00x03 - 50 Years of Bond Cars

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BOND THEME

Bond.

James Bond.


big-screen action heroes

for 50 years now.

To date, over a quarter
of the planet's population

has seen him going about his
spectacular day job.

My name is p*ssy Galore.

I must be dreaming!

The man is in a league of his own

when it comes to watches,

sharks

and villains.

Look after Mr Bond.

See that some harm comes to him.

And, of course, no-one can match him
when it comes to his cars...

..which have enthralled us
for generation after generation.

And none more so than this one.

The Goldfinger Aston Martin DB5.

It is, without doubt, the most
famous car in the world,

and the one that laid the
foundations for the whole Bond/car
relationship.

Which makes it the perfect place
to start our celebration

of 50 years of Bond cars.

Well, nearly the perfect place.

Because if we're going to be
thorough

we should start with the very first
Bond adventure,

Dr. No.

Usually, when a man gets in my
way...

With the whole film made on a very
tight budget of just £350,000

the fact was that Bond's debut
car chase was never going to set
the world on fire.

At the wheel of a humble
Sunbeam Alpine,

he gets chased, briefly,
by a hearse.

The hearse falls over a cliff...
and that's your lot.

I think they were on their way
to a funeral.

To give you a flavour of how
hand-to-mouth things were back then,

I have a copy of a lovely letter
written by the Bond producers

to the people at the Sunbeam
Motor Company.

It's sort of complaining that they
couldn't get a free car to film with

and had to rent one locally for -
and I quote - "a considerable sum".

That "considerable sum"
was 12 shillings a day!

However, on its release in 1962,

Dr. No was a big hit,

as was the next film,
From Russia With Love.

This meant they could really push
the boat out with the third film.

Goldfinger.

Do you expect me to talk?

No, Mr Bond. I expect you to die!

With evil super-baddie
Auric Goldfinger

planning to destroy America's
gold supply,

Bond faced his most daunting
challenge yet.

And to help 007 win the day,

Q equipped him with
a rather special car.

You'll be using this Aston Martin
DB5 with modifications.

Windscreen, b*llet-proof,

as are the side and rear windows.

Revolving number plates, naturally.

Valid all countries.

The revolving number plates,
I think, was my contribution

because I was getting so many
parking tickets at the time

because the office was in Mayfair

and there were a lot of warden
ladies, you know, very vicious.

And I thought, "Wouldn't it be
lovely, you get the ticket,
she's marking away,

"and then you press the button
and the revolving...

"And she's left with egg
on her face!"

I thought, "That's a good thing!"

See this arm here?

Open the top and inside are
your defence mechanism controls.

And somebody said, "Why not put
machine g*ns in it?" I thought,
"Nothing wrong with that."

And so the gadgets added and added
and added.

Now, this one, I'm particularly keen
about.

See the gear lever here?

If you take the top off,
you'll find a little red button.

- Whatever you do, don't touch it!
- Why not?

Because you'll release this section
of the roof

and engage and then fire
the passenger ejector seat.

That, I think, came from my stepson.

He'd seen obviously, an ejector
plane seat and that had impressed
him.

Ejector seat? You're joking!

I never joke about my work, 007.

With the car gadgets planned out,

all that was needed
was an actual car.

So the Bond producers went and asked
Aston Martin

if they could borrow one of theirs.

And in reply, the Aston Martin
bosses said...

"No, absolutely not.
It isn't worth the bother."

Harry Saltzman, the Bond producer,
came back at them quite indignantly.

"Well, have you seen Dr. No?"

"Actually, no", replied the chap
from Aston.

"What about From Russia With Love"?
Again, "No.

"But I'll tell you what.
We will sell you a car.

"At the full price. £4,500."

At this point Saltzman
slammed the phone down

and the most famous car
in cinema history

was on the verge of being a Jaguar.

A Jensen was also considered.

And a Chevrolet.

But the Bond producers
kept plugging away at Aston,

who, in the end, still with
absolutely no idea of what they were
letting themselves in for,

begrudgingly lent them a second-hand
development car.

And the Bond special effects chaps
could go to work making their
creation come to life.

In the end, gadgetising the car
cost £25,000,

more than five times the price

of an actual DB5.

But boy, was it worth it!

First out of the box
was the tyre shredder.

And then all the other gadgets
were unleashed

in the legendary chase sequence
against Goldfinger's evil henchmen.

Some of it was wonderfully low tech.

The smoke coming out of the back
of the car,

that was very simple.

We had a very small prop man and we
put him in the boot of the car.

There was a hole and a smoke
canister and all he had to do
was open the thing.

And the canister was leaking
and there was this smoke coming.

The poor bugger was practically
asphyxiated!

Aghh!

In the film, the setting for
the car chase is in the grounds
of Goldfinger's factory

in Switzerland.

But in reality, the chase
was actually shot here

amongst the alleyways and buildings
of Pinewood Studios
in Buckinghamshire.

