I guess
The only Jag in a Bond film that I can recall is the green XK from that terrible film "Die Another Day"... I prefer the Vanquish that Brosnan bombed around in in that outing though so he chose the right one.
What car should James Bond really drive? It's a hotly disputed question. Our man on film is closely associated with the Aston Martin, the DB5 initially and DBS V12 of late. Clearly the producers of recent Bond outings hope to identify their character with the spirit of an earlier time regarded as iconic and special. And they …
The first Esprits weren't turbo's, and the 750 they started filming with was such a steaming pile of excrement that BMW snuck in a 740 8 cylinder for the rest of the recording. Although the 8 cylinder Beamers are just an ever so slightly less steaming pile of excrement, at least they kept going.
I personally felt CR earned one of it's downticks for that travesty alone. I mean...Jimmy Bond...in a rented Mundane-o...that isn't being crashed, riddle with bullets or being driven like it was stolen (usually by him).
And I hear the next one means ditching his vodka martini's for...of all things...a Heineken. FFS.
That film was ruined by Fords being shoehorned in to inappropriate areas (amongst other things); the only good things were the beautiful beautiful Alfa 159s used by the bad guys. It's funny how Hollywood, err Pinewood, always makes the good guys so wet you end up rooting for the other side!
Ford owned Aston at the time, so it made sense for them to shoehorn in their new cars.
This is why the likes of Die Another Day everyone had a Ford (eg. Thunderbird), Jag or Range Rover - all owned by Ford at the time.
In Quantum of Solace he was even being driven around in some sort of Ka.
A Mondeo would actually probably be quite apt - big size and reasonable power, yet conspicuous enough to be anonymous (as per the Arctic Monkeys 'When the sun goes down')...
The bmw era was poor in terms of blatant product placement. The Z3 was a bit of a girly car, the 7 was a CEO-wagon and the Z8 wasn't ready so it was a kit car on a Corvette. Mind Dalton drove an Audi at one point too.
The BBC are usually good at car casting - the good guys usually drive Alfas!
Front bumper? I remember the DB5 model that had machine guns and whatnot that popped out the front when you pressed a button. The Vestas-launcher that I remember was the white Esprit that had rocket launchers in the rear windscreen (and the little plastic rockets got lost so got replaced by matches)
I still have my Esprit sub-car held in the box with the undertray clip, all the missiles present. It got played with, but was garaged at the end of each 'mission'...
It's that "played with" bit that upsets proper collectors cos they want the missiles still fixed to the molding stem. Boring sods.
"....a Sunbeam Alpine, in Dr No." Yes and no. It is the first car Bond does a chase in, but it is not his own car, merely supposed to be a rental. IIRC, it was borrowed from a local resident as the only sportscar available on the island for filming! The first car that is identified as Bond's own is the Bentley, very briefly in "From Russia With Love", and the first "Q" car is the Aston in "Goldfinger".
No way should an e-type been used.
IMHO, an e-type is or was a pretty celeb car. Its too fashionable and pretty for a hard nosed spy. Yes it is one of the most fantastic gorgeous cars ever made, but never a spy car. The Aston has strength, punch, hardness and raw manliness about it. Image wise, it can take a bullet. An e-type would cry if its make up was smudged. The Aston was and still is a much more suitable for a Bond.
In fact, I'd say the e-type suits Austin Powers perfectly. The Aston suits Bond.
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2290
Summary of conclusion: "My recommendation: Never use the phrase yourself — use 'assume the conclusion' or 'raise the question', depending on what you mean — and cultivate an attitude of serene detachment in the face of its use by others."
"Serene detachment" - doesn't that sound nice?
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"The silver-birch DB5 only appeared on screen for about ten minutes in Goldfinger but it has become completely synonymous with the character "
You don't suppose that the addition of the ejector seat (which I assume is not listed as an option in the DB5 price list) might have had something to do with it?
N.b. I also had one of the Corgi cars - on mine it was the ejector seat that kept jamming + I suspec that the small plastic "Oddjob" probably got lost fairly quickly as well. Strangely, until they brought the DB5 back in Casino Royale I'd had the idea that it was a bronze rather than silver! Can't remember the details but I've got a feeling that I might have given mine a new paint job at some point!
Many years ago I went to see Desmond L. do a theatre show ("an evening with" kind of format, just him talking) about his role as Q. He had along some of the original gadgets, including the briefcase from "From Russia with Love" - looking rather battered. He explained that he himself knew squit-all about technology; he also explained how some of the gadgets - at least in the early films - were actual commercial products. And he said that he particularly liked the ejector seat - because it was a late addition. He'd already completed his filming, when he got a call back to the studio to do the ejector seat - so an extra day's work.
I saw one in the VIP Parking area of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway two years ago for Pole Day. A crowd had gathered and they were drooling, politely behind the ropes, at an immaculate DB5 and a new Maseratti Gran Turismo. The rest of the cars, including a new Ferrari, were largely ignored.