James Bond and cars have always made a very good pairing. Fast and exciting vehicles have been an integral part of one of the cinema’s most successful and longest-running franchises since 1962, but it was with Goldfinger, released this week back in 1964, that the 007 movies truly found their groove. The film also made an automotive icon out of the Aston Martin DB5.

While the perception might be that Bond has expensive motoring tastes, not all the cars he’s driven have been only for the mega-rich or secretive government organisations. Yes, there have been Astons and Lotuses. But there have also been Audis, Renaults, Fords and, of course, a Citroën 2CV. Here, we look at the full spectrum of cars that James Bond has driven over 60 years in the EON Productions films, starting from less than £1000 pounds through to… well, beyond the means of mere mortals.

In a rare example of James Bond driving the sort of car that a real secret agent probably would have favoured, because of its competence as well as European ubiquity and almost anonymity, Timothy Dalton got behind the wheel of an Audi 200 in The Living Daylights. Well, actually, he used two. The Cold War was in its final years in 1987 (the Berlin Wall would fall just two years later) and, needing to smuggle a ‘defecting’ Soviet general to the West, the initial plan was to drive him over the Bratislavan border in the capacious boot of an Audi 200 quattro provided by Station V in Vienna.

Audi provided its most expensive and plushest model – the Exclusiv, with permanent four-wheel drive – for the short sequence, where the escape scheme was abandoned in favour of a pipeline and a Harrier jet instead. Later, when in Morocco, Dalton can be seen in a 200 Avant quattro estate during a surveillance mission. Audi has retained the 200 saloon for its collection and it can occasionally be seen on display. Did the bit-part boost sales of Audi’s big executive saloon? Possibly – but the 200 was rather overshadowed by 007’s main Aston Martin V8.

WHAT TO PAY: £2000-8000

The films were becoming more parodies than serious spy thrillers by the close of Roger Moore’s tenure as 007, and 1985’s A View To A Kill was a case in point. Forced to chase May Day (Grace Jones) up the Eiffel Tower in Paris – which looks like it genuinely exhausted the then-56-year-old Roger Moore – he promptly has to get back down and steal the first available vehicle after she parachutes off the top of it. That happened to be a Renault 11 TXE taxi.

The resulting car chase alongside the River Seine saw the Renault comprehensively sliced and diced. First it loses its roof, then it gets split in half. Its front-wheel-drive keeps it going though how, given that its fuel tank would have disappeared with its rear end, is one of Bond’s great mysteries.

Three Renault 11s were used for the sequence, one being a ‘cut-and-shut’ job to ensure a clean break when the taxi was hit by a BMW 323i that suddenly and mysteriously transformed into a Renault 20.

French stunt supremo Remy Julienne did the driving honours – which is rather noticeable once the roof has vanished. A subsequent Renault marketing campaign linked to the film helped increase R11 sales.

WHAT TO PAY: £750-4000

Bond tails an adversary in Shanghai while posing as a chauffeur driving a 2011 Mercedes-Benz S300 (W221 generation) in a brief scene in Skyfall. Daniel Craig wasn’t present for the January 2012 filming in Shanghai but did film some continuity shots inside the S-Class in London shortly afterwards.

WHAT TO PAY: £2500-15,500

Some controversy was provoked by another deal that was inked at the same time as Pierce Brosnan was signed up to play Bond in the mid-Nineties – the use of BMWs as the main 007 cars for three movies. But the affluent German marque had simply made EON Productions a generous offer that it couldn’t refuse.

GoldenEye was used to launch the Z3 model, as the first examples wouldn’t go on sale until after the movie’s release. Despite having all of Q’s ‘usual refinements’ such as missiles, radar, self-destruct and a rather pointless parachute (given the 138bhp 1.9-litre engine), the Z3 had little to do in the movie save to decorate Q’s laboratory and briefly turn up in Cuba.

BMW launched tongue-in-cheek TV adverts to publicise the link between its new roadster and 007, and when the 1996 model-year run of over 15,000 cars did go on sale, all had sold out in advance. In the USA, it teamed up with the retailer Neiman Marcus to offer the Z3 007 James Bond, a limited edition of 100 cars finished in the same Atlanta Blue and Taupe leather scheme of the movie machine with 007-monogrammed floor mats and a numbered dash plaque. 

