Original vehicles from Bond films on display in England
Posted January 17, 2012 7:33 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
An array of vehicles travelling on land, air, water and even underwater driven by Britain’s most famous spy, James Bond, is set to go on display in England on Tuesday, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first 007 feature film Dr. No.
Bond in Motion features 50 modes of transport which have helped the Martini-loving spy get away or catch his villains for the past half-century. The exhibition is the first of its kind anywhere in the world to bring together original vehicles from the Bond films– from the iconic Aston Martin DB5 driven by then 007 Sean Connery in Goldfinger in 1964, to the amphibious white Lotus which dove into the water in off the coast of Italy’s Sardinia in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977).
The exhibition is featured at the National Motor Museum in the southern English village of Beaulieu, near Southampton.
Bond girl Jenny Hanley, who appeared in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service in 1969, said it was her favourite: “How many cars do you know that have parachute escapes and machine guns and bits of metal that come up? And the one that I want, the one that goes under water and doesn’t leak. I mean, that’s got to be the one to have,” she told Reuters Television.
She was amongst a bevy of Bond beauties including Britt Ekland (The Man With The Golden Gun), Eunice Gayson (From Russia With Love and Dr. No), and Madeline Smith (Live & Let Die) to take part in a ribbon-cutting ceremony, inaugurating the year-long exhibition.
Other vehicles featured include a crocodile-shaped submarine featured in Octopussy, jet-pack strapped onto shoulders of Pierce Brosnan in Die Another Day and the Little Nellie mini helicopter from You Only Live Twice.
Chris Corbould, the Supervisor of Special Effects for the Bond movies, said the producers of the franchise wanted to constantly set a standard for innovation.
“Working on a Bond films is always challenging. They’re working for groundbreaking effects, stunts. They want to do everything for real in the camera and they still maintain that to this day,” he said.
Gayson said she thought that five years was a long time when she did the second Bond film From Russia With Love but didn’t think the movie franchise would have the longevity it has today. She said the Bond films were also a liberation of the modern woman.
“This was the first film that was ever made, in Britain certainly, where a woman was allowed to be sexy, glamourous, and look like a woman and not look like (makes a face) ‘Miss Sweetness and Light’,” Gayson said.
The 007 franchise is the longest running in film history with 22 films produced since Dr. No in 1962.
