From the noisy and lovable Chitty Chitty Bang Bang to the time-traveling DeLorean in "Back to the Future," flying cars have been a fixture of movies and science fiction that never quite cut it in the real world -- until now.

A flying car devised by a British inventor and a team of engineers took off from London on Wednesday on an epic journey to Timbuktu, Mali, in West Africa -- a trip they hope will prove the fantasy has become reality.

The "Skycar" is a road-legal all-terrain buggy with a huge rear propeller and a fabric wing, the result of 18 months of design and research.