WHAT TO PAY: £2500-20,000

Rootes was no doubt delighted to find one of its products featuring prominently in the surprise British hit movie of 1962, even though it had nothing to do with its placement. Dr No included a Lake Blue 1961 Sunbeam Alpine Series II in the franchise’s first proper car chase, with Sean Connery at the wheel – at least in the back projection scenes shot at Pinewood Studios; stuntman Bob Simmons was brought in for the more demanding action stuff on dirt roads in Jamaica.

On assignment in the Caribbean, 007 finds himself being tailed by a sombre-looking LaSalle hearse and attempts to lose it in the Alpine. He manages to do so by driving under the lowered arm of a Warner-Swasey excavator; the more substantial LaSalle can’t fit beneath and swerves into a ravine (changing into a Humber Super Snipe as it does, something that Rootes was probably less happy about). The excavator’s presence was happenstance; it wasn’t scripted but when the film crew turned up at the location and discovered it blocking the road, it was decided to make use of it. The Sunbeam itself was simply hired from a local woman for £10 a day. Did she realise quite what was being done with it?   

WHAT TO PAY: £3700-19,200

Ford’s product placement deal with EON Productions had begun with 2002’s Die Another Day, when the company’s Premier Automotive Group included Aston Martin, Jaguar and Land Rover. It extended into the Daniel Craig era and in Casino Royale, the lucky new 007 got to try a new Ford Mondeo in the Bahamas.

Granted, it was the sporty ST and also the fourth-generation incarnation, which hadn’t actually been launched when Casino Royale was being made. But Ford was mindful of the great publicity of having the fresh James Bond drive its freshest model. The car was only on-screen for a minute but Ford flew out a hand-built Tonic Blue pre-production prototype from its Cologne design studio. The car’s presence was kept a closely-guarded secret, even on a set that was used to keeping things undercover.

WHAT TO PAY: £3000-16,000

Mistaken for a valet at an exclusive Bahamas country club by an arrogant 2006 Range Rover Sport HSE owner, 007 uses the SUV to create a distraction by reversing it into a fence and setting off the alarms of the adjacent vehicles. He then tosses the keys away with the same casual disregard as they were thrown to him.   

WHAT TO PAY: £3500-15,000

Generally regarded as one of the poorer 007 entries (so much so that there were some doubts as to whether the franchise would continue after it), 1974’s The Man with the Golden Gun nevertheless stands out for having Christopher Lee playing a villain (Francisco Scaramanga) who was the equal if rather darker counterpoint to Bond.

While in Bangkok, Roger Moore’s 007 pursues Scaramanga’s AMC Matador with an AMC Hornet X Hatchback purloined from a conveniently-adjacent dealership. It was quite a scoop for AMC to score such prominent product placement in a new Bond film.

The chase is notable for its 360-degree astro spiral bridge jump that was first calculated and simulated by computers at Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory in Buffalo, New York. Of the several Hornets taken to Thailand, one was modified with a two-inch wider chassis, central steering wheel and automatic transmission.

Incredibly, driver Bumps Willert achieved the corkscrew feat in one take – and refused to do another. The Bond producers later patented the stunt so it couldn’t be performed elsewhere.

As impressive as the sequence was, its impact was somewhat diminished by the pennywhistle sound effect – a move that composer John Barry later regretted.

WHAT TO PAY: £4000-20,000

While there’s the very obvious Land Rover that James Bond drives (sort of) at the start of The Living Daylights, there’s also a more subtle one. Towards the end of the film Kara Milovy (Maryam d’Abo) effects an unconventional entry onto a Hercules transporter plane in Afghanistan by driving a UAZ-469 military 4×4 up its loading ramp while it was taking off.

Except it wasn’t really the East European equivalent of the military Jeep. The vehicle was actually an Eighties Land Rover Ninety, with its bodywork heavily modified to look like a Soviet army 4×4. Some of the interior shots of the dashboard and switchgear betray its true origins. Later, after the flight goes (inevitably) horribly wrong, Bond and Kara exit the Hercules using the UAZ – sorry Land Rover – just before it crashes, using a vehicle raft and parachute. After a brief excursion through a stone wall, the pair head off for ‘a great restaurant in Karachi’.        