This is where the angry, fat
Fraulein shoots at Bond.

And this is the location
for the cl*max of the chase,

where Bond fires at what he thinks
is a car coming towards him

and then swerves violently
to avoid it.

Actually, it's probably a good job
he crashed,

because at one point in the chase,
the Aston's four-litre, six-cylinder
engine went a bit dicky

and was only running
on three cylinders!

But the misfiring engine

is not the memory that haunts
the director.

You did get a great letter from
a schoolboy, that I read about.

Addressed to the director,
Goldfinger.

"Dear sir,

"when the Aston Martin
leaves the UK,

"the wheels are Pirelli's 568s,

"but when it arrives at the petrol
station in Switzerland,

they're Dunlop's 426s",
or something.

And I didn't even bother to ask my
editor to have a look and see,

because I knew that the little
bugger was right!

Was the letter signed James May,
by any chance?

He'd have been two, but I think
he would have noticed!

So there we are. A car that nearly
never happened.

Gadgets dreamed up by overgrown kids
with too many parking tickets,

a man suffocating in the boot

and a chase, sometimes on three
cylinders, sometimes not,

round some grubby warehouses.

Hardly the ingredients
for a Avengers Assemble, is it?

But when the lights went down
in the cinema in September 1964,

wow!

The public went mad for Goldfinger.

And they went equally crazy
for the DB5,

which ended up going
on its own world tour

and opening up Bond
to a whole new audience.

The Aston changed everything.

And this brings us to
an important question.

Why was it, above all others,
chosen to be Bond's car?

Well, to find the answer,

a good place to start
is with the Bond books.

This, as you may have noticed,
is not an Aston Martin.

It's a 4.5-litre 1930s
super-charged Bentley.

And this is the car

that Bond's creator Ian Fleming
chose to give his secret agent
in the books.

In Fleming's mind,

the Bentley was the obvious choice
for Bond.

As a young reporter for Reuters,

the author had covered the 24-hour
Le Mans race

and had seen the mighty Bentleys
vanquish all the foreign johnnies.

Also, a Bentley was exactly
the right sort of car

for Bond's cover as a wealthy
bachelor about town.

Fleming was, without doubt,
a proper petrol-head.

He writes brilliant car chases
full of lovely details

about exhaust notes and
super-chargers at full chaff.

In Casino Royale, the very first
Bond book,

he writes how Bond's car
was his only personal hobby.

And then in the book Moonraker,

Bond's beloved Bentley is destroyed
during a frantic car chase,

leaving him in need of a new set
of wheels.

And then in 1957, as Fleming is
sitting down to write his new book,
Goldfinger,

he receives a letter
from a Dr G. Gibson,

a car enthusiast
from Cambridgeshire,

who says he hopes Fleming will have

"the decency to fix Bond up with
a decent bit of machinery.

"I would suggest an Aston Martin,
a DB3."

And when Goldfinger is published
a year later,

this is what we read:

The film-makers simply updated
Fleming's DB3 to a DB5.

And Dr Gibson, wherever you are
up there,

thank you, sir.

You have no idea what you started!

But now we must leave
the Aston Martin

and move on to the next great
Bond car.

You can't say your own films,
from the past, what's your favourite
Bond car?

- Bond car? - Yeah.

Um...

I don't know. I love that little...
Is it the Datsun in Japan

- when the girl drives up.
- Toyota 2000.

Is that what it is? I love that car.

I know I'm being a bit specific,
but that's one of my favourites.

TYRES SCREECH

Get down!

Daniel's favourite car appears
in the film You Only Live Twice

where Bond has to prevent
World w*r III

by destroying the hollowed-out
volcano belonging to his arch enemy,
Ernst Stavro Blofeld

I shall look forward personally
to exterminating you, Mr Bond.

Since the film was set in Japan,

the star car had to be Japanese.

And this is what was chosen.

The Toyota 2000 GT.

Daniel Craig clearly has
very good taste.

Because even without
the Bond connections,

this 2000 GT is a very important
car.

Developed jointly by Yamaha
and Toyota in the mid-'60s,

when Toyota was desperate
to shake off its stodgy image,

this exquisite front-engined
rear-drive machine

became known as Japan's first
super car.

The engine is a two-litre Toyota
straight six

that was then worked on by Yamaha.

Yamaha also have contributed
the wood inlay on the dash,

the same wood they used
on their pianos.

The whole thing is wrapped up in
this beautiful light aluminium body.

It is...

..absolutely gorgeous.

And rare. One of these today would
set you back half a million pounds.

Unlike the Goldfinger DB5,

the 2000 GT didn't have
any fighting gadgets.

In fact, it needed a bit of help
to dispense with the baddies.

Which Bond could watch live
on the in-car TV.

How's that for Japanese efficiency?

Just a drop in the ocean!

