Top 10 Bond cars

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/specials/for_your_eyes_only/article3552927.ece

April 1, 2008
Top 10 Bond cars
Brendan Plant

Fast cars and improbable chases have been key ingredients in the James Bond films since the series began in 1962. From modest beginnings in Dr No, when 007 outran his pursuers in a rented Sunbeam Alpine, the Bond car has grown in speed, sophistication and sex appeal. With each new model, James Bond has been able to impress us with his impeccable driving and unflappable demeanour and, more importantly, to transport us to a place where our fantasies and envy collide like so many henchmen in a car chase.

Here’s a list of the ten most impressive Bond cars in the 21 films to date.

10. Venetian Gondola (Moonraker, 1979)

Over 21 films, 007 has commandeered many unlikely vehicles: from a moonbuggy, to an old routemaster bus, to the odd fake alligator submersible. But the most memorable was the gondola which transformed into a faux-Venetian hovercraft in Moonraker. In that one surprising moment when Roger Moore drove off through the crowds in Piazza San Marco, he fired the imaginations of motorway commuters everywhere who’ve been longing ever since for their own hovercraft to escape the daily gridlock. Not even Q has come up for a solution to that yet.

9. Citroën 2CV (For Your Eyes Only, 1981)

Giving new meaning to the phrase ‘race to the bottom’, Roger Moore outran two decidedly unthreatening Peugeot 504s in an even more sluggish Citroën 2CV during a precipitous chase down a Spanish mountainside in For Your Eyes Only in 1981. Despite its unprepossessing appearance, the 2CV was one of the most heavily modified of all Bond cars, as just about every part of the original vehicle was replaced with high-performance components. But even with a few more cheveux under the bonnet, the little 2CV struggled just to keep pace with the humble Peugeots, leaving 007 to make-up for the lack of horsepower with some tricky driving and, as always, the best of British luck.

8. Aston Martin Vanquish (Die Another Day, 2002)

When Aston Martin returned to the Bond series after the brief BMW interlude in the late Nineties, it was in the muscular form of the 2002 Vantage, equipped with familiar gadgets like an ejector seat, rocket launchers, machine guns and ice-spike tyres, but also, somewhat absurdly, with a cloaking device which rendered the car invisible. The Bond films’ car chases were rightly famous for the fact that they involved real-live stunts, and this turn to computerised special-effects undermined one of the franchise’s key selling points. And who wants James Bond to have an invisibility device anyway, if it keeps us from watching him dally in the back seat with his latest lady?

7. BMW 750iL (Tomorrow Never Dies, 1997)

The BMW 750iL may have seemed more sedate than the sports cars Bond had driven previously, but it was no less spectacular during a chase around a parking garage in Tomorrow Never Dies. While this car featured a number of predictable enhancements like rocket launchers, reinflating tyres and wire cutters, Q added to it another surprise in the form of a remote control which allowed 007 to steer the car via his mobile phone: the ultimate in back-seat driving. More surprising still was the fact that Q engineered the car’s talking onboard computer with a fake German accent. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service indeed!

6. Ford Mustang Mach-1 (Diamonds Are Forever, 1971)

Having already conquered evil masterminds, the Soviet Union, and a temptress or two in the first three Bond films, it was only a matter of time before 007 tamed an American muscle car too. In 1971’s Diamonds Are Forever, Sean Connery took a massive Ford Mustang Mach-1 on a wild spin around the Sunset Strip in Las Vegas, with a few scrambling police cars for company. In one of the more spectacular Bond car stunts, he flipped the Mustang up onto two wheels to squeeze it through a narrow alleyway. Unfortunately the film’s editors weren’t so skilful: in a famous continuity error, the car was filmed entering the alleyway on one set of wheels, but emerged on the other side driving on the opposite pair.

5. Toyota 2000GT (You Only Live Twice, 1967)

For filming in You Only Live Twice, Toyota cut the roof off two of its high-performance sports cars, the 1967 2000 GT. Rumour has it that the roof had to be removed because Sean Connery couldn’t fit inside the coupé, even though the car was only driven by Bond’s colleague Aki. The car included a TV, a cordless telephone and a voice-controlled stereo system: electronic gadgets which are virtually standard features on Japanese cars today.

4. Bentley Mark IV (From Russia With Love, 1963)

As James Bond’s car of choice in Ian Fleming’s novels, the Bentley Mark IV is almost as legendary as the DB5. It is legendary also in the sense that Bentley never produced a car under this name. What we see instead in From Russia With Love is a Derby Bentley convertible, which Sean Connery uses only briefly for the purpose of seducing Miss Sylvia Trench.

3. BMW Z8 (The World is Not Enough, 1999)

The BMW Z8 driven by Pierce Brosnan in The World is Not Enough was designed in homage to the famous BMW 507 roadster from 1956 (which, curiously, the first Bond girl Ursula Andress received as a gift from its first owner, Elvis Presley, in 1963). 007’s version was fitted with surface-to-air missiles and a remote control device and, as John Cleese’s character proudly boasted, no fewer than six cup-holders. The Z8 was still in prototype form when the film was being shot, so the car seen onscreen is in fact a Shelby Cobra kit car with specially-built replica body panels. Fortunately the facsimile bodywork was only made of plastic, as the car was ultimately cut in two by a giant aerial buzzsaw during a dockside battle. That voids the warranty, apparently.

2. Lotus Esprit (The Spy Who Loved Me, 1977)

Second in the Bond car hall of fame is “Wet Nellie”, the sleek white Lotus Esprit with the hidden talent of transforming into a submarine at the flick of a switch. In The Spy Who Loved Me, Roger Moore escapes his hunters by driving the Esprit off a pier into the sea, where it transforms into a fully functioning submarine. Armed with surface-to-air missiles, depth charges, underwater sight screens and torpedoes, Bond was able to despatch a team of underwater attackers and an airborne helicopter before surfacing, with all the calm and camp which Roger Moore could muster, at a nearby holiday beach. So popular was the Lotus Esprit that it was brought back for the next film, For Your Eyes Only, only for its self-destruction mechanism to be triggered by thieves early in the film. It was later replaced by a red Lotus Esprit Turbo, at which point Lotus’s involvement in the Bond films ended.

1. Aston Martin DB5 (Goldfinger, 1964)

It started with an ejector seat. Without doubt the most famous of the Bond cars, and one of the most iconic cars in cinema history, is the Aston Martin DB5 driven by Sean Connery in Goldfinger. This car started the trend for gadgetry which has become a hallmark of the Bond series of films, as it was fitted with an innovative array of extras, including machine guns, an oil slick deployer, bullet-proof glass, rotating licence plates, and an ejector seat. That these devices have become staples of spy films ever since is a testament to the enduring popularity and influence of this charismatic car.

Sean Connery apparently opposed the inclusion of these technological gimmicks in the DB5 because he feared that the technology would overshadow the character and his remarkable driving prowess. But he needn’t have worried: the DB5 has become so synonymous with James Bond that the prestige of each reinforces the other. The producers have played on this association over the years, and have used the DB5 in later Bond films, including GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, and the latest Casino Royale. (Scenes featuring the car were cut from the final version of The World is Not Enough.) The DB5 also made a cameo appearance, driven by Roger Moore, in the 1980s film Cannonball Run.

But despite its illustrious reputation, the DB5 retains to this day the dubious distinction of recording the slowest time on Top Gear’s Power Laps feature. Maybe if James Bond had been behind the wheel rather than The Stig, the result might have been different?