The scene where the Ninety entered the Hercules was made possible by mocking up a large box van to look like the tail of a plane, while the Land Rover unconventionally departing the aircraft was a scale model.

WHAT TO PAY: £4000-21,000

James Bond has a love/hate relationship with Land Rover Series IIIs. One of them came very close to killing him at the start of 1987’s The Living Daylights but when he ‘retired’ from active service in No Time To Die, his only companion was a patinated 1977 example. So, no hard feelings then.

Timothy Dalton was introduced as 007 to cinema audiences with a high-adrenalin pre-title sequence that saw him tear along the top of the Rock of Gibraltar battling a KGB assassin both in and on top of a British army 1971 Land Rover 88in Series III. The scenes were among the first he shot as 007. He was eager to get stuck in, as second unit director Arthur Wooster remembered: ‘I had a message from Cubby (Broccoli, the producer) saying “Don’t damage him”. We got him on top of the Land Rover and I said, “All we want are some nice big close-ups of you.” But he was keen and threw himself around. I couldn’t get rid of him quick enough – I was terrified.’

Now, we know that James Bond doesn’t drive the Landie as such. But after he cuts through the canvas roof to get inside, he does do some desperate steering to try and keep it from crashing. Which is good enough for us.

The part where the Land Rover smashes off the end of the Rock of Gibraltar into the sea was initially filmed over the Mojave desert in California, with the Land Rover dangled underneath a helicopter and dropped from 2000 feet. It didn’t work when the parachute inside got wrapped around the vehicle; the six-foot five-inch Landie was ‘reduced to about four inches. It had just flattened completely when it hit the ground,’ recalled special effects supervisor John Richardson. The shot was eventually finished at Beachy Head in Sussex using an air cannon to launch the 90 into the air.

Bond’s Land Rover in No Time To Die was also an 88in short-wheelbase example, albeit blue. It’s the ideal vehicle for a former secret agent who just wants to live a simple life away from it all in Jamaica. MI6 agent Nomi, the current 007 sent out from London to make contact with the previous holder of that number, does so by fiddling under the bonnet to disable it. Hey, it’s a 40-year-old Land Rover… chances are it wouldn’t have started anyway.

WHAT TO PAY: £4000-23,900

Never leave a vehicle standing around with its driver’s door open when James Bond is around, because he’s only likely to steal it – which is what happened to the beat-up 1989 Ford Bronco II XLT handily left unattended in Haiti during 2008’s Quantum of Solace. After following baddie Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric) to the airport in it, Daniel Craig ditches the pre-Explorer Ford off-roader and is never seen again. 

WHAT TO PAY: £5000-25,000

The award for the most unlikely Bond car ever goes to the bright yellow Citroën 2CV that stole the show in 1981’s For Your Eyes Only. After his Lotus Esprit blows up, thanks to its rather over-the-top anti-theft system, the only mechanised means of escape was a 2CV belonging to heroine Meline Havelock (Carole Bouquet). Despite the Deux Chevaux being seriously out-horsepowered by the Peugeot 504s sent after it, the Citroën survived its car chase – albeit very crumpled – in the Corfu countryside (doubling as Spain) while the Peugeots didn’t.

Of course, the 2CV did have a little extra going for it besides Roger Moore at the wheel. Responsible for the stunt-work was the great French action driver Remy Julienne. Three 2CVs participated in the scene, two of which did the action shenanigans with one used for interior shots. The original 602cc two-cylinder engines were discarded in favour of more powerful Citroën GS 1015cc four-cylinder units, which necessitated slightly lengthening the noses.

To coincide with the film’s release, a limited-edition run of a thousand 2CV 007s was launched, in yellow and emblazoned with ‘007’ logos and bullet hole stickers. No two cars had their ‘gun damage’ in the same place.  

WHAT TO PAY: £4500-17,000

Having had a flying car and a submersible one in earlier Roger Moore movies, 1983’s Octopussy tried something entirely different again – a car that ran on rails. The plot calls for 007 to pursue a train travelling from East to West Germany, which he attempts to do by purloining the 1968 Mercedes-Benz 280 S of General Orlov. When its tyres are shot out, he slides it onto the railway track at a level crossing and thus takes the more direct route after the train.