Now, there's something else you need
to know about this car.

Something that's not immediately
obvious with me in it!

It is quite small.

However, Sean Connery isn't.

The original 2000 GT as delivered to
England to be kitted out with all
its gadgets and stuff

was a hard top, just like this one.

And when the Bond producers took
delivery,

they found, with filming
just about to start,

that Sean Connery simply wouldn't
fit in it!

The solution, obviously,
was a convertible.

But this was a brand new car.
No convertible version existed.

However, we are talking about Toyota
here.

So when the Bond people got
on the phone, Toyota simply said,
"Yeah, come back in two weeks",

and sure enough, a fortnight later,

the whole thing had been re-designed
and rebuilt as a soft top.

Without question, then,
the Bond films of the '60s

had seen 007 in some truly
iconic cars.

But as the '70s came around,

the films entered a new car era.

The era of smash, bang and wallop.

In Diamonds Are Forever,
Live and Let Die and The Man
with the Golden g*n,

the car carnage was off the scale.

And as with Goldfinger,

these films were all directed
by Guy Hamilton.

At the time, Bullitt had just come
out with that very intense, terse
car chase with the Mustang

and the Chargers.

Were you not tempted to go in that
direction? You went the other way,
really.

No, because I don't like a car
chase. I find them boring.

Everybody's done car chases before.

What can we do that makes this one
different?

One thing that was different

was to devise some nifty stunts.

I gotcha now!

Lean over!

Diamonds Are Forever had one of the
most famous stunt moments in it

with the car on two wheels through
the alleyway.

But also one of the real
Hall of Fame Blooper moments

cos it went in on one set of wheels

and came out on the other!

It's a significant change from
being that way to being that way!

Did the audience notice at the time?

I was waiting for them to all stand
up and walk out of the cinema!

And to my amazement they were still
sat there, giggling!

The blooper came about because
Guy filmed the car coming out of
the alleyway first

and then suddenly had to fly back
to England.

So he left the producer Cubby
Broccoli in charge of filming
the car

going into the alley.

And three weeks later,
Cubby comes along and says

here are the rushes, we've got
your g*dd*mn wheelie shot.

Well, I went to rushes

and it's wheelie side up,

and the shot I'd got of it
coming out the other end
it's wheelie side down!

So he says, "What do you think,
Guy?" I said, "They have to do it
again.

He said no - BLEEP - way!

After Diamonds Are Forever,

Connery handed over the baton
to Roger Moore,

who gave us a more light-hearted
Bond.

Mm, such a delicate touch!

Sheer magnetism, darling.

My attitude was that Bond
is not real.

He's not a spy.

He walks into every bar in the world
and the barman knows him.

"Ah, Martini shaken, not stirred."

On the first wrong answer
from Miss Solitaire,

you will snip the little finger
on Mr Bond's right hand.

In Roger's first film,
Live and Let Die,

where he battled voodoo
and evil heroin dealers...

..he was given a rather
unconventional car chase.

We're in Jamaica and what I did
notice was that they've got
double-decker buses.

And I thought, "Bond in a bus.
We can have some fun with a bus!"

Before we went out there,
they took me down to the skid pad

near Hammersmith

to be able to spin.

At first you think, "Oh, no,
it's going to tip."

But they don't tip.

Despite Roger's training,

an expert was needed at the wheel
for the stunt sequences.

And instead of using
a normal stunt driver,

the Bond people drafted in
an actual London bus driver,

Maurice Pratchett.

Maurice, yes. He was a lovely fellow
who got to drive under the bridge.

You don't think I was going to go
driving under a bridge?

I hope he got paid stunt money.

All change! End of the line.

In the next film,
The Man with the Golden g*n,

Bond takes on the deadly
triple-nippled assassin, Scaramanga.

Ready!

SINISTER LAUGH

This was Bond's car.

The AMC Hornet.

Which, in one of cinema's
eggiest-ever product placement
moments,

Bond commandeers from
an AMC showroom in Bangkok.

- Can I have my demonstration?
- Certainly.

And then uses it to give chase
to Scaramanga

who is, completely coincidentally,
driving another AMC car.

Where the hell have they got to?

Scaramanga was on the opposite
riverbank

and making a clean getaway.

You goofed, boy.

Now, up until this moment,

the little Hornet's only claim
to fame was that it was available
with denim seat covers!

All that was about to change!

- You're not thinking that...
- I sure am, boy!

Ever heard of Evel Knievel?

Not only was the astro spiral jump
the most spectacular Bond stunt yet,

it was also the first car stunt
to be worked out using computers.

However, it still needed
a human being in the hot seat.

The car that they drove, the
steering wheel was in the centre.

It had to be very carefully
balanced.

It also needed a huge run up.

They did it at 49 miles an hour
or something,

and it had to be really spot on.

We had divers, we had ambulances,

we had air ambulances.

You know, because this was not
tested, if you follow my meaning.

