Bond’s Top Ten best rides!
We mark the 50 years of 007 with a rundown of his 10 best cars
By Shahzad Sheikh
James Bond is a car guy – there is no doubt about that. When Pierce Brosnan’s Bond sees his Vanquish for the first time the glint in his eye is obvious, when Daniel Craig wins the Aston Martin DB5 he of course, as we know, ends up keeping it for himself, and when Roger Moore receives the Lotus Esprit from Q, he turns to Barbara Bach and says: ‘Looks what Q’s brought for us. Isn’t it nice?’
And boy does he know how to drive – witness the 360-degree mid-air twisting corkscrew jump in a 1974 AMC Hornet in The Man with the Golden Gun, which saw it get into the Guinness World Records 2010 book, described as a “revolutionary jump” and the “first astro spiral used in a movie” listing it as third among the top ten James Bond film stunts.
The one car missing from this list is the car that he actually drove in the original novels, a 1930 Bentley 4½-litre. Perhaps it’s time to see the movie Bond back in a Bentley?
But it’s not just four wheels he’s partial too, so honourable mentions must go to the T-55 Russian Tank (Goldeneye), Jet Pack (Thunderball), Glastron Speed Boat (Live and Let Die), powered Venetian Gondola and Space Shuttle (Moonraker), Q’s ‘retirement’ boat (The World is Not Enough) and of course Little Nellie (actually the Wallis WA-116 autogyro) used by Connery in You Only Live Twice. Bond is certainly adaptable when it comes to transport.
But it’s wheels we’re interested in, though we start with one less than the full set of four.
10. Auto Rickshaw, Octopussy, 1983, Roger Moore
Okay, it wasn’t actually driven by Bond, but it was driven by fellow MI6 agent Vijay Amritraj who shout’s that it’s a company car as he guns the engine and performs a wheelie with it. The chase through the crowded streets of Udaipur is both brilliant and hilarious.
9. Sunbeam Alpine Series II, Dr No, 1962, Sean Connery
This was what Sean Connery drove in the very first movie. Bond drives to Miss Taro’s home in the Blue Mountains and is pursued by Dr. No’s thugs driving a LaSalle hearse – which is way cooler. He would have had a tough time considering the Series II featured a 1.6-litre engine producing only 80bhp barely capable of 160kph, with 0-100kph acceleration taking around 14 seconds! The Alpine Lake Blue roadster was owned by a local resident in Jamaica where the scenes were filmed.
8. Citroen 2CV, For Your Eyes Only, 1981, Roger Moore
Yep, let’s put Bond in the slowest car on the planet (after his white Esprit Turbo self-destructs) to get away from the baddies in a pair of Peugeot 504s. Of course he outwits them and uses the Citroen 2CVs legendary suspension to take shortcuts across the scenery to beat them, even rolling it a few times. In reality, the production team cheated and fitted the four 2CVs used, with Citroen GS flat-four motors instead of the standard two-cylinder producing less than 30bhp.
7. Aston Martin V8 Vantage, The Living Daylights, 1987, Timothy Dalton
It’s significant because Roger Moore never drove an Aston in the Bond movies (although he did in the Cannonball Run whilst spoofing himself), so this was the first time Bond was back in an Aston after 18 years. Originally shown as a convertible, it was later ‘winterised’ with a hard top by Q department which also added extending side outriggers, spike-producing tires, missiles, lasers and of course rocket propulsion.
6. BMW Z8, The World is Not Enough, 1999, Pierce Brosnan
Okay it ended up chopped in half and it wasn’t even an actual Z8 – filming had to take place several months before the car was even out, but it was the coolest of the BMWs that Brosnan’s Bond drove. It had exactly the flair and style that you’d expect of Bond. The cars were models and replicas made over Cobra kit car platforms.
5. Mustang Mach 1, Diamonds Are Forever, 1971, Sean Connery
Sean Connery’s return after Lazenby left the Bond role, saw him in the Mustang Mach 1 as requested by Ford which was supplying most of the vehicles for the Las Vegas chase scene. In typical Bond style he pilots the massive muscle car through a narrow alley by putting it up on two wheels. Curiously it goes in balancing on one side and somehow comes out balancing on the other – figure that one out!
4. Toyota 2000GT Convertible, You Only Live Twice, 1967, Sean Connery
Quite possible Japan’s most beautiful car ever, had to have the roof chopped off because the bulky Connery couldn’t fit in it. And he didn’t even drive it, it was driven by Aki of the Japanese secret service. There were only two convertibles ever made, both for this movie. One now sits in the Toyota HQ but the whereabouts of the other is unknown – maybe SPECTRE has it?
3. Aston Martin Vanquish, Die Another Day, 2002, Pierce Brosnan
Bond gets a Company Aston again after 15 years and he seems rather pleased. The legend goes that so smitten was Brosnan with the new Aston that he took it for a test drive outside of Pinewood studios – when the gate guard warned him that it was unregistered, he simply retorted, ‘it’s okay, I’m James Bond’.
It had an invisibility devise and an ejector seat which Bond uses to right the car after it ends up on its roof. To cope with the action sequence on ice, four out of the seven Astons used were actually Vanquish bodyshells were fitted with 300 bhp Ford Boss 302 V8’s and the four-wheel drive system from the Ford Explorer.
2. Lotus Esprit S1, The Spy Who Loved Me, 1977, Roger Moore
My personal favourite of all the Bond cars is this super-sleek, fittingly futuristic Lotus Esprit S1. Legend has it that the Esprit was left parked in front of Pinewood studios, where Bond producer Cubby Broccoli saw it and just had to have it in the movie.
On location in Sardinia for the chase scene with helicopter the stunt driver was struggling to get the best out of the car, as the handling was superior to anything he had ever driven before. In the end the Lotus test driver that had delivered the car did all the driving!
Seven models were built for the underwater submarine sequence, one of which was a fully mobile submarine equipped with an engine built by Miami-based Perry Submarines. The Esprit is probably the second most recognisable ‘Bond Car’ of all.
1. Aston Martin DB5, Goldfinger, 1964, Sean Connery
Of course the Aston Martin DB5 is the car Bond is most associated with. It’s the first car to have a real impact in the movies (not just hitting the wall!), the template for gadget cars, the scale model replica most sought after by Bond fans, and the car that’s appeared in the most number of Bond movies (Brosnan and Craig’s Bonds have both been depicted as owning one as their personal car).
The car used in Goldfinger, complete with gadgets (most of which actually work) was sold in October 2010, for $4.1m to the car collector Harry Yeaggy. It features the pop out gun barrels behind the front indicators, the bullet shield behind the rear window and a 3-way revolving front number plate showing “GOLD FINGER” or “JB007” or “BMT216A”.
The DB5 will always be the ultimate Bond car.
Tell us which were your favourite Bond vehicles below