The scenes were filmed just a stone’s throw from CC’s offices, on the Nene Valley Railway running from Wansford to Peterborough. The Mercedes-Benz had to be modified for the sequence with special wheels that were the same gauge as the track. It ends its days after it is hit by an oncoming train – in reality, an air cannon firing it from a bridge at Wansford into the River Nene. This nearly went very wrong, as the vehicle came very close to hitting two stuntmen pretending to be anglers in a boat alongside the bridge. Take a look at the film to see just how narrowly they avoided nearly two tons of flying German luxury metal.     

WHAT TO PAY: £6500-24,000

The first-ever car that James Bond drives in the first-ever Bond film, Dr No, is a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air when he is picked up from the airport in Jamaica by a chauffeur who isn’t all he purports to be. After 007 has dealt with him, he continues to Government House with its now ex-driver in the back seat.

A 1973 Bel Air collects Bond from the airport in Roger Moore’s first film, Live and Let Die , too, and has to steer it from the back seat after killing the driver.    

WHAT TO PAY: £8000-71,000

A 2011 Jaguar XJ L 3.0-litre V6 played a crucial role in 2012’s Skyfall. And it wasn’t just because it was the official company car of Secret Service boss M (Judi Dench). It was also the means of transport for 007 to retrieve his Aston Martin DB5 from storage, thus bringing the greatest Bond car, BMT 216A, back into the field.

The long-wheelbase Portfolio-spec luxury Jag is the location from which M sees MI6’s Vauxhall Cross headquarters being blown up while stopped on Vauxhall Bridge in London. Later, after an assassination attempt on M, 007 spirits her away to collect the DB5 so they can head up to Scotland for a final showdown with cyberterrorist Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem). Note how, as Bond and M flee in the Jag, it clips a kerb thanks to its over-hasty departure.

The XJ L was one of 77 vehicles supplied by Jaguar Land Rover for Skyfall and even though the car’s time on-screen was quite brief, several were used for its scenes due to the need to remove seats to place cameras inside, mount ones on the bodywork, and also have one completely standard for general driving shots.    

WHAT TO PAY: £7000-24,000

Perhaps because GoldenEye’s BMW Z3 hadn’t really done much except look pretty, there was a larger action role for the much larger executive saloon that Pierce Brosnan’s Bond used in 1997’s Tomorrow Never Dies. The ‘L’ in the designation of the E38 750iL issued by Q denoted that it was the long-wheelbase variant, and it needed the extra 5.5 inches to squeeze in all the secret equipment it packed. In a nod to the Brosnan-era Aston Martin DB5 (BMT 214A), the German registration number was BMT 2144.      

Among its tools were a hidden dashboard safe, electrified door handles, armour-plated bodywork, tear gas, rocket launcher, machine guns, rear spike dispenser, self-inflating tyres and a cable cutter under the front bonnet badge. It could be driven by remote control via 007’s phone, and the car also had a female voice synthesis system to report on any problems – perhaps Q once owned a Vanden Plas Maestro?

Seventeen cars were used for filming purposes– all V8 740iLs rather than actual V12 750iLs, presumably on cost grounds – including four converted with concealed back-seat controls and a video screen to give the appearance of being driven remotely.

WHAT TO PAY: £8000-17,500

Given that No Time To Die was meant to be one of the big reveals for the new Land Rover Defender (had Covid not delayed the film’s release from April 2020 to September 2021), it’s quite surprising to find that model so comprehensively bested by a 1998 Toyota Land Cruiser.

Having to escape the baddies in Norway with Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux) and her young daughter, Bond inexplicably chooses the Swann family Toyota instead of the presumably weaponised Aston Martin V8 he used to get there. Actually, it turns out to be a good choice as the 20-something beige Japanese off-roader manages to fend off two modern Range Rover Sports and three new Land Rover Defender 110s with surprising ease.  

Toyota didn’t actually provide the vehicle and was rather surprised to see it turn up in the movie. The early parts of the chase were shot around the Atlantic Highway in Norway before production switched to the Scottish Highlands for the later stages.

So if a new Defender’s beyond your finances just buy an old J90 series Toyota Land Cruiser instead.   

