So here’s one for the weekend.
Now you’re all done with hauling out the Scotch from the top drawer of the filing cabinet to help you reflect on a better choice of car than a Focus ST for the return of The Sweeney, how about changing your tipple? For a vodka Martini. Dry as you like. Straight up, no twist and, of course, not stirred.
Yup, it’s “What should Bond drive in Skyfall?” weekend.
Yes, of course, there’s only one answer, but even that’s not straightforward, and we’ll come to that. Bond doesn’t just drive Aston Martins. In Quantum of Solace, he was seen in a Ford Ka, a Range Rover Sport and a Ford Edge. In Casino Royale, as well as the DBS and the DB5, he also had a go in what was then the new Mondeo. See a pattern here?
Ford had signed a three-film deal with Bond back when it owned Aston Martin and Land Rover. That’s now over, so we assume the book is open on what the bad guys (confirmed as Javier Bardem and Ralph Fiennes) and the good girls (Naomie Harris and Bérénice Marlohe) might drive. Thoughts appreciated.
But what about Bond? Q is back in Skyfall, for once played by a younger man (Brit actor Ben Whishaw, the groovy young thing in The Hour). The casting would suggest director Sam Mendes is going for a more realistic, geeky type of character, and that fits the mood of both the Daniel Craig Bond films.
Even if, having destroyed seven DBSes (six filming the opening chase in Quantum, another in the record-breaking roll in Casino Royale), Aston Martin is happy to ‘loan’ the producers any more cars, does an Aston Martin still fit? Times are hard at MI6. Government cutbacks have fallen on every department.
Ian Fleming always believed Bond needed to fit in with the lavish lifestyles of the baddies he pursued. That’s why he drove a Bentley in the books. And always a British car, which is why Lotus got a look-in in The Spy Who Loved Me. A McLaren MP4-12C might just fit the picture.
But then again, no. It’s got to be another Aston surely? MI6 could not run to a One-77. But maybe a Virage. And if things are really tough, maybe a Cyg…
No. We can’t bring ourselves to write it. Over to you.
