“It doesn’t make for such good television  everybody likes intrigue and betrayal, I guess,” he said. “But it does make more sense.”

The plan to send the chariot to New York  its first trip out of Egypt since its creation 3,300 years ago  was initiated by Zahi Hawass, the colorful general secretary of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, who is now the star of his own reality show on the History channel, “Chasing Mummies,” and a wily promoter of both himself and his country’s archaeological riches.

In a telephone interview from Cairo he said that he had decided to embark on the lengthy process of seeking approval for the fragile chariot to travel because he felt it was an important element in the story of Tut’s life and maybe his death, a kind of grand utilitarian artifact not seen in the legendary 1970s Tut tour. But Mr. Hawass added unabashedly that the most important reasons for its addition were attention, attendance and money.

The show’s tour, which began in Los Angeles in 2005 and ends in New York on Jan. 2, after passing through six other cities, has raised more than $100 million to be used for the improvement of Egypt’s museums and its archaeological sites. And Mr. Hawass said he believed that displaying the chariot  and turning the exhibition into the ultimate B.C. car show  would guarantee a packed house through the fall and winter.

Image King Tutankhamen’s chariot being reassembled for the show “Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs” at a Times Square exhibition space. Credit... Michael Appleton for The New York Times

“It’s a gift to the people of New York,” he said. “And we hope they will give us a gift as well.” (Neither he nor the exhibition’s other organizers have released to-date attendance numbers for the New York leg of the tour, though they said the overall attendance since the tour began is about eight million visitors.)