By Publisher Ray Carmen
From Connery’s silver DB5 to Craig’s bruising DBS, the cars of 007 have become stars in their own right.
Sean Connery’s James Bond and the Aston Martin DB5 — the partnership that defined cinematic motoring cool.
James Bond does not merely arrive. He makes an entrance.
For more than six decades, the cars driven by 007 have carried the same ingredients as the man himself: British style, international glamour, clever engineering and danger hidden beneath a perfect surface.
Some fired missiles. One turned into a submarine. Others survived with half their bodywork missing. Together they created cinema’s greatest garage.
For this collection, we focus on the memorable cars Bond himself drives in the official film series, rather than every taxi, villain’s limousine or vehicle in which he is merely a passenger.
THE CARS
1. SUNBEAM ALPINE SERIES II
Dr No — 1962 | Sean Connery
The first car Bond drives on screen is not an Aston Martin but a pale-blue Sunbeam Alpine.
On Jamaica’s coastal roads it gives the new cinematic 007 a clean, confident entrance: British, open-topped and effortlessly cool.
2. BENTLEY 3½ LITRE DROPHEAD COUPÉ
From Russia with Love — 1963 | Sean Connery
A nod to Ian Fleming’s literary Bond.
Connery’s 007 uses the elegant pre-war Bentley as a private grand tourer, complete with a car telephone. It establishes that Bond’s taste existed before Q Branch began fitting ejector seats.
3. ASTON MARTIN DB5
Goldfinger — 1964 and later films | Sean Connery and successors
The definitive Bond car.
Silver Birch paint, revolving number plates, machine guns, tyre slashers and the famous passenger ejector seat transformed a beautiful grand tourer into a screen legend.
The DB5 returned across several Bond eras, becoming 007’s mechanical signature.
4. ASTON MARTIN DBS
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service — 1969 | George Lazenby
Longer, sharper and more modern than the DB5, the DBS accompanies Bond through one of the series’ most romantic stories.
Its restrained gadgetry makes the car feel personal rather than theatrical, especially in the unforgettable final scene.
5. FORD MUSTANG MACH 1
Diamonds Are Forever — 1971 | Sean Connery
Bond borrows American muscle for a Las Vegas escape, squeezing the red Mustang through a narrow alley on two wheels.
The famous continuity flip only adds to the sequence’s cheerful audacity.
6. AMC HORNET X HATCHBACK
The Man with the Golden Gun — 1974 | Roger Moore
An ordinary showroom car becomes extraordinary when Bond launches it from a broken bridge and completes a 360-degree corkscrew jump.
The stunt was calculated by computer and performed for real in one of cinema’s most daring automotive moments.
7. LOTUS ESPRIT S1
The Spy Who Loved Me — 1977 | Roger Moore
The white wedge-shaped Lotus races along the Sardinian coast before diving into the sea and transforming into a submarine.
Known affectionately as Wet Nellie, it is the one Bond car that genuinely challenged the DB5 for popular immortality.
8. LOTUS ESPRIT TURBO
For Your Eyes Only — 1981 | Roger Moore
A white Esprit meets an explosive end when its anti-theft system is triggered.
Bond later takes the copper-coloured Turbo Esprit into the mountains, giving the angular Lotus a second, more sophisticated screen life.
9. CITROËN 2CV6
For Your Eyes Only — 1981 | Roger Moore
When the glamorous machinery disappears, Bond proves that the driver matters.
He pilots Melina Havelock’s yellow 2CV through olive groves, over rough ground and through a series of comic rolls, turning one of Europe’s humblest cars into an unlikely action hero.
10. RENAULT 11 TAXI
A View to a Kill — 1985 | Roger Moore
Commandeered in Paris, the Renault loses its roof and then its rear half during Bond’s pursuit of May Day.
It continues moving, naturally.
Few cars have been dismantled so completely while still finishing the chase.
