Posted by Jamie Hibbard at 12:00PM on Tuesday 22 April, 2008 15 Comments
You'll have seen the Bond story and been either amazed, shocked or just generally horrified that an Aston Martin DBS ended up at the bottom of Lake Garda.
Reports filtered in throughout yesterday, and however you looked at it, it was pretty terrifying.
The guy drove off the road in the pouring rain, went through an Armco and plummeted down a cliff into the waiting Lake Garda below.
He then sank, unconscious, 150 feet into the lake, where he came to, escaped out of the car and swam the whole way back to the surface. Yet apart from a few bruises, he is apparently fine.
This is James Bond heroic.
Yet it is such a big deal that it's almost too much to comprehend. I called Aston and they assured me it really was an accident, but for some reason I'm still a little suspicious.
I apologise to the driver if I'm inventing a conspiracy theory that is founded on absolutely nothing, but I just can't help myself because there are a few things that strike me as odd about the reported story.
First, when Top Gear gets press cars delivered from Aston, they arrive on a trailer. Would they not do the same for what was reportedly the only car available for the movie?
Second, the car also looks so utterly crushed that I can't imagine anyone would have survived such a horrific accident, let alone then swam a mammoth 150 feet to the surface afterwards.
And then you have to remember how good that the people behind Bond are at playing their game. They know what they're doing when it comes to marketing a film. They also know how good a cool car is at achieving that.
In the build-up to the release of Casino Royale they issued pictures and video footage of the world-record achieving Most Barrel Rolls by a Car Ever - also an Aston Martin DBS - that scored them huge amounts of press coverage as a result.
Online campaigns are all about blurring the lines between the movie that's being released and real life, so how much coverage would they get for a 'real' crash? One that in reality turned out to be a fantastically huge stunt from the film.
Judging by yesterday's news coverage, a lot.
Aston assures us that they're not clever enough to have thought of such a viral assault, but has the Quantum of Solace campaign begun, or am I barking up the wrong tree?
A tree that may not even exist.
15 Comments for "Quantum Leap: conspiracy theory"
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Absolutely.
I'd be interested to hear from any scuba divers out there what a 150-metre swim feels like.
I have to say that when I first saw the pictures, I assumed the driver had bailed out as soon as he hit the water, then the damage occurred when it got to the bottom.
As the Hampster proved a couple of series back, getting out of a car in the water is tough at the best of times, but I can't see how anyone could get out of a car that was that badly crushed while at the bottom of a lake at night, even if the accident hadn't injured them.
Bit worrying that the roof of the car was almost squashed flat.
I thought cars had to be able to support the whole weight of the car (plus a considerable safety margin) on the roof, in case of a crash where the car flips over?
I agree.
First off, sinking in a car to the depths of 150ft with no windows in the car, to wake up on the bottom and swim 150ft to the surface? And taking a look at that car, if the driver didn't have a helmet, his body sure had its wits about it to reach over and grab his head before the 15 storey swim to the surface.
I believe there is room up here in our invisible non-existing tree fort. May that DBS... rest in pieces.
Come on, it's got to be a movie stunt. As well as the reasons mentioned above, I'd like to add that I really doubt the probability of a stunt driver driving the car to a film set. It'd be put in a truck and delivered, not just casually driven from location to location...
First thing you have to ask is this: Does the James Bond franchise need any 'help' in obtaining publicity? No.
When a new Bond film comes out, it's the same as if a new Lord of the Rings or Star Wars movie comes out - pretty much everyone goes to see it.
Secondly, yes, the cars do arrive via truck, but remember they've been filming the movie for a few months now and I'd imagine they'd change locations for filming and refilming different scenes. Does this mean the Aston goes everywhere by truck, or is the truck only there when Aston Martin presents the car to the film crew?
I think it's real. At the end of the day, they didn't have any back-up cars on hand, and smashing a car worth over £170,000 just isn't worth it. That said, smashing up DBS' seems to be a habit of theirs...
How would he get out? Both doors were closed when the car was removed from the lake and I doubt they'd open and close particularly easily now?
If it was not a stunt, then why was a stunt driver at the wheel?
Seriously, I thought the same thing as others have mentioned. No way it went down the way they are proclaiming.
Your body doesn't automatically hold its breath once you go unconscious... and a 150ft trip to the bottom would take a considerable amount of time. Not to mention the swim back to the surface, so either the stunt driver is a freak of nature and has grown gills, or it was set-up.
I think this whole story shows us how downhill Aston Martin has gone these days.
I mean, having just watched Die Another Day, the Vanquish handled the masses of water and ice in the film with ease.
So ask yourself: Is the build quality of the DBS really satisfactory if it can't handle this??
I am a scuba diver and while 50 metres is deep, it should be possible. As he ascended, the air in his lungs would have expanded, giving rise to the risk of injury from over expanded lungs; since he wasn't breathing compressed air there should be no problem with decompression illness.
The most surprising fact is the handling of the Aston. Did he really skid off the road, or was the rain so torrential that he simply drove through the barrier?
I counted at least 5 Aston Martins on the movie set: Watch clip on Youtube
"The only car available for the movie?"... Conspiracy theory it is. Zee
Why would they make it so obviously staged by saying he sat in it (unconscious) as it sank, then swam 150ft up to the surface?
Why was a stunt man transporting a car? How did he lose control if his job is to handle the car with precision? And when a car goes into water, especially that deep, the engine falls fastest than the car, which makes it level out and land on its wheels, but never the roof!
I am a scuba diver and at 50m in the dark (I've night dived a lot) and just regaining consciousness, you would have trouble knowing which way is up, in order to start swimming for the surface.
Never mind the fact that the DBS,ÂÂ though absolutely stunning, is just like any other car in at least one way: it is not a watertight submersible. It would have flooded rather quickly, drowining the driver before the car got anywhere near the bottom.
Unless he opened the car door either when the car hit the water or within seconds of it hitting the water, the driver would not have been able to open any of the doors until the car was completely flooded.
So, as far as I'ÂÂm concerned, it has to be a stunt, or there would be a dead driver. Simple as that.
Being a scuba diver and a 4x4 tourist driver guide in Iceland, I've experienced at least 2 things (seeing a sinking car being one of them) that make me doubt one part of this report: How deep did the driver go in the Aston?
First let us take the unbearable pain that comes with someone's ear drums collapsing, as an unconscious person very much lacks the consciousness necessary to equalize the pressure in one's ears (this starts to matter at a surprisingly low depth). They would probably have said he was fine, apart from a few bruises and the fact that he'ÂÂs now completely deaf!
Secondly, let's look at the time underwater. In this forum there have been questions about how long it takes to swim the 150 feet to the surface, and it doesn't take very long; if you start at the bottom. But in order to swim up 150 feet you must first sink to a depth of 150 feet!
I think that with all the lightweight materials such as: foam in the bumpers roof lining door panels, quarter panels, trunk and other places to reduce road noise and save pets when they get run over at 100mph. And then places for air pockets to form. A modern car would, even with the windows broken, take a long time to sink 150 feet.
My personal guess is that escaping with his eardrums intact his adventure took him no deeper than 30 orÂÂ 40 feet.