Bond and Beyond: Agent 007 And His Cars

September 27, 2009

R. F. Wilson writes: Ian Fleming, begetter of James Bond, wrote that ‘all motorists are vain about their cars.’ The ex-Reuters and The Sunday Times man, known in Fleet Street as ‘Lady Rothermere’s Fan’, due to his affair with the wife of Lord Rothermere (proprietor of the paper), was also a fancier of fast cars.

Fleming first exceeded 100 mph, reverentially known in the language at the time as ‘the ton’, in the cockpit of a borrowed Bugatti. Yet it was a lowly Standard Tourer, driven at breakneck speed, which opened the casebook of the writer’s motor cars. A black liveried sporting Buick followed, reflecting his passion for American cars, succeeded by something of a rarity in the form of a Graham Paige (a hybrid make, now long forgotten), a mass-produced Morris Oxford and a rakish Riley.

The sale of Casino Royale film rights encouraged the newly published author to acquire a distinctly flashy Ford Thunderbird convertible, windswept sorties on the continent attracting the sincere disdain of the formidable ex-Lady Rothermere, Ann, by then Fleming’s wife. (In letters to novelist Evelyn Waugh she would refer to her husband dismissively as ‘Thunderbird’). Fleming, undeterred, bought a second-hand, more potent version of the Ford favourite, superseded by a supercharged Studebaker Avanti. ‘A bomb of a motor’ in the words of Bond’s creator.

But what of agent 007’s cars?

Forever associated with the essentially English luxury maker, Aston Martin, Fleming elected to use vintage stuff in the form of a ‘blown’ (supercharged) Bentley for the earlier novels. The founder of the fabled firm, W.O. Bentley, recalled in his memoirs that the order book at his Cricklewood, North London works rivalled Debretts.

Publication of the novel Thunderball in1961 featured the world’s most famous secret agent behind the wheel of another Bentley, a coveted Continental (auction prices for this rare commodity would cause even 007 to be shaken, not stirred). Fast company that meant to Bond, quoting Fleming, ‘more than all the women at present in his life, rolled, if that were feasible, together.’ Quite.

Curiously enough, Sean Connery drove an ice blue Sunbeam Alpine open top in the film version of Dr.No but the most celebrated of Bond’s automobiles remains the Aston Martin DB5 featured in the screen adaptation of Goldfinger, Thunderball and Tomorrow Never Dies. No polished and prinked Mayfair showroom model, but a scene-stealing beast, equipped with ejector-seats, twin machine-guns behind the parking lights, a smokescreen-thrower and, famously, fitted to the wheels, tyre-shredding revolving knives that would have thrilled the hordes at the Circus Maximus.

In 1994, Goldeneye saw Pierce Brosnan handling a BMW Z3 roadster (the Bavarian carmaker’s film deal included promotion of the film worldwide). But the sharply styled Aston Martin DBS (really a modified DB9 model) was preferred for the remake of Casino Royale starring Daniel Craig and features in the opening chase sequence in Quantum of Solace. The esteemed English make is now officially top of the ‘cool’ brand market.

Still, surely the most unconventional of 007’s stable of thoroughbred supercars was based on the 1975 Lotus Esprit, beloved by Bond’s film producer ‘Cubby’ Broccoli, capable of tuning itself into a submersible (The Spy Who Loved Me) and inspiring the journalistic phrase, ‘My other car is a submarine.’

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