A closer look
Production crew for Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets destroyed exactly fourteen Ford Anglias while filming the sequence where the flying car crashes into the Whomping Willow, completely obliterating a small fleet of vintage British automobiles for a single scene. Finding that many identical, working classic cars just to smash them into a giant mechanical tree required a dedicated team scouring the entire country, much to the absolute horror of vintage car enthusiasts who watched their beloved hobby get crushed by a magical piece of foliage. The sheer wastefulness of Hollywood is on full display here, as a major studio casually threw away enough perfectly good vehicles to open a small dealership, all to ensure a twelve-year-old wizard looked sufficiently terrified. It really highlights how limitless a studio budget can be when you are adapting a global phenomenon, allowing them to treat expensive machinery like disposable props