But, on the day,

the driver had to dash back
to America for family reasons

and the mechanic said,
"All right, I'll do it."

And this very brave fellow
who'd never done it before

just came down and that was it.

- And it was one take. - One take.

And Cubby, ever generous,

went up to him with a roll
of 100 bills.

And he said, "There."

And the guy said,
"Can I do it again?"

The car thrills weren't over,
though.

Because after Bond's spiral jump,
Scaramanga makes his escape

in dramatic fashion.

This is the car you see in the air
in the film.

The Bond producers, ever proud
of their record of doing things
for real,

had wanted to use an actual
flying car, an AVE Mizar,

which was a Cessna light aircraft
mated to a Ford Pinto.

But shortly before filming began,

the inventors of the AVE were in a
routine flight in their creation

when the plane bit sort of came away

and the two chaps found themselves
flying at quite a height

in a second-hand Ford Pinto.

Sadly, both of them were k*lled

and the Bond people retreated to
the safety of a model flying car.

So far, then, the films of the '70s

had given us some excellent
car stunts

but what they hadn't given us was
a car to match the Goldfinger DB5.

A car that was a star
in its own right.

However, in the next film,
The Spy Who Loved Me,

all that was about to change.

Observe, Mr Bond,

the instruments of Armageddon.

This time, Bond is up against
the web-fingered baddy, Stromberg,

who has the modest ambition
of blowing up the world,

and then starting a new civilisation
under the sea.

Stopping him is a formidable
challenge, and to help him,

Bond is issued with a new car.

A Lotus Esprit.

Now, the baddy's lair
was in Sardinia.

And when Q arrived there to give
Bond his new Lotus,


him the usual briefing

on how all the gadgets worked.

- One or two rather special
accessories... - Q, have I ever
let you down?

Frequently!

That was done deliberately,
because when the car unveiled
its party piece,

the Bond makers wanted the
cinema-goers to experience

a moment they would never forget.

MACHINE g*n FIRE

Can you swim?

Unquestionably, your biggest Bond
car moment,

when it turns into a submarine.

Do you remember the response
at the time, how people received
that moment?

- It was a...
- GASPS

That got applause from behind
the Iron Curtain, I'm sure.

And that was just the start of it,

because Q had stuffed the Lotus
full of weaponry.

And then when it came out of
the water,

lowered the window and dropped
a fish out,

and Cubby said, "How did the fish
get in there?"

We said, "Let's not worry about
how it got there!"

The Lotus was unquestionably

the first car since the DB5 that
could match 007 for screen presence.

And the story about how the Esprit
actually got into the film

is a tale worthy of Ian Fleming
himself.

The man we have to thank is a chap
called Don McCloughlin.

In the 1970s, he was the PR boss
at Lotus.

And when he heard from friends at
Pinewood that the Bond people wanted
a new car for their next film,

he, naturally enough,
wanted it to be a Lotus.

The problem was, though, that with
the films now the most successful
franchise in the world,

everyone was fighting to get their
products into a Bond movie.

Don decided the only way to hook
the Bond people was, instead of
going begging to them,

get them to come to him.

And so one day he turned up at
Pinewood in a prototype Esprit.

The car hadn't even gone on sale
yet.

And he deliberately taped over every
part of the car - the speedo, the
steering wheel, the gear knob -

that said the word Lotus.

He then parked the car
outside the Bond offices

and went off to see a friend
across the way.

Sure enough, when the Bond big-wigs
came outside at lunch time,

they saw his amazing-looking car

and immediately crowded round. But
they couldn't tell what it was.

And then Don came outside,

pushed his way through the crowd,

and deliberately avoiding answering
any of their questions,

simply got in the car and drove off.

He gambled that this tactic would
make the Bond people desperate
to find out what the car was

and come after it.

It took a pair of 007-sized cojones,

but it worked.

Besides Don, there's also another
unsung hero in the Lotus story.

When the Bond crew started filming
the chase sequence in Sardinia,

the stunt driver was struggling
to make the Lotus look exciting
on camera

because it was so grippy.

Watching this problem unfold

was Lotus employee Roger Becker, who
delivered the Esprit to the set.

To make it slide, you've got to be
going very quick

and taking the car up to and beyond
its limit on a corner.

And that was something that
the stunt driver, he somehow
couldn't quite handle.

And I guess the real turning point
was what was a very simple shot,

two or 300 yards up the road
was a right-hand corner

and then driving up the hill
into the next chase scenes.

And mysteriously, the stunt driver
had disappeared.

So the camera crew who were parked
up on top of a hill

said, "Well, bring the car up
anyhow."

So I jumped in the car, absolutely
flailed it up the road,

slid it round this corner,
up the hill, onto this dirt area
where they were parked,

all sideways, and when the dust
settled,

there's the first director and
assistant director standing there

and they said, "Would you mind
going and doing that again,

"and this time, we'll have
the cameras rolling!"

