- I'm Merek Reichman.
[dramatic music]
And I'm now gonna talk you through
all the Aston Martin cars
that appear in the James Bond movies.
I'm an industrial designer
and I trained as an automotive designer.
Wanted to be a designer all my life.
And have been designing Aston Martin's for 15 years.
[raucous music]
DB5, "Goldfinger," 1964.
It was an evolution of the DB4,
very successful car for us, used in racing.
But it was very mechanical in a way.
And the consumer wanted more luxury,
bigger seats, electric windows.
Therefore the wheelbase had to grow
and the car needed more power.
Beauty comes through proportion.
The body to window height,
the overall length to the length of the cabin,
the width of the car to the grill,
all fit within the golden proportion.
- You'll be using this Aston Martin DB5 with modifications.
Now pay attention, please.
- It's so difficult to pick a favorite gadget from the car,
but a few I gotta mention, the wheel spinners
and the bulletproof shield.
But really the tracking system,
which was a form of satellite navigation system,
way back in '64, advanced technology.
We were inspired by the anniversary of "Goldfinger"
to make some continuation cars.
So we made 25 continuation DB5s, that have
all of the gadgets that you would see in the movie.
The only thing that was missing was the actual
ejector seat system and an opening roof.
One year later, it was 1965,
and "Thunderball" featuring the DB5 again.
"Goldfinger" made DB5 a huge success.
By the time we got to "Thunderball"
DB5 was going out of production because we oversold.
We could only make 11 cars a week,
and there was a demand for 50.
There were no differences between
the DB5 in "Goldfinger" and "Thunderball."
It was a year later, and actually
we'd only just started production of the DB5.
So it was so successful in the prior movie
that it was used again, and there were no differences.
Same color, same color interior.
"On Her Majesty's Secret Service," 1969,
with the Aston Martin DBS.
Bill Towns, or William Towns, was a designer,
like myself, for Aston Martin.
And was responsible for the Aston Martin DBS
and some of the Lagondas.
One of the leaders really, and a hero of mine,
because he brought some of
the Americana type design to the UK.
The layout with this brilliant engine in the front,
and where you sit relative to the engine,
makes the car and gives it that presence.
But it had real power.
[engine rumbling]
I like all of the movies.
I particularly like this one because of the change of pace,
the change of scenery, the lighting, the actor,
the gadgets on either car.
The DBS didn't have gadgets
because the car itself was the gadget.
It was an incredibly modern, powerful car.
A new generation of Aston Martins.
But it did have an ArmaLite AR-7 in the glove box.
[man yelling]
[dynamic music]
"Diamonds are Forever," 1971,
and briefly, the Aston Martin DBS.
The DBS appears in "Diamonds are Forever"
with rocket missiles being loaded into the bonnet.
It doesn't appear driving in the movie at all.
"The Living Daylights," in 1987, with the V8 Volante.
After an absence of eight films,
"The Living Daylights" featured
the Aston Martin V8 Volante, in 1987.
There is a little bit of confusion about the actual car
that was in "The Living Daylights"
because it starts life as a V8 Volante,
which is a retracting soft top, so an open-top car.
But it gets winterized, i.e. it becomes a coupe.
- Mind your head.
- Then it becomes the coupe version, so a V8.
The V8 can be driven in snowy and icy conditions.
The addition of winter tires, spike tires,
would allow Bond to drift
and drive the car beautifully on snow and ice.
The retractable outriggers is probably the only request
we haven't had for any of our cars.
We've had lots of requests for many other things,
obviously ballistic protection,
stowage of weapons, et cetera.
But no one's ever asked for outriggers.
I do think absence makes the heart grow fonder.
And for sure, Bond didn't feel right
without his Aston Martin, so it came back.
And everything felt fine again.
[dynamic music]
"Goldeneye," in '95, and that was the DB5 again.
One of my favorite scenes in all of the movies
is the red Ferrari versus the Silver Birch DB5,
through the Alps, drifting around the corners.