11. ASTON MARTIN V8 VANTAGE VOLANTE
The Living Daylights — 1987 | Timothy Dalton
Muscular, discreet and heavily armed, the V8 carries lasers, missiles, skis and rocket assistance.
Its return in No Time to Die connected Daniel Craig’s final mission to the hard-edged elegance of Timothy Dalton’s debut.
12. BMW Z3 ROADSTER
GoldenEye — 1995 | Pierce Brosnan
Brosnan’s Bond introduces a new marque to Q Branch.
The blue Z3 promises missiles, radar and a parachute braking system, though the film lets its tropical style make the strongest impression.
13. BMW 750iL
Tomorrow Never Dies — 1997 | Pierce Brosnan
A luxury saloon becomes a remote-controlled weapon.
Bond drives it from the back seat using a mobile phone, manoeuvring through a multi-storey car park before sending it dramatically through a rental-office window.
14. BMW Z8
The World Is Not Enough — 1999 | Pierce Brosnan
With retro roadster proportions and surface-to-air missiles, the Z8 looks made for Bond.
Its screen life is brutally brief: a helicopter-mounted saw cuts the car in two, creating one of Q Branch’s most painful write-offs.
15. ASTON MARTIN V12 VANQUISH
Die Another Day — 2002 | Pierce Brosnan
The marque returns with what Q calls the Vanish.
Adaptive camouflage makes the V12 coupé virtually invisible, while an ice-palace chase against a Jaguar XKR gives the film a lavish battle of British performance cars.
16. ASTON MARTIN DBS V12
Casino Royale — 2006 and Quantum of Solace — 2008 | Daniel Craig
Daniel Craig’s Bond receives a harder, more physical Aston Martin.
In Casino Royale the DBS performs a record-setting series of cannon rolls; in Quantum of Solace it is scarred and battered through a ferocious opening pursuit.
17. FORD MONDEO ST
Casino Royale — 2006 | Daniel Craig
Even a practical hire car gains Bond status.
The specially prepared Mondeo carries 007 through the Bahamas and underlines the reboot’s grounded idea: before the tuxedo, the casino and the DBS, the mission comes first.
18. ASTON MARTIN DB10
Spectre — 2015 | Daniel Craig
Created specially for the film, the DB10 is a sleek preview of Aston Martin’s design future.
Bond takes it without permission and races through Rome against Mr Hinx’s Jaguar C-X75, deploying flames and, finally, an ejector seat.
19. LAND ROVER SERIES III
No Time to Die — 2021 | Daniel Craig
In Jamaica, Bond’s weathered Land Rover gives the retired agent a deliberately unshowy set of wheels.
It is practical, honest and rooted in island life — the calm before his last mission pulls him back into the world of high-speed danger.
THE CARS THAT DEFINED EACH BOND ERA
Sean Connery — Aston Martin DB5
The original gadget car and the enduring visual shorthand for 007.
George Lazenby — Aston Martin DBS
A more intimate grand tourer for Bond’s most romantic chapter.
Roger Moore — Lotus Esprit S1
Futurism, wit and spectacle — including the unforgettable submarine transformation.
Timothy Dalton — Aston Martin V8
Hard-edged British muscle for a tougher, more grounded agent.
Pierce Brosnan — BMW 750iL
Technology takes control as Bond drives remotely from the back seat.
Daniel Craig — Aston Martin DBS V12
Beauty made physical: fast, damaged and driven without mercy.
THE ULTIMATE BOND CAR
The Aston Martin DB5 remains unbeatable.
Other Bond cars have been faster, stranger and more technologically ambitious, but none has matched its balance of beauty, menace and instant recognition.
Park a silver DB5 anywhere in the world and people do not simply see an Aston Martin.
They see James Bond.
Yet the deeper secret of the Bond garage is its extraordinary range.
A Lotus can dive beneath the sea, a BMW can be driven by telephone, a Citroën can tumble through an olive grove and a battered Land Rover can bring 007 down to earth.
The badge changes. The attitude never does.