From that moment on,
Roger was deputised
as James Bond's stunt driver.

The most hair-raising part
was the helicopter chase

because it was close.

And I guess the most exciting part
of all

was the pass underneath
the helicopter.

I come round a left-hand corner with
explosions going on all around me

and then you look up and there's
this helicopter pointing at you

at a height off the ground

that I was absolutely convinced
was not enough.

And you've got to drive straight
at it at 70, 80 miles an hour.

There's only one thing you can do.
Put your foot down as hard
as you can and close your eyes!

But, as exciting
as the chopper chase was,

it's the submarine sequence
that raises the most interesting
question.

Namely what, in Bond's
fantasy car world,

is actually possible
in the real world?

You see, when the Bond people came
up with that amazing underwater
Lotus sequence,

for all their incredible skills,

they were never able to make a real,
working submarine car.

So some of it was made using the
shell of an Esprit with two divers
inside it,

and the other bits were filmed
using these models.

The bubbles coming out of the back
were actually Alka Seltzer tablets
dissolving!

Well, let's see if today we can get
by without the indigestion tablets.

Because I can't think of a better


than for us to make that Holy Grail
of Bond cars a living, breathing
reality.

And with this magnificent machine,

we may well have done just that.

Now, the more alert viewers
will already have noticed

that this is not, in fact,
a Lotus Esprit,

but a Lotus Excel.

That's because our Bond submarine
car has been lovingly hand-crafted
on a budget!

And an Excel is really way cheaper.

And likewise for budgetary reasons,

the location for our maiden voyage
is not Sardinia,

but a reservoir neat Matlock.

Before I head out into that warm,
sapphire-blue water,

let me talk you through the features
of the world's first working -
hopefully - submarine car.

First, the windscreen, which would
cave in under pressure from
the water.

That's been replaced with a special
plastic used in aircraft windows

and for the visors of astronauts'
space helmets.

Then, despite the fact that Lotuses
are legendary for never leaking,

we have taken the precaution
of fitting it with a glass fibre
inner skin.

Yes, that has compromised
the practicality a little,

but we thought it worthwhile.

Then propulsion. These thrusters
underwater will be driven by
electric motors.

WHIRRING

And finally, ballast.

To compensate for the amount of air
inside the car,

we will have to add a lot of weight
to make it sink.

And after much scientific thought
and calculation,

we've come up with a neat and clever
solution.

Filling the tyres with concrete.

There is much more to talk about,

but let's get underway
and do that on the move.

But since the launch preparations
take a little time,

let us return now
to Sir Roger Moore.

So I absolutely have to ask,
do you have a favourite?

- Of all the cars? - All the Bond cars.

The little two-stroke
whatever it was.

The Citroen 2CV? - Yeah. - Really?! Why?

Because it didn't matter
if you hit it.

Roger's beloved 2CV stars in
For Your Eyes Only,

- when a Keystone Cops-style chase...
- Hold tight!

..called for something cheap
and tough that could go off-road
and out-fox the big boys.

And actually, maybe Roger's choice
isn't such a bad one.

Especially if you've always fancied
owning a Bond car on a budget!

It is a bit of a come-down!

Nevertheless the 2CV
is a bona fide Bond car.

A good one will set you back
about £6,000

plus all of your dignity.

So I don't know, you might want
to give this one a miss.

Another option is the Renault 11
from A View to a k*ll,

since a good one costs
around £2,000.

However, if you're going to be
picky, you really should have it
with the Bond modifications...

..which do take away some of
the 11's famed practicality!

No. If Top Gear were to recommend
a Bond car on a budget,

then it could only be one of these.

The Alfa Romeo GTV.

The GTV appears in Octopussy, when
Bond has to rush to an air base

to warn everyone of an atomic b*mb
about to go off

and he nicks one of these to do so.

SPEAKS GERMAN

Now, younger viewers might be
thinking, "Why didn't he just borrow
somebody's mobile phone?"

But this was 1983,

so the car would have been a lot
smaller and easier to steal

than a mobile phone of the day!

There are no fancy car stunts
in the GTV sequence.

But the Alfa does, as you'd expect,
give some cracking driving moments.

The sort of thing the purist
Ian Fleming would have approved of.

I can't understand why there wasn't
more Alfa action in Bond's life.

Well, I can.

He'd forever be arriving at the
baddy's hollowed-out volcano
on the back of a tow truck!

But, even so...

Today, a good one of these
will set you back about £8,000.

Plus a million or so in maintenance.

But it is the Bond car to have.

It's all so boring here, Margot.

There's nothing but playboys
and tennis pro's.

If only I could find a real man.

In 1987, Roger Moore was replaced by
Timothy Dalton.

I need to use your phone.

She'll call you back.

Keen to take 007 back to his tough,
no-nonsense roots,

the producers introduced the new
Bond with a tough, no-nonsense
car sequence.