WHAT TO PAY: £7000-29,000

Roger Moore’s penultimate James Bond outing sees 007 investigating a Russian general (Steven Berkoff overacting in epic Slavic style) stealing jewels and art from the Kremlin and uncovering a plot to explode a nuclear bomb at a US airbase in West Germany. Not having a main Q Branch-equipped vehicle, 007 is forced to mostly ‘borrow’ his cars (or accidentally take a train) including a 1981 Alfa Romeo GTV6. Having just endured a lift in a Volkswagen Beetle with some stereotypical wurst-eating comedy Germans, he wisely decides to take things into his own hands and nicks the Alfa from a middle-aged lady who doesn’t look at all like the type who would usually be driving an Italian high performance car.

The ensuing car chase with police BMWs sees Bond rock up at the airbase just in time to avert a nuclear catastrophe while disarmingly dressed as a clown.

Much of the filming was done in England (the road markings and a blue Austin Allegro briefly glimpsed in the background betray this) with RAF Upper Heyford doubling as USAF Feldstadt. The sequence was one of the more convincing and realistic Bond chases, even if Roger does don a red nose at the end of it.

WHAT TO PAY: £8100-36,500

That James Bond is capable of incredible feats has been proved time and again in his 25 movies, but few of his accomplishments have equalled what he achieved in Diamonds Are Forever; managing to drive a brand-new early Triumph Stag from Dover to Amsterdam without it overheating.

The car in question belonged to diamond smuggler Peter Franks, who Sean Connery’s 007 was impersonating. In reality, the Saffron Yellow Stag, RVC 435H, was a pre-production model serving as one of BL’s press fleet. It’s commonly believed that it later went on to star in Dracula AD 1972 a year later as well asThe Professionals, but that was actually a near-identical car registered RVC 425H.

One of the strange things about the Stag is that it sounds like it has a four-cylinder engine. Urban legend that its own V8 broke during filming and was temporarily replaced by a Dolomite or Herald engine seems highly unlikely. Another story is that Aston Martin objected to the noise the Triumph made and requested overdubbing with a something a little less… meaty.    

WHAT TO PAY: £8200-34,000

The first Bond film of the Seventies, Diamonds Are Forever, brought Sean Connery back to the fold. Much of the adventure takes place in Las Vegas and for such a flamboyant city, an equally flamboyant car was required. Enter the bright red 1971 Ford Mustang Mach 1 of Tiffany Case (Jill St John).    

Wanted by the local police, Bond uses the Mustang to outrun and evade their patrol cars through the neon-lit city centre. The Ford’s eventual escape is via two wheels down a narrow alleyway but in one of cinema’s most infamous continuity errors, it departed the passage on its opposite side, thanks to the entrance and exit scenes being filmed in different locations weeks apart. Whoops.   

WHAT TO PAY: £12,000-80,000

Unlike in The Spy Who Loved Me, the two Lotus Esprit Turbos of 1981’s For Your Eyes Only had little to do compared to their normally-aspirated aquatic predecessor. One was used for a trip to Spain to spy on hitman Hector Gonzales (Stefan Kalipha) while the other, equipped with custom ski racks over its rear louvred window and finished in distinctive Copper Fire Metallic, featured in Cortina, Italy.

Lotus supplied two Turbos: its original prototype and an early production version. Both were initially painted white with red stripes to match each other, but it was decided that a darker shade would look better amid the snow of Cortina, hence the switch to copper for the second car. The other car was later painted to match. In addition, Lotus provided a bodyshell; it was this that was blown up in Corfu (doubling as Spain) thanks to Q’s rather extreme theft deterrent of four C4 explosive packs hidden in each corner. Both road cars survived and were subsequently used for promotional work.

The re-appearance of Esprits, four years after TSWLM, cemented Lotus’ link with the Roger Moore era of 007.  

WHAT TO PAY: £12,300-42,000

While the stand-out vehicle of 1977’s The Spy Who Loved Me was, of course, the Leyland Sherpa van driven by Jaws, another vehicle from Roger Moore’s third (and best) Bond runs it a very close second. The film’s white Lotus Esprit S1 has become almost as much of a 007 legend as the DB5, thanks to its many gadgets and its ability to transform into a submersible.  

