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Cliff Chambers29 Aug 2017
CARPOOL

The cars that Bond drove

James Bond helped make many cars the automotive icons they are today, but which ones?

Cars, guns and beautiful women (not necessarily in that order) have been intrinsic to the success of a cinematic franchise that has been with us since 1962.

The chisel-chinned actors who played James Bond actors have changed on several occasions, as have the women, weapons and credibility-stretching stunts. However, there is every chance that Britain's best 'Double Oh' agent will return every few episodes to the exotic confines of an Aston Martin.

News broke recently that Bond in the soon-to-debut film Spectre will be driving an Aston so special it hasn't even entered production yet. Ten of the V8-powered DB10s were hand-made for the production, wherein it will be stalked by an electrically-propelled prototype Jaguar so scarce that it will never be publicly sold.

Neither of them though is likely to match the long-term mystique of Bond's first Aston Martin, the DB5 that is and has remained for 50 years...


The most famous car in the world

This is the car that people who have never even seen a James Bond film can recognise. It was built more than 50 years ago and spent less than 30 minutes on screen in its original cinema releases.

After retiring, Bond's DB5 should have spent its declining years in a warm, dry corner of Q's development lab, but lookalikes have continued to make cameo appearances in a range of Bond adventures.

The fate of the original 'gadget car' is, however, more mysterious than even Bond creator Ian Fleming could have contemplated.

The DB5 made its Bond debut in 1964 as the undisputed 'star' of Goldfinger. A year later it was back for a less prominent role in Thunderball and similar cars have been seen in more recent 007 flicks.

In truth, an Aston Martin wasn't the producers' first choice. They had wanted to see Bond at the wheel of an E-Type but Jaguar wasn't interested in giving away cars for which they already had more than enough buyers.

Aston Martin then came up with a developmental DB5 which would be used for stunt and special effects filming and an identical version without the expensive additions to produce studio and normal driving sequences.

Behind its gorgeous shape and aluminium panels, the 'gadget' DB5 concealed a raft of features that a British (a)gent like Commander Bond would at some point need.

If 'baddies' wanted to fire bullets through the Aston's rear window, a pop-up shield deflected the missiles. Then for good measure a squirt from the under-bumper oil spray would send pursuers plummeting to a messy doom.

Pulling alongside to give the Bond Aston a little 'hip and shoulder' was risky as well. When an attractive hench-woman in one of Ford's brand-new Mustangs gave it a go, the DB5's hub-mounted tyre slashers left it looking tattered and very torn.

Should Bond need to despatch a fleeing adversary, a pair of machine guns would pop from behind the parking lights and for good measure revolving number-plates — couldn't we all use a set of those — and a radio telephone were included.

The few privileged to ride as a passenger were advised not to upset the driver. Do so and your final view of the world's most recognisable car would be from above as the ejector seat did its job.

Mettoy in 1965 released a superbly-detailed Bond DB5 into its range of Corgi Toys, winning 'Toy of the Year' and selling more than six million of the gold-painted 007 Aston. During subsequent years, updated versions in correct silver were produced and in 2015 a commemorative silver version plus a Limited Edition in gold were announced.

Several genuine 'Bond' Astons survive but the fate of the most significant version, the original 'effects car', is unknown. During the 1980s, Chassis No DP216/1 plus two other authentic Bond Astons spent many years displayed and travelling to various locations in the US, making money for owners who at times exhibited strong rivalries.

In 1997, shortly after being sold to a collector in Florida, the most famous version was stolen from an aircraft hanger where it had been stored. It has never been seen again.

Much speculation surrounds the car's fate; some suggesting it has disappeared into a private collection overseas or been destroyed to enhance the value of remaining cars. Or has some dastardly fiend had it converted to a coffee table?

The remaining 'effects' Aston (a car converted for display) was sold some years ago for almost $A5 million and that value would doubtless have increased in line with the prices of other 1960s Aston-Martins.


Other cars that Bond drove

It is impossible to think of a James Bond film without visualising an enthralling chase packed with inventive stunts. Although intrinsically linked to the Aston Martin brand, James Bond has used, driven and destroyed a host of other models.

Here is an abbreviated look at the array of non-Aston brands that made often-spectacular appearances and departures. If your fave didn't make the cut we're sorry and will send Jaws around to apologise personally.

Sunbeam Alpine: Regarded as Bond's first car; a rental utterly lacking in gadgets and pretty short on power given the trouble our hero was having when trying to give the slip to an ancient hearse full of Dr Julius No's henchmen.

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Toyota 2000GT: Rare in any guise, the Yamaha-engined Toyotas featured in You Only Live Twice were the only convertible versions of the model ever made. Bond producers set their hearts on the beautiful 2000GT but lanky Sean Connery couldn't cram himself into its cramped cabin. "No problem," said publicity hungry Toyota, which cut the roof off two cars.

The 2000GT was well short on gadgets when compared with its DB5 predecessor; it had just a radio telephone with video link. However, if you have the Corgi Toys scale model version you will find in the boot a quartet of rocket launchers; an idea perhaps planned but scuttled before filming got underway.

Ford Mustang Mach 1: American cars featured in Bond films since the very beginning — in Dr No he appears in a '57 Chev Bel-Air — but it took a decade before James got one of his own. Another rental car, the 1971 Mustang Mach 1 that scored its four minutes of fame during Diamonds Are Forever was a plain old Sportsroof with not a gadget in sight. However, it did complete a couple of leaps without obvious damage and then two-wheeled its way down a narrow alley to elude the bewildered Las Vegas police.

