License to Drive for James Bond
James Bond's garage has always been stocked with the most exquisite machinery. With his latest adventure opening soon we look back over some memorable motors.
THAT old whiner Q was always going on about looking after the machinery, and Bond never quite managed to comply.
The shortest route to freedom usually involved barging through walls, shunting surrounding traffic and adding air-conditioning courtesy of heavy machine-gun fire.
Bond's transport generally had a shorter shelf life than his women.
In Tomorrow Never Dies, which was recently launched internationally, Bond lumbers around in a specially modified BMW 7 Series.
Mysteriously, his trek to track down the latest gang of world- threatening bad guys requires him to utilize a range of BMW products conveniently to hand, from the R1200 Cruiser motorcycle to the ubiquitous Range Rover.
In Tomorrow Never Dies, Bond and his girl tear through the streets of an Asian capital handcuffed together aboard the BMW Cruiser bike pursued by an attack helicopter.
The 7 Series performs a series of entertaining stunts including flying off the roof of a tall building and crashing through a plate-glass store front.
These stunts and subtle gadgets pale in comparison with those fitted to bygone Bond cars.
More than 30 years ago, Bond had a navigation and tracking system fitted to his 1964 Aston Martin DB5. The car appeared in two movies, Goldfinger and Thunderball, with a cameo role in the most recent epic, GoldenEye.
In addition to the tracking system, the 1960s Aston had machine guns mounted behind the headlights, revolving number plates, and the famous tire slashers and passenger ejector seat.
There were also rear firing water and oil jets and a pop-up bullet-proof protection shield kept bullets from scarring the leather seats.
In the Roger Moore era, Bond switched loyalties to Lotus, and the gadgets became more exotic and outrageous.
The Lotus Esprit chase scene in The Spy Who Loved Me has to be one of the all time greats, especially as the car dives gracefully into the sea as the road ends.
Converting underwater from sports car to submarine posed no problem for the fiberglass-bodied Lotus. It was well-equipped with surface-to-air missiles, depth charges, underwater smoke screens and torpedoes.
A later generation turbo-charged Esprit appeared in For Your Eyes Only, with a rather unsubtle antitheft device fitted. The car exploded after being tampered with by car thieves.
Timothy Dalton pulled on the Bond tux in the 1980s and marked a return to Aston Martin power, this time at the wheel of a Stinger-missile equipped V8. The Stinger didn't add to the V8's already impressive top speed, but was employed to clear traffic ahead of the escaping hero. It worked rather well.
The V8 came equipped with spiked tires and stabilizing outriggers for sprinting across snow and ice. The factory-fitted self-destruct button was once again utilized.
BMW's first slice of Bond action came in GoldenEye, though Bond fans were disappointed that after months of build up, the 1.9-liter Z3 roadster's starring role consisted of less than a minute's on-screen time, driving sedately down a dirt road.
In Tomorrow Never Dies you can be sure BMW will have leveraged significantly more exposure for their investment of almost 20 vehicles and many hours of special engineering.