Lotus craftily brought its new sporty wedge to the attention of producer Cubby R Broccoli by parking it outside Pinewood Studios until it provoked so much attention that the Bond supremo asked for a meeting. Lotus supplied two road-going examples – including Colin Chapman’s personal car – along with seven bodyshells. One of the road cars ended up being used as a camera car. A full-sized aquatic version was created by marine engineers Perry Oceangraphics and had an ex-Navy SEAL frogman inside.

The land Lotuses proved to be divas on set, often suffering from overheating and flat batteries. Lotus test-driver, Roger Becker, also had to be flown out to Sardinia to make the Esprit look more dramatic because it looked like it was hardly breaking a sweat against a Ford Taunus and helicopter.

WHAT TO PAY: £14,800-64,900

James Bond returned just a year after Dr No in 1963’s From Russia with Love – oh, those far-off heady days when you didn’t have to wait four or more years between adventures. During his assignment to retrieve a Lektor cypher machine, Bond and Russian SMERSH clerk Tatiana Romanova flee the train they were on and hijack a Chevrolet C30 pick-up truck carrying flowers. In a scene reminiscent of North by North West, Bond manages to take down a pursuing helicopter dropping grenades with a sniper rifle.

The intention had been to film the scene near Istanbul but unseasonably bad weather meant that filming was switched to the Scottish Highlands instead. Which must have made Sean Connery feel at home, at least.

WHAT TO PAY: £15,000-45,000

Die Another Day was released in the same year that the Bond film franchise celebrated its 40th anniversary, so it was packed with references to past movies – not least when Brosnan and John Cleese are filmed surrounded by old gadgets.

But more oblique allusions were scattered elsewhere. One was the 1957 Ford Fairlane that Bond drives in Cuba after escaping MI6 custody and briefly going rogue. After asking a contact in Havana for a ‘fast car’, he finds himself cruising in the be-finned Blue Oval convertible, typical of the sort of cars that soldiered on after Fidel Castro banned American imports into the island nation after its 1959 revolution.

The Fairlane is a nod to the ’57 Fairlane that met an explosive end in Thunderball.         

WHAT TO PAY: £15,000-58,000

‘Aston Martin call it the Vanquish, we call it the Vanish’. So R – the successor to Q, that John Cleese portrayed with typical short-tempered exasperation – introduced Bond to his company car in Pierce Brosnan’s final 007 adventure, Die Another Day. The Vanquish was the Aston Martin that went just a little too far in terms of gadgetry, even in the unreal world of Bond. The shotguns, machine guns, missiles, remote control, retractable tyre spikes and, naturally, an ejector seat were all fine; they’d been seen before.

What hadn’t been seen before (literally) was the Aston’s ability to turn invisible. The technology behind it – small cameras on all sides that projected what they saw onto light-emitting polymer skin on the opposite side – was being developed at the time, but for audiences, it was about as believable as Roger Moore taking a Moonraker shuttle into space. 

Seven Vanquishes were supplied to the production, four of them modified with 5.0-litre Ford V8 engines and Explorer SUV all-wheel-drive to cope with the ice lake chase against similarly customised Jaguar XKRs. After the BMWs of the previous films, it was good to see Bond back in a new Aston Martin though. Well, when you could see him, of course…

WHAT TO PAY: £35,600-117,000

A new Bond and a new Aston. When Sean Connery departed Bond (for the first time) his replacement was little-known Australian model, George Lazenby. The result was 1969’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. It was Lazenby’s only official appearance as 007 and wasn’t that well received at the time but has since become highly regarded.

Bond found himself up against his arch nemesis Blofeld planning to unleash global biological warfare, but also met the love of his life, Tracy di Vicenzo (Diana Rigg) who he ends up marrying.

Lazenby’s Aston was a 1968 Olive Green DBS devoid of tricks save for an Armalite rifle concealed in the glovebox and the bizarre ability to somehow squeal its tyres while driving on loose sand. It only appeared at the film’s beginning – as a means of introducing the new 007 – and end. Two were employed during production, the hero machine (GKX 8G) and another (FBH 207G) with its boot lid and back window removed for easier interior shooting.

The closing scenes in which Bond’s new bride, Tracy, is killed in the DBS would have been its pre-title sequence had Lazenby returned for Diamonds Are Forever. Instead, it served as the most tragic finale to any James Bond  film – until No Time to Die, of course.    