Ramber Hornet: By the 1970s Bullitt had set the benchmark for car chases so the stunt coordinators needed to take quite extraordinary risks to ensure audiences would still gape and gasp.

With just a computer simulation for guidance, effects creators on The Man With The Golden Gun sent Roger Moore's orange Rambler  up a ramp, and into what was known as the 'Astro Spiral Jump' where the car corkscrewed in mid-air and brought back to earth on its wheels.

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Lotus Esprit Underwater Car: Unkind souls might say that you can't park any Esprit in the rain without it filling with water but somehow the Bond boffins did make one watertight enough to be dropped into the ocean off the Bahamas for underwater action sequences in The Spy Who Loved Me.

The hull contained very little Lotus parts at all but it did leak, requiring the retired US Navy Seal who was engaged to pilot 'Wet Nellie' to wear breathing apparatus. A completely different car was used for the road-going stunts.


The choice of Bond villains

Arch-villains who spent years devising inventive but flawed ways to slice, dice or shred pesky Double Ohs obviously had no time to personally engage in the chase sequences that keep audiences coming back to Bond films.

Only a few seem to own cars at all; the most ostentatious being Auric Goldfinger who used his Rolls-Royce Phantom III to smuggle gold which was fashioned into body panels for the rare Sedanca de Ville.

Most of the automotive mayhem involved associates of the arch-villains who were collectively known as 'henchmen'. There were women as well, but 'hench people' sounds silly.

Among the more memorable was Tilly Masterson (Tania Mallet) whose product-placed Ford Mustang convertible was opened during Goldfinger like a can of Spam by Bond's tyre-slashers.

Perhaps the least likely pursuit vehicle, but one that did a damn good job of tailgating JB's Sunbeam down a mountain pass was a lumbering 1930s La Salle hearse.

Eventually Bond had enough of the pre-Monty Python silliness and ducked beneath the boom of a carelessly-parked crane. The hearse swerves, magically transforms into a far less valuable 1950s Humber and disappears into the abyss.

Much faster and one of the only 'villain' cars to equipped with 'gadgets' was the XKR Jaguar convertible featured in Die Another Day. With hero-henchman Zao behind its wheel, the Jag plays Torvill to the Dean of Bond's DB9 Aston as the cars waltz in choreographed unison through a North Korean (OK Icelandic) winter wonderland while using a range of weaponry to blast each other off the planet.

During the 1960s lots of 'fin-tail' Mercedes-Benz met flew off mountain passes, crashed into immovable objects or were blown to bits. However the 450SEL in For Your Eyes Only meets a more personalised fate. After crashing and being left dangling over a drop, the Big Benz with its hapless occupant still inside are pitched over the edge of the obligatory cliff face with just a cursory toe-tap from 007.

What would an Aussie Bond drive?
There was of course, a genuine Aussie-born James Bond but his reign was brief. In 1969, Canberra car salesman George Lazenby snared the most prestigious gig in the realm of male acting, starring as Bond in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. He got to drive a DBS Aston Martin and marry Diana Rigg but fell out with producers and never returned.

In Australia around the same time we had the suave Tony Ward playing the impossibly ingratiating John Hunter. He drove a Mustang; most likely one of 200 imported and RHD converted by Ford to help promote its XR Falcon range.

From there the ranks of local agents of any kind thins dramatically. During the 1980s we had private-eye Michael Ryan (Rod Mullinar) with his bashed, crashed but resilient Valiant Charger. More recently there has been Miss Fisher with a fast but somewhat fragile Hispano-Suiza.

After that we're stuck with Bluey and the late Lucky Grills juggling a pie in the passenger seat of a powersliding Valiant Regal.

The current crop of Canberran security squad cruisers seem all to come with BMW badges and not particularly suited to covert surveillance. The Aussie undercover operative needs a car — or perhaps two — that will look equally at home in the outback or being valet parked at a six-star cocktail venue.

If you want to chase villains or escape from their hench-people you need something capable of putting some serious numbers on the speedo but that isn't ridiculously exotic. Last thing you want mid-chase is to leave the exhaust on a cattle-grid or having to spend a week in a one-horse hotel waiting for a replacement tyre.

HSV Coupe 4: A beautiful beast with power and all-wheel grip but may need coddling if taken off smoothly-groomed bitumen. Like previous Monaro coupes, the Commodore-based shape is well-balanced and timeless and even the basic 5.7-litre V8 has enough grunt to give most baddies the slip. There's also sufficient space in the boot and behind the seats for a wealth of gadgetry, perhaps even the small hydrogen generator needed to power them.

Dodge Ram SRT10 Pick-up: Before getting its nails clipped by Mark Skaife in a Maloo, the Viper-powered Dodge ute was the fastest 'pick-up' on the face of the Earth. Even with big wheels and a body kit they aren't flash to look at but anonymity in the spying game is good.

With a V10 up front they will outrun pretty much anything a villain can field and there's space in the back for a full-sized missile launcher. Tough enough to take a decent hit and deliver a bigger one too, so our hero probably won't need the tyre slashers.

Porsche Cayenne: Bond has never driven a Porsche but a Cayenne Turbo is reportedly used in the Bond computer game Everything Or Nothing so there's a bit of precedent. While the Turbo certainly provides a performance edge, we think the 21st Century Bond would find a better technological and ecological fit with the new Cayenne S E-Hybrid.

Space for gadgets is impressive, performance is good (Porsche claims 0-100km/h in 5.9 seconds) and Aussie 007 won't be handing over the ASIO Amex too often because fuel consumption averages 3.4L/100km.

Mr Bond, your new car has arrived. Or, translated into Oz English; "Ay Bondy, cop a load of yer new wheels."

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Written byCliff Chambers
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