Of all the Bond gadgets, none are cooler than his car. But like all things Bond, the level of Bond car gadget quality varies depending on the quality of the movie. Also, there are probably more standard car sequences than gadget-oriented sequences. Of this variety, there are some gems; such as when he drove a split-in-half car through the streets of Paris in "A View to a Kill" or when he jumped over a riverbed in "Diamonds are Forever". The opening scene of "Quantum of Solace" is pretty cool as well.


The main problem with many Bond car sequences is that they usually don't last all that long. It's usually 7 minutes of a mediocre chase scene in which bad guys lob bullets at James Bond who's "driving" in front of a projection of actual driving footage, followed by a brief shot or two of the gadgets at work. Exhibit A from "The Spy Who Loved Me":



"The Living Daylights" car scene is okay. The main problem with this scene is that the two rockets that he fires look like lame ass firecrackers instead of highly powerful explosives like they should be. Beyond that, it gets a little hokey at the end when the car is driving the boat house around and when he cuts a hole into the ice. Pretty cheesy stuff. I think what I most like about the scene are the Anne Frank sirens that the police cars have:



"The Die Another Day" scene is fun, but its hard to take it seriously at all. I can take a car chase on ice. I can take an invisible car. I can take a follow car with a mini-gun attached to it. I can take an ejector seat re-flipping a bond car. I can take a car that appears to have 50 missiles hidden inside of it. But putting all that together is a bit much. Add in that ice hotel and you have some serious silliness taking place.



The "Goldfinger" scene is held up as the classic and I more or less agree. It's held up okay over the years and it did a great job at setting the Bond car bar at a high level. And really, only one movie has surpassed it. I love the smoke screen, love the oil trail, and I love that ejector seat. But come on, why did they let him drive that car after they had captured him? When will they ever learn? I also love that this scene has the silly Bond convention of having one of those completely random characters come out of nowhere and open fire on Bond. Since when do gate guarding grandmas carry semi-automatic weapons? This one has a classic ending:



The only real knock on this scene is that its a 4-door sedan. ... and that its a BMW. James Bond cars should have two-doors and it should be an Aston Martin. PERIOD. That being said, I LOVE this scene. What's great about it is that they introduced a lot of new toys that the car had never had before. Too bad they had to throw in that heinous product placement at the end:


- Matt