Goodwood Festival of Speed displays 007`s favourite wheels

With the Goodwood Festival of Speed exhibiting some of 007’s top cars, Giles Chapman examines the best of the agent’s hair-raising car stunts for The Times.

Ian Fleming would be a sprightly 100-year-old if he hadn’t passed away 44 years ago, and we’re pretty sure he’d be paying a visit to the Goodwood Festival of Speed.

Where, precisely, would we find James Bond’s creator at the festival? Maybe drooling over unusual Bentleys, for after all, in his novels Casino Royale, Moonraker and Thunderball, it’s Bentleys he bestowed on Bond. Alternatively he might be found admiring American classics, because Fleming owned two Ford Thunderbirds and a Studebaker Avanti.

He would probably be trying to relive his motoring youth — his own, early cars included the lowly but now nostalgic marques of Hillman, Riley and Morris. Whatever, he would doubtless be bemused by the four-wheeled legacy 007 has brought to the cinema over more than four decades. As the Festival of Speed lays on an exhibition of the agent’s cars on the Cartier lawn we choose Bond’s five most memorable motoring moments on film.

Goldfinger

Aston Martin’s immortality as quintessential 007 transport was achieved in incredibly little on-screen time. In just a few minutes of action in 1964’s Goldfinger, the DB5 dazzled the audience. With Sean Connery in the role of Bond, this was the first time the concept of gadgets coming to Bond’s rescue had been explored in the films. With the passenger ejector seat, retractable hub blades, bullet-proof screen and oil-slick sprayer, Bond left baddies in his wake at the touch of a switch.

In Fleming’s original novel, Bond drove an Aston Martin DB Mk III, but at the time of filming, the DB5 was Aston’s latest model. After much persuasion, the company handed over two DB5s — one that would have no gadgets, the other a prototype on which Ken Adam, the film’s production designer, worked his magic.

The Man With the Golden Gun

The corkscrew jump performed in this 1974 film is so spectacular that any nine-year-old today would assume it was generated on a computer. But don’t believe it: the stunt, filmed for real in Bangkok in just one take, was thought impossible until producers roped in aeronautical experts from Cornell University, New York state. Their computer calculations decreed that, for the stunt to work, car and driver together had to weigh exactly 1,460.06kg, and the distance between the ramps should be 15.86 metres (just over 52ft).

The car used was a banal AMC Hornet (today owned by the Ian Fleming Foundation), and at the wheel was fearless stuntman Loren “Bumps” Willert.

The Spy Who Loved Me

In this 1977 Bond outing, the seven-minute chase sequence through Sardinia that has Roger Moore evading Caroline Munro’s helicopter is gripping stuff indeed. Yet it’s a mere prelude to the action as Bond’s Lotus Esprit dives into the sea and turns into the world’s first supercar submarine.

Gadgets at Bond’s disposal included rockets that were launched out of the engine bay, depth charges and a none-too eco-friendly oil slick that made for a crude cloaking device. They used a real car for the road scenes but four convincing mock-ups for the underwater filming and the iconic re-emergence from the water that gobsmacked sunbathers on a Bahamas beach. Two years ago, one of these hollow doppelgängers — Wet Nellie — fetched £29,000 at auction.

For Your Eyes Only

The unlikely car star of this 1981 movie was a bright yellow Citroën 2CV. For once Bond does without gadgets and gizmos, instead relying upon his car’s famed long-travel suspension. As Roger Moore quips that he’s having “a pleasant drive in the country”, the 2CV plunges into a hair-raising mountainside descent pursued by heavies employed by arch villain Hector Gonzales. The car was fitted with a bigger engine from Citroën’s GS model to cope with the punishment.

Tomorrow Never Dies

A controversial dalliance with BMW in the late 1990s created a truly spectacular car stunt for this film. Q issues actor Pierce Brosnan with a BMW 750iL — his first four-door MI6 car. It doesn’t stay looking pristine for long, as Bond is forced into a damaging car battle around a multi-storey car park. The limo is actually driven from the back seat via remote control.

BMW might have bought its way into 007’s world, but it was costly, as more than a dozen 750s were wasted in making the film.

Discuss this news here...