It's just an iconic piece of film.
I love it.
I could watch it over, and over, and over again.
The DB5 that appears in "Goldeneye"
is actually not the original car, which was BMT 216A.
This is BMT 214A, if you're watching the movie.
So it is a different car.
I think with the right driver, on those roads,
a DB5 could beat a modern day Ferrari
because the roads are narrow,
the corners are incredibly tight.
And if you could drift the DB5 around the corners,
for sure you'd beat one of those Ferrari's.
[mysterious music]
"Tomorrow Never Dies," 1997, and the DB5.
The car appears briefly in "Tomorrow Never Dies,"
parked in a street in Oxford.
And Bond has to get from Oxford down into London.
"Die Another Day," in 2002,
with the all new Aston Martin Vanquish.
The Aston Martin Vanquish really was
the start of a new era for Aston Martin.
It was bonded aluminum, using carbon fiber.
And so we weren't welding the frames,
we're now bonding those frames.
I think if you look at Vanquish,
it is a really muscular car.
I mean, it's a very powerful car.
And it signified a big change for Aston Martin.
But it's very much a technology story.
And I think it suited Brosnan and the Bond,
because this Bond was all about technology.
If we look at the cloaking device used on Vanquish,
it really was based on a technology
that was being looked at by the Defense Ministry.
So actually not so preposterous.
It was an idea of disguising objects
through reflective shields.
"Casino Royale," in 2006, with the Aston Martin DBS.
DBS was a derivation of our very successful DB9.
It was a wider car by about 40 millimeters.
Much more inclusion of carbon fibers.
We gave it a huge power upgrade.
The suspension was different, sport seats.
So the gear shift timing was all changed,
it was a much faster response time.
Quad exhaust pipes, a wider car,
lighter in weight, more powerful,
much more aggressive.
So when they started filming,
we'd begun the prototype development.
In fact, Barbara, Michael Wilson,
Daniel Craig, came to the studio to see the car in clay.
I wanted a more muscular, powerful language
for Aston Martin, I wanted something
that really evoked the V12
that sat midships at the front of the car.
And as I presented, it was clear that
that character of Bond was also needed as well.
That Bond was becoming a little bit more hard-edge,
more cutting edge,
and that fit perfectly to the vision of DBS.
The gadgets in DBS were quite special
because we were actually involved in the design studio,
developing the gadgets.
So one of my favorites is when he receives the car,
he gets a crystal key in an envelope, in a crystal box.
Then when he needs the car,
he uses a defibrillator that we actually
designed in the studio, shaped where it would fit,
how it would attach to the body,
the color, the graphic language.
Originally the gun was pointing towards the driver's seat.
So we switched the gun around,
so Bond could grab the gun easier.
So a lot of fun was had developing the gadgets.
[dramatic music]
"Quantum of Solace," in 2008, with the DBS.
There were some minor differences between
the DBS that appears in "Casino Royale"
and the DBS in "Quantum of Solace."
The color is very different.
So on "Quantum of Solace,"
the car is a darker gray than the "Casino Royale" car.
Casino Royale's DBS was an early prototype.
And by the time we got to 2008 and "Quantum of Solace,"
it was a full-on production car.
So the seats are slightly different.
The makeup of the interior is slightly different.
I was actually at Millbrook
when the rollover scene was filmed.
Vesper, Eva Green, is laid across the road,
and he has to swerve.
And the car was meant to land on its roof,
come to a halt, and then obviously Bond would be captured.
But the first few times it was filmed,
the stunt driver couldn't get the car to unearth itself,
to roll, which you should be able to do.
But our car was very stable and you couldn't.
So they had to deploy a cannon into the car,
which is a kind of cylinder that fires down to the ground
and flips the car over.
And obviously you would normally test,
and test to how much power you need to flip the car.
This was done very quickly, just make it happen.
And so fire the cannon, and the