WHAT TO PAY: £49,300-141,000

Just as the original Aston Martin DBS ushered in George Lazenby as James Bond, so its more modern counterpart did the same for Daniel Craig in his 007 debut, Casino Royale in 2006. The very first Bond novel by Ian Fleming also served as a re-boot for the film franchise, with Daniel showing the character earning his 00 status and then embarking on his first major mission.

To assist with his task, he’s given a DBS V12 (the production version of which wouldn’t be launched until 2007, so Aston Martin supplied two hand-built prototypes and three stunt cars, using the film to make the world aware of its new sports car). Like the DBS from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the glovebox had a gun tray, plus a much-required defibrillator – isn’t it amazing how Q always manages to fit exactly what 007 will need for his current job but has strangely never had any call for in the past? 

The DBS’s most notable act was its barrel rolls, filmed at Millbrook Proving Ground in Bedfordshire. They were achieved by fitting a car with an air cannon under the driver’s seat to trigger a ram. The original plan was for it to roll two or three times. In the event, it managed seven and secured itself a place in the Guinness Book of Records in the process.

With that car destroyed, Quantum of Solace opened with a new DBS mid-way through a very destructive car chase alongside Lake Garda in Italy. As with its predecessor, the Aston Martin isn’t spared the rough treatment, being riddled with bullet holes and losing its driver’s door courtesy of a DAF 95 truck.

Four Aston Martins were used for the special effects, with a further six used for close-ups and promotional work. The chase was one of the highlights of a film that is otherwise regarded as something of a low-point in the franchise. There was some possibly unwelcome advance publicity for Quantum of Solace when an Aston Martin engineer delivering one of the £134,000 cars to the set managed to crash it into Lake Garda en route. He survived, the DBS didn’t. 

A DBS Superleggera did appear in 2021’s No Time to Die but was driven by ‘new’ 007, Nomi. Bond merely hitches a lift in it.

WHAT TO PAY: £49,500-90,000

James Bond hadn’t been behind the wheel of an Aston Martin since 1969 when Timothy Dalton replaced the Lotus-favouring Roger Moore for 1987’s The Living Daylights. But Aston’s charismatic chairman, Victor Gauntlett, fully appreciated the marketing value of Britain’s finest secret agent driving one of Britain’s finest sports cars. So much so that he offered to loan his personal V8 Volante, B549 WUU, to the production to help lure the 007 team back to the marque.

The expensive carrot worked, and Dalton got to drive that as well as a ‘winterised’ version – in other words, a hard-top coupé variant – in his Cold War adventure.

In addition to Gauntlett’s DHC there were three used V8s prepared by Aston Martin, plus one aluminium and seven glassfibre mock-ups – purported to be Vantages with standard engines. The optional extras were far from standard, though. Bond’s new ride had wheel hub-mounted lasers, retractable ski outriggers, heat-seeking missiles, a head-up display, police band-scanning radio, bulletproof glass and a rocket engine hidden behind its rear numberplate. It also had a self-destruct button – which proved useful when 007 and Kara (Maryam d’Abo) had to abandon the Aston in Bratislava (well, Austria actually, pretending to be somewhere behind the Iron Curtain) after a high-octane snow and ice chase, to prevent it from falling into the hands of Soviets, who were understandably a bit miffed about what Bond had just done to their Ladas. 

So the V8 ended its days in very small, burnt pieces somewhere in the Eastern Bloc, which made what happened in 2021’s No Time to Die a little bit difficult to explain. In a scene that would have prompted Alan Partridge to yell at the cinema screen ‘Stop getting Bond wrong!’ a retired James Bond – this time portrayed by Daniel Craig – returned to London from Cuba and visited a railway arch lock-up in Lambeth. There, surprise surprise, was a pristine B549 WUU under a cover. 007 drove the somehow resurrected Aston Martin to MI6 headquarters, and then to Norway. Of the three standard cars used in No Time To Die, one was sold at auction for £630,00 in 2022 at a charity auction. EON Productions and Aston Martin have the other two. The Russians must be very upset… 

WHAT TO PAY: £84,300-278,000

And so we reach the ultimate Bond car, the one that will forever be associated with 007 – the Aston Martin DB5.

