Tintin's Cars

The first three from "Tintin in the land of the Soviets"

Mercedes ~ 1925

Amilcar

This first album contains a few less characteristic vehicles.

The next two cars from Tintin in America

International
or Ford 1930?
or Citroën?

Bugatti

The other cars of this albums are inspired by real cars, but Hergé did not care to draw exact reproductions.

The most famous Ford Model T from Tintin in the Congo

Ford Model T

Three vehicles from The Blue Lotus

Oldsmobile
or Bugatti

Armoured car

Renault
or Chrysler

From Cigars of the Pharaoh

Lincoln phaeton

A Bugatti or
Amilcar racing car?

...or Alfa Romeo?

This racing car is a clever hybrid of Bugatti, Alfa Romeo and Amilcar.

Hergé took later on great care of reproducing the cars in their minute details, so that a fragment of the grille or a wing are enough to identify the vehicle. This kind of perfectionism was fully implemented around 1936, beginning with the Broken Ear. In previous albums, many cars are approximations whilst later, there is almost no doubt to identify them.

The next three from The Broken Ear

Hotchkiss ~ 1912

1936 Ford

1934 Morris

Two tow trucks

Tow truck from Black Gold

Tow truck from The Crab

The next nine from The Black Island (Attention: there are two versions of this album*)

1936 Humber Pullman

1935 Vauxhall

Austin (?)

Jaguar Mark X

Triumph Herald

Ford Zephyr

Hanomag

MG 1100

Dennis

* See Variations

King Ottokar's Sceptre

1938 Opel Olympia
See the other Opel below

1937 Ford V8 2 door convertible

The same Ford V8 here as a phaeton

1934 LaSalle

1932 Chevrolet

Gillet 1931

The 1938 Packard coupé of King Muskar of Syldavia and two more Ford V8

1938 Packard

Another 1937 Ford as a 2 door sedan

The same Ford from The Seven Crystal Balls

The four versions of this 1937 Ford together. There is a fifth example in the original version of the "Black gold" published in French in the Petit Vingtième (see also: "all cars"). It must have been a truly popular car in Belgium for Hergé to have used and re-used it...

The Crab with the Golden Claws

Renault NN

Amilcar Compound
or Tatra?

The following five from The Seven Crystal Balls

1938 Lincoln

1938 Opel

1939 Fiat or Simca

1936 Buick

1937 Ford V8 taxi cab

The next seven from Land of Black Gold

Citroën 5 CV

1948 Ford

1939 Ford

1948 Morris Six

Lancia "Aprilia"

1949 Buick "Eight"

See also variations

Jeep Willys

The Jeep, the two American cars and the fire truck of Destination Moon and Explorers on the Moon

Jeep Willys

Dodge 1949

Ford 1950

Bedford

The Calculus Affair — This album has the most cars of all

3 in one pict

Citroën 15/Six

1954 Simca Aronde

Lancia "Aurelia" B20

The 2 CV of Thomson and Thompson

Mercedes 300

Willys Station Wagon

Peugeot 203

1953 Opel Rekord

1955 Chrysler

Peugeot 202

Rover 75 1954

Saurer coach

Bordurian convertible

All the cars in Borduria sport the famous moustache of Plekszy-Gladz.

And another 15 cars from the Calculus Affair on my page "bits and pieces".

From The Red Sea Sharks

Panhard

And several more in bits and pieces.

The next three from The Castafiore Emerald

Alfa Romeo Giulietta

Citroën Ami 6

Peugeot 403

From my photo album.

From Tintin in Tibet

1938 Cadillac

From Tintin and the Picaros

Mercedes or
Zil inspiration

Land Rover 109

Chevrolet 1951

Jonckheere coach

More on variations, sundries, and the complete list of 173 vehicles. Finally, a last page contains all cars together with a picture of the original vehicle that inspired Hergé.

It should be noted that after World War II, the settings and accessories, including cars of Tintin albums were drawn by the "Studios Hergé", which included several other artists such as Jacques Martin, Bob de Moor and Michel Demarets.

See also my links : Tintin and : cars.

If you don't agree with the information and data on this page, don't hesitate to send me your comments. If you have a better picture of the original cars, I would be grateful to incroporate them in these pages.

All pictures are obviously © Hergé, but this page was prepared by François de Dardel, who keeps the copyright of this study. You can imagine I needed hundreds of hours to research and identify all the cars. I was content only when I had found the perfect match in form of a photograph of the real car.

This is not a commercial site: I have nothing to sell. It is only a study I made for my own enjoyment — and hopefully for the pleasure of some of my readers.

I started these pages in March 2003. The following year, in 2004, the Éditions Moulinsart published a book on the same subject: "Tintin, Hergé, les autos", with additional information on some of the cars, adorned with a few typos and a commercial promotion for the miniature cars distributed by Atlas.

Many viewers of these pages have helped me correct mistakes and identify some of the cars. My sincere thanks to all. Alphabetically: Mark Ashbridge, Iñaki Azpiazu, Eric Banzinger, Luc Balleyguier, Alfonso Barrola, Joris Bergsma, Frans van Bree, Michel Casaubon, Jean-Luc Coudray, Thierry Dubois, Jean-Marc Durieux, Thierry Federspiel, Daniel González, Claude Goritte, Marcus Hoogveld, Nick Knoll, Timo Laitinen, Ingo Menker, Thierry Milan, Pascal Monnin, Franck Noyalet, Yann Saunders, Guillaume Villemagne and Livio Zanone.

You probably know that the 2006 Brussels Car Show was held on January 12 to 22 under the motto of Tintin's cars. A sign that the bout of fever that struck me in 2003 is contagious.
You can see a few pictures on their site, which has the bad manners of refusing your access unless you load the last version of Flash... I am grateful to Pascal "Quattro" for the ticket.

Updated on 8 May 2013


	A collection	François de Dardel
As drawn by Hergé, with a photo of the corresponding "real" car. Click on the thumbnails to open the big picture.		En français