You could own ‘Noddy’ Fiat 500 with direct link to Kray twins for £12,000
A COLOURFUL Fiat 500 which has a direct link to the Kray twins could be yours for just £12,000.
The vehicle, affectionately known as ‘the Noddy car,’ has just done 14,553 miles and is now going under the hammer.
It is said that the car used to belong to Violet Kray, mother of the infamous Kray twins, and that she used it to visit Ronnie Kray whilst he was being kept in Parkhurst Prison.
The Fiat has also been re-commissioned recently and has a guide price of £12,000 to £14,000.
It will be auctioned by Brightwell’s with bidding opening on December 2 and closing on December 6.
Violet married Charles Kray Sr, in 1926, and gave birth to her first son, Charlie, in the same year.
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A second child, also named Violet, was born in 1929, but died hours after birth.
Twins Ronnie and Reggie were born in 1933, the last children she gave birth to.
Charles Kray Sr went into hiding after refusing to take part in World War 2, and Violet was left to take care of the three kids.
Violet was a devoted mum, and didn't see the bad in her children.
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When money was an issue, Violet sold her wedding ring in order to feed her three sons.
Violet died at her home in Shoreditch, London, in 1982, the day before she would have turned 73.
Ronnie and Reggie Kray were the heads of a vicious East End crime empire which carried out murder, armed robberies, protection rackets and assaults.
The brothers were handed life sentences in 1969 after cops swooped on the gang just days after they had taken a break at their Suffolk home.
Ronnie was convicted of the murder of fellow gangster George Cornell who was shot dead in the Blind Beggar pub in Whitechapel in 1966 and Reggie convicted of the murder of Jack "The Hat" McVitie in 1967.
In the early 50s the brothers started their gang, The Firm, which would shape their criminal activities.
Their brother Charlie provided the business brainpower behind the operations, while the twins became the public face of The Firm.
One of their first moves was to buy a run-down snooker club in Mile End, where they started several protection rackets.
They moved to the West End to run a gambling club, Esmerelda's Barn, in Knightsbridge, in the 1960s.
They were widely seen as prosperous nightclub owners and part of the Swinging London scene, even persuading a peer to join them on the board to give the club a veneer of respectability.
The twins' fortunes changed when Ronnie shot and killed George Cornell, a member of rival gang the Richardsons, at the Blind Beggar pub in Whitechapel.
No one was convicted for the 1966 killing at the time.
Then, in December of that year, the Krays helped Frank Mitchell escape from Dartmoor prison.
Reggie was allegedly encouraged by his brother in October 1967 to kill Jack "the Hat" McVitie, a minor member of the Kray gang who had failed to fulfil a £1,000 contract to kill Leslie Payne.
They lured him to a flat in Stoke Newington on pretence of a party.
There Reggie stabbed McVitie in the face and stomach and killed him, driving the blade into his neck.
In the same year Detective Leonard "Nipper" Read reopened his case against them. He had met with a "wall of silence" when investigating the Krays before.
However, by the end of 1967 Read had built up enough evidence against the Krays, and on May 8, 1968, the brothers and 15 members of their gang were arrested.
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Ronnie remained in Broadmoor Hospital until his death on March 17, 1995, after suffering from a heart attack at the age of 61.
Reggie was released on compassionate grounds in August 2000, eight-and-a-half weeks before his death from cancer.