The Silver Birch grand tourer made its debut in Goldfinger and since that memorable, ejector seat-introducing debut, it has featured in a further eight films alongside three Bonds – Sean Connery, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig. Incidentally, both George Lazenby and Roger Moore drove silver DB5s in movies that spoofed their 007 roles; 1983’s The Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E and 1981’s The Cannonball Run.   

Sean Connery’s DB5, registered BMT 216A, had front-mounted machine guns, hydraulic bumper overrider rams, a bulletproof rear shield, revolving numberplates, a tyre slasher in the nearside rear wheel hub, tracking radar, oil, water and nail dispensers and, of course, an injector seat. Aside from the latter, all the gadgets were operational and fitted on Aston Martin’s prototype DB5. Another standard car was used for regular driving sequences and two promotional cars were so-equipped with gizmos.

Goldfinger turned James Bond into a global phenomenon, with the tricked-out DB5 being a large part of the appeal. The glory also reflected on Aston Martin, especially when the car returned the following year for Thunderball.

When Pierce Brosnan took over as Bond for 1995’s GoldenEye after a six-year hiatus since Timothy Dalton, his DB5 was registered BMT 214A, as a sister pool car to the original BMT 216A. It popped up again in Tomorrow Never Dies and The World Is Not Enough, although most of its scenes were cut, reputedly at the behest of main vehicle supplier BMW.

Daniel Craig won his first Aston Martin DB5 in a card game in 2006’s Casino Royale but then BMT 216A returned for Skyfall. Memorably destroyed in the climax of that film, it was re-built for Spectre and then got to have a full-on, gadget-deploying car chase again in No Time to Die, for which eight replica DB5s were used.

WHAT TO PAY: £290,000-795,000

Here’s the one that you definitely can’t actually buy. The preceding Skyfall was the most successful Bond movie ever, so 2015’s Spectre had big boots to fill. It didn’t quite manage it but featured a bespoke Aston Martin built solely for James Bond.

Of the ten DB10s built, three were ‘hero’ cars and seven special effects machines. It wasn’t quite as munificent a gesture by Aston Martin as it sounded because it was based on the forthcoming V8 Vantage platform, which had very similar lines when that production model debuted two years after Spectre.

The title of the movie refers to the evil organisation (Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion) headed up by Ernst Stavro Blofeld, a staple of the Sixties adventures. A suspended 007 goes rogue and steals the DB10 assigned to agent 009, which he then drives to Rome (or was it Blenheim Palace?) The ensuing chase sees the DB10 deploy its rear flamethrowers and ejector seat against the pursuing Jaguar C-X75 – which you also can’t buy, incidentally.       

WHAT TO PAY: £N/A

BMW’s final major Bond appearance saw previous Z3 and 750iL upgraded to a Z8 for 1999’s The World is Not Enough. The scene where Brosnan was given the car marked the final appearance of the original Q, the beloved Desmond Llewelyn, who had fulfilled the role in every 007 film since From Russia with Love in 1963 (save for Live and Let Die in 1973). He introduced his ‘young’ assistant, R, played by John Cleese.

The Beemer’s tricks included surface-to-air missiles, steering wheel targeting display and remote control, all of which were used in the film. It also had titanium armour and a head-up display.

The Z8, which was ultimately sliced in half by a helicopter carrying a giant timber saw., was only in nascent form when filming began so BMW could only supply three prototypes. The filmmakers had to build a further three almost from scratch with glassfibre bodywork, Chevrolet V8 engines and Jaguar suspension. The three prototypes were returned to BMW intact.

WHAT TO PAY: £150,000-275,000

When James Bond arrives to infiltrate an enemy airbase in the pre-title sequence of 1983’s Octopussy, his choice of transport (towing a horsebox in which there’s a mini Acrostar jet aircraft) is a Russet Brown Rapport Huntsman. The London-based Rapport Engineering specialised in converting vehicles mainly for wealthy customers in the Middle East.

The Huntsman’s open rear platform later made it easier for a captured 007 to jump from a military GMC truck into the Rapport and then make good his escape using the Acrostar jet. It’s believed that the Huntsman was probably a company demonstrator lent to the movie production team to generate some publicity, with the scene being shot on a disused airfield in Oxfordshire.

The topless Range Rover has since disappeared but Bishop’s Heritage of Peterborough built a replica out of a 1982 example in 2019. 

WHAT TO PAY: £N/A