off and obtain weight in the form of rocks or anything else to load up the front.

with the balance now firmly forwards the lightest member can go back and retrieve the gold.

to actually retrieve the bus requires significantly more effort, but assuming they can find decent rope and basic tools it is not unachievable using only the buses motive effort providing you dont take the step of emptying the fuel tank.

**Pedro_The_Swift** · 25th January 2009, 08:12 PM

We are the self-preservation society, the self preservation society

We are the self-preservation society, the self preservation society

Put on your almond rocks and daisy roots

Brush your Hampstead Heath, wear your whistle-and-flute

Lots of lah-de-dahs and Cockneys here

Look alive and get out of here

Get your skates on mate, get your skates on mate

No bib around your Gregory Peck today, hey!

Drop your plates of meat right on the seat

This is the self-preservation society, the self-preservation society (etc)

This is the self-preservation society, the self-preservation society (etc)

**dmdigital** · 25th January 2009, 09:13 PM

The solution is flawed. If they drained the bus' fuel... how did they get the gold off the mountain

The other thing is they would only need to be able to put one man in reach of the gold. He could then pass individual ingots back to the front of the bus thus transferring the weight forward. So the question is thus who was the lightest and the other part is already answered by Dave, the all hang forward over the windscreen except the lightest person who can then slide several ingots forward.

Anyway, its a classic movie. I like the line: "I thought I told you to blow the bloody doors off?"

**B92 8NW** · 25th January 2009, 09:22 PM

I blurted out my "solution" the first time I saw the movie. But it might be considered racially intolerant in the twenty first century

.

**abaddonxi** · 25th January 2009, 09:35 PM

Originally Posted by B92 8NW

I blurted out my "solution" the first time I saw the movie. But it might be considered racially intolerant in the twenty first century

.

Nope, best leave it alone.

**Pedro_The_Swift** · 31st January 2009, 08:30 PM

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