And most important of all,
reunited him with an old friend.

"Dear Mr Broccoli, I thoroughly
enjoyed meeting you and Michael
Wilson on Friday

"and write to confirm my
understanding of the agreement
between us

"relating to the arrangements
for motor cars

"in the forthcoming Bond film."

Blah, blah, blah, blah.

Blah.

"Yours, very sincerely,

"Victor Gauntlet, Chairman,

"Aston Martin."

Bond's new Aston Martin,
a V8 Volante,

was an update of his old DB5.

And likewise, his gadgets were
a re-boot of the ones seen
in Goldfinger.

Instead of a mechanical
tyre shredder,

the job was now done
by a laser beam.

What happened?

Salt corrosion.

And instead of machine g*ns,
there were now guided missiles.

Sadly, there was no ejector seat.

Time to leave.

But Q made up for that
with the car's winter pack!

Brace yourself.

The Aston would end up
meeting a fiery death.

But by evoking the spirit
of the Goldfinger DB5,

it had helped make audiences
comfortable with the new Bond.

Which was a bit of a shame,

because despite some sterling
vehicular work,

Dalton was replaced
after just two films...

..by Pierce Brosnan.

Vodka Martini. Shaken, not stirred.

This was the mid-'90s.

Bond had been around for 16 movies

and was facing tougher competition
than ever

from films like Die Hard
and True Lies.

The Bond people responded
by filling the Brosnan films

with spectacular action sequences

that were the equal of anything else
on the cinema screen.

Q's not gonna like this!

In fact,

there was only one area
that let the side down.

The cars.


his Aston Martin

and put for the first time in a BMW.

And now we come to the low point
of Bond motoring.

In GoldenEye, he was given
this hairdresser's Z3.

On screen for two minutes
and did nothing.

In The World Is Not Enough,

he had this Z8, which drives
about 50 feet, fires a rocket,

then gets cut in half.

They were just a bit pointless.

And then, when they did put him
in an Aston,

it was terrible!

Here we can clearly see a chase
featuring a Ferrari 355,

one of the best handling modern
Ferraris ever,

and Bond in an Aston Martin
that's 30 years older,

somehow keeping up.

I don't think so.

Admittedly, in Tomorrow Never Dies,

the car action does perk up.

Your new BMW 750.

All the usual refinements.
Machine g*ns,

rockets, the GPS tracking system.

Capable of being driven by Bond
via his mobile phone,

the 7 series unleashes its many
gizmos during an expl*sive chase
in a car park.

But the fact remains we were still
watching the world's most dashing
secret agent

driving around in a sales manager's
company car.

Eventually, in Brosnan's final film,
Die Another Day,

order was restored.

Reunited with his rightful mark,

this time in a Vanquish,

Bond puts the Aston to good use
in a spectacular car chase
on a frozen lake in Iceland.

When we decided there was going
to be a car chase on ice,

my heart sank cos I thought, "I have
to come up with something exciting
on the lake.

"You won't have a street
full of shoppers,

"or sidewalk cafes that cars
that can go through."

So I thought, "If we send both
protagonists out equally matched,

"then it's like a really good
sword-fencing competition

"where each one foils the other
every time."

So they both had rockets, and each
rocket cancels each other out.

And then we had machine g*ns
and mortars vying for each other.

So it was really just a competition
between two very talented people.

And that was the theme.

And day-to-day, the ice had to be,
what was it, ten inches thick?

Ten inches thick on the ice.
Couldn't have more than four people
standing together.

Just the weight on the ice.

Because it's scary enough anyway.
The ice is like a trampoline.
The cars gave a trampoline effect.

And as it happens, during the chase,

we had a little argument
with an iceberg!

We came off pretty much the same way
without actually sinking,
but the same way the Titanic did.

It destroyed us!

Although Q had loaded the Aston
with high-tech weapons,

they weren't its most amazing
feature.

Aston Martin call it the Vanquish.
We call it the Vanish.

Oh. Very good.

Now, some critics complained that
the invisibility cloak
was a gadget too far,

that it was taking Bond
into science fiction.

But the fact is,
the Bond people hadn't lost the plot

as we shall now demonstrate,

with a bit of Top Gear engineering.

Just like the Aston Martin,

we, too, have based our creation
on a classic British name.

It's a Ford Transit. Because one,
well, it is cheaper,

two, its slab sides
are the perfect place

for us to fit these flat-screen TVs.

Here's how it works.
This is the clever science bit.

Cameras dotted on each side will be
filming everything around
the car/van

as it goes along, live, and relaying
those images to the screens.

Thus making the car/van blend into
the background

and rendering it invisible.

In order to prove that
the technology works,

I shall now demonstrate it
with a drive through town.

OK, so here we are in town.

There are plenty of people about.

Right now, all they can see is a van

that looks like it's been covered
in glue and driven through Currys.

But, if I turn this switch here,

everything changes.

Invisibility cloak...

..descend!

Unfortunately, because of the power
needed to operate the plasmas,

there has to be a chap in the back
operating quite a sizeable
generator.

Nevertheless, I have simply
vanished!

Yep, totally transparent.

I am a phantom,

a spectre,

drifting through town,
as invisible as the wind.

They're not shouting at me.
They don't know I'm here.

They're just having a laugh
cos one of them said a funny joke
or something, I guess.

The feeling of anonymity,
of invisibility,

is absolutely, oh...

Now, that's... She only pulled out
on me because she couldn't see me.

These are people having lunch.

They have no idea.

I could drive right up and listen in
to their conversation

as a spy might,
and they wouldn't know.

My one worry is how we would deal
with insurance claims

because obviously nobody would have
seen me

to know that it was me that crashed
into them because I am invisible.

Yep, totally transparent.

So there we are.

Proof that an invisible car

is something that we could actually
see on the roads.

And now we must move on
to the current James Bond.

Vodka Martini. - Shaken, not stirred?
- Do I look like I give a damn?

Daniel Craig's first film,
Casino Royale,

ushered in an era of tougher,
more realistic action.

And this no-nonsense tone

also gave us one of Bond's
most brutal car stunts.

This is the Aston he drove, an Aston
Martin DBS. We'll come back to it
in a minute.

But first, let us delve
into the book Casino Royale.

In it, there is a passage in which
Bond is giving chase to some baddies

who've kidnapped the girl he loves,
Vesper Lynd.

This is what happens.

"He was only doing about 60
as he approached the black patch

"across the right-hand crown
of the road.

"Even so, there was no time
to save himself.

"There was suddenly a small carpet
of glinting steel spikes

"right under his off-side wing.

"Then he was on top of it. The
heavy car whirled across the road

"in a tearing dry skid.

"And then it reared slowly up,

"its front wheels spinning and its
great headlight searching the sky.

"It seemed to paw at the heavens
like a giant preying mantis.

"Then, slowly, it toppled over
backwards and fell,

"with a splintering crash
of coachwork and glass."

For the film, the producers wanted
to recreate and up-date that moment.

And boy, did they!

On the storyboards, the plan was for
Bond to give chase in the Aston,

come across Vesper lying
in the middle of the road

and then swerve violently
to avoid her

causing the car to roll.

The stuntmen rehearsed the roll-over
with an old BMW 5 series

which flipped easily.

But when they tried it
with the actual car,

the more aerodynamically-shaped
Aston

just wouldn't roll.

So they thought, "Let's fit a cannon
underneath

"that'll fire into the ground
and flip the car.

"That should do it."

It did!

In fact, by the time the Aston
came to rest,

it had set a new world record

for the number of rolls
in a car stunt.

'And cut it!'

This desire for hard realism

can also be seen in the epic car
chase which forms the opening
sequence

of the latest Bond film, Skyfall.

The chase sequence in Skyfall
does that relentless thing.

It just builds and builds
and builds.

It starts here on the streets
in Istanbul

with the baddy in a Audi A5 being
chased by Bond in a Land Rover
Defender.

Then after much bashing and smashing
and tyre squealing,

the Audi ends up on its side.

And because the Bond people
are no fans of CGI,

preferring to make their car chases
in the old-fashioned analogue way,

they do get through
quite a lot of metal!


in this sequence.

So what kind of Bond baddy are you?

Uh...

A c*ck one. You know,
he loves what he's doing.

He's a great driver, a great rider,
a great sh**ter and he's a great
fighter.

And I have the best teachers.

I have Ben Collins teaching me
how to drive an Audi!

Yes, our former Stig,

having doubled for Daniel Craig
in Quantum of Solace...

is now a Bond driving instructor.

And also the wheel man in the very
latest type of stunt vehicle.

Come on, talk us through it.
Nice t-shirt!

Thanks. Just need to update that
a bit.

- Did you pay for it? - Yeah,
it was in the sale! Good.

So how does this work? What is it?

It's a standard Land Rover, pimped,

they've played with the suspension,
given it more power.

On top of that is the pod. That's
where I sit and where I drive.

All the controls are based up there.

The way it works, the actress
or actor can sit inside
and they can do their dialogue

without worrying about steering.

- It's budget, that. - It's mega.
That's why the car chases are real.

So you taught Daniel to drive,
didn't you, for films.

Fast, yeah. - Yeah?
- He's got a heavy right foot.

He picked it up really quickly.
I met him down at Dunsfold

and taught him drifting and took him
through an as*ault course.

Handbrake turns, J turns.

Occasionally I had to tell him to
try and stay off the grass,
not to spin too much.

It's amazing stuff to do.
You should write a book[!]

I'm just thinking the same thing.

