Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by Bambi B (A) on February 21, 2010 at 12:08:20

In Reply to: RE: Car in Movies- Roll 'Em! posted by Bambi B on February 19, 2010 at 10:27:25

Mates,

I neglected to include the cars of James Bond- these were carefully chosen form the beginning to support Bond's personal style and of course the Aston Martin DB5 in "Goldfinger" is the most famous. It's interesting that Bond chases the girl in the Mustang conv. and seems to have had difficulty in catching her- and that Mustang was a straight six one!

The DB5 was not a screamer- it was just too heavy. Fans of "Top Gear" may have seen the drag race between an XKE, a DB6, and a Honda Accord V-6. Guess which car was the clear winner!

Goldfinger's Rolls was a fun choice too- I don't remember if that was a late 30's- '36 to '38 Phantom II or III. The body was a very dull "D-back" design- looking more like 1934. It was probably a Phantom III as it would need the V-12 power to lug that solid gold body- and I seem to remember the bonnet looked a bit shorter- the Phantom I's and II's had long bonnet for the straight 6 but for some reason PIII's were shorter. Phantom III's though were notorious as they had a Aluminium block with steel liners and if you used the wrong coolant, a lot of those made had - porous blocks and heads and they would disintegrate. I think a complete rebuild today of a PIII V-12 would be $20,000+- they cut the block and heads into sections and weld up the inside coolant passages!

The other Bond cars became less and less distinguished as time went on- the Aston DBS was a V-8 truck. When the producers realized the Bond car choices were being noticed, they became just silly product placements for BMW and the like. The Lotus Esprit- that transformed into a submarine- was a good one though. And, Craig's DB9 in "Casino Royale" was just fine- my ideal car. If I won the lottery I'd probably have a DB9 the nest day!

Cheers,

Bambi B