Paul Newman and Steve McQueen have plenty of inspiring car movie scenes. But neither has anything on the actors who played James Bond the cars the characters drove — Aston Martin to the Lotus Turbo Espirit.
In one website description, the TurboEsprit is described:
“As it took every single teenage and pre-pubescent boy’s inspiration and gave it a good shake. It spawned school-ground talk, made young men believe underwater driving was possible and let a new generation discover just how good the Bond films were.”
But it was Sean Connery, the original James Bond in film, who started the coolness — weaponry, inventions, smoothness with women — and he drove a 1964 Aston Martin D85
One auto web site wrote of the Aston Martin:
“The DB5 just exuded cool. It took Aston Martin into a whole new era of ice cold GT cars made for tuxedo-wearing, cigar-smoking, womanizing rich 30-somethings who knew what they wanted and how to get it.”
The automotive site AutoBlog.com has an extensive piece in the history of James Bond cars. Visit: James Bond Cars.
Article Last Updated: August 30, 2011.
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A sports, travel and business journalist for more than 45 years, James has written the new car review column The Weekly Driver since 2004.
In addition to this site, James writes a Sunday automotive column for The San Jose Mercury and East Bay Times in Walnut Creek, Calif., and a monthly auto review column for Gulfshore Business, a magazine in Southwest Florida.
An author and contributor to many newspapers, magazines and online publications, James has co-hosted The Weekly Driver Podcast since 2017.