After the Audi ends up on its side,

the baddy and Bond commandeer
some crashed motorbikes

and continue the chase
on two wheels.

So the motorcycles come up
these stairs here

into this area.

We had to be very careful because of
the archaeological treasures
that are in this temple.

We've been having a problem
making sure we preserve them.

We can't touch anything in here.

This is one of the oldest arches
in Istanbul.

It dates from about
the 10th century.

It's restored. It's Roman up to here

and 10th century all round here.

Inside here, you see the brickwork's
been restored in the 1900s

but otherwise,
it's completely original.

And from this side you can see
the great...

I bought that completely, Michael!

Totally. I totally bought that.

I was thinking how does that work?

We try to make it pretty real.

We try... We still do stunts,

but try to make them look like
they're not stunts.

They look like they could happen.

And that "being real" thing,

- we want to watch a Bond film and
think, "Somebody's doing that."
- Right.

Someone's doing the stunt.
It may not be the actor,

but some human being is doing it.

The human being doubling for Daniel
Craig in the bike sequence

is stunt rider Robbie Maddison,

whose skills will be tested
to their limit

because the bike chase doesn't just
happen on the streets.

But also up here,
on the ancient city rooftops.

The opening scene,
we come down this pathway

in front of us here. I'm chasing
the bad guy as fast as I can go.

- What pathway? Seriously, what
pathway? - These little ones here.

On bikes. OK.

What kind of speeds are you hitting
on these walls?

Fourth gear, we're probably doing
about 70 kilometres an hour

on the roof. So we're coming along
the pathways and jumping
some of the rooftops.

So if you come up here slightly
too fast on this side

and get your tyre in one of
these ridges,

you're going to jump off there
and there's nowhere to land.

It's one of those jumps where either
you get it right

- or you pay the consequences.
- It's really bad.

The dangerous part is that we've got
no helmets on.

So the bad guy's got no helmet,
Bond's got no helmet.

But I guess Bond can't stop, buy
a crash helmet, reject it cos it
doesn't fit, buy one that fits...

He's not expecting a bike ride,
is he?

After the bike sequence, the chase
reaches a spectacular cl*max

on the roof of a train.

And as far as cars go,

there's also another treat in store.

This DB5 I'm driving

is not the actual one
used in Goldfinger.

But it is the actual one used
in Skyfall.

Which means

it's back!

And I suppose that's completely
inconspicuous[!]

It's no secret we've got
the old DB5 in this.

You know, the buttons are all there.
They're in the console.

I get to play with them. We blow
a few things up in this movie,

- but that's... You know. - No way!

- Explosions and things?
- We've got a few of them!

But on the car chase thing,

- how did you find it? Did you get
to grips with it? - I love it.

It's, you know, getting the chance
to drive some beautiful cars,

as well as some clapped-out cars,

it's like a schoolboy dream.

I get to wreck a few as well.

I've wrecked a few expensive cars.

Our old Stig did some stunt-driving
training with you.

I'm not blowing smoke, but he did
say you were very good.

He's a lovely man. He is on
a retainer, though, by the way!

And now that Skyfall has brought us
to the present day,

it's time to return to Matlock
and fire up our birthday present.

HMS Heath Robinson!

Good. Solar.

On. Deploying dive planes.

Oh, yeah.
WHIRRING

Listen to that comforting Bond noise

that tells you something somewhere
is making mechanical magic happen.

Nothing else to do. We are ready.
This is it.

Obviously I have switched my engine
off, so I'm rolling it.

But as soon as I hit that water,
I can fire up my thrusters

and away we go!

Oh, that feels peculiar!

I'm very conscious of the fact that
this is a Top Gear creation!

Here comes the w... Oh!

It's only working, isn't it?

I watched the film as a kid.

And now, for real,

I'm in a James Bond-style submarine
Lotus.

I'm controlling it with these
levers.

These steer the dive planes
on the back.

The buttons on top operate
the thrusters.

The thing is positively buoyant.
It wants to float.

But the thrusters
and the dive planes

drive us under the water.

Now, you'll notice I haven't
actually drowned, and yet we built
this thing.

That's because the air that's
rushing into the cabin right now

is pushing out the water.

So... Although there are
a few leaks,

there are a few leaks happening,

but this is, well, there's no other
word for it,

quite simply brilliant.

It actually works.

And now, sadly, it's time to end
the show.

Looking back over 50 years of Bond,

yeah, there have been movies
with maybe better car chases.

Bullitt and Ronin.

But I don't think anyone has done as
much to give the cars character,

to make them personalities
in their own right.

And I don't think anyone has done
so many amazing things with cars

and done them for real.

Basically, I'm saying I don't think
anyone has done as much as
the Bond people

to make sure cars have their own
plinth in the cinema hall of fame.

Thanks for watching, and goodbye!

Yeah, that is a leak now.

I... I'm...

ORCHESTRAL MUSIC: "We Have
All The Time In The World"