“James Bond is a blunt instrument wielded by a government department,” his creator Ian Fleming noted. “He is quiet, hard, ruthless, sardonic and fatalistic. He likes gambling, golf and fast motor cars.”
Fleming’s blueprint for 007
Fleming’s coordinates for the character have been faithfully followed - and enthusiastically stretched - throughout the 24 films in which the world’s most high-profile fictional spy has featured over the last 58 years.
Bond 25 arrives - and the car conversation starts again
Bond 25 is now just about here. No Time To Die hits cinemas this week, giving Daniel Craig one final outing as 007 - and it doesn’t exactly let him off lightly, putting him through the emotional wringer - while the stunt team and production designers once more reinvent what a proper car chase can be. Word is that No Time To Die includes the most brutal chase ever committed to a Bond film. Which got us wondering: six actors have taken on 007 on the big screen, and each era has come with meticulously chosen automotive co-stars.
For plenty of us, a Bond film on TV at an impressionable age was the spark that turned cars into an obsession. The enormous worldwide 007 fandom never stops arguing about the best Bond - but which Bond had the coolest car? Picking one car for each actor, Top Gear brought the key machines together in the same corner of the space-time continuum to dig into their backstories and run a quasi-scientific (though largely subjective) assessment. At last, Craig's gorgeous DB10 takes the spotlight...
- Photography: Mark Riccioni and John Wycherley
[Themed carousel]
Daniel Craig’s Aston Martin DB10 in Spectre
In Spectre, Bond goes fully bespoke. Forget whatever Q may (or may not) have bolted on; this time 007 ends up in a clean-sheet Aston: the DB10. Initially intended for 009, Bond nicks it, then uses it to crash an emergency gathering of the planet’s most villainous wrong ’uns, finds himself in a jaw-dropping chase through Rome, fires up a flamethrower, and ultimately sends his Aston into the River Tiber at speed - moments after parachuting himself to safety. That’s some test drive.
A total of ten DB10s were built for Spectre: three hero cars plus seven stunt units, each configured to suit its specific job within the chase sequence. The example shown here is a properly loud, hilariously sideways-happy version, strengthened with a roll cage and fitted with a hydraulic handbrake that juts up from the centre console.
Under the skin it’s effectively a 2006–18 Vantage, and it responds with much the same urgency as a Vantage GT4 race car I once thrashed around Paul Ricard - just with less grip. It’s obviously been through the wars, yet it also feels, well, bulletproof. Aston Martin’s chief creative officer Marek Reichman explains how it all happened.
We went from a sketch to 10 working cars in six months
“We were trying to do what we did with the DBS. We had the DB11 all lined up to show [the Bond bosses], because we hadn’t launched it yet. So I was explaining how it was a continuation from the DBS in Casino Royale, and Sam [Mendes, director] thought it was wonderful and Barbara [Broccoli, producer] said ‘these guys always do great cars.’ But I could see in Sam’s face he wasn’t 100 per cent sold on it, that he wanted something different.
“And as we were leaving, he spotted a sketch on the wall, a car I described as more of a hunter, more aggressive, a bit hedonistic, perhaps. His eyes lit up, and he said, ‘It sounds like the Bond I want to create.’ But I said, ‘Yep, but it doesn’t exist, and you need the cars by September and it’s April now, so there’s not much chance of that.’ And he said, ‘Why not?’ So we did it – we went from a sketch to 10 working cars in six months. Sam wanted a very simple graphic, which is why the cooling was done as a dot matrix on the bonnet. I said to him, ‘People will look at this car, and if it doesn’t vent air and suck air, they’re going to say it’s not real, it’s an electric car, it doesn’t really work.’ But he knew what he wanted, and it was brilliant working with him. And it’s definitely real.”
DB10 scorecard
Gadgets: 7/10
Speed: 9/10
Pulling power: 7/10
Skids: 9/10
Stunts: 8/10
Star status: 7/10
Total: 47
So, that’s your lot - and the DB5 sneaks a win by a single point. Refresh your memory on the greatest Bond cars using these links: Click here for the DB5, here for the DBS, here for the Lotus Esprit, here for the Aston V8, and here for the BMW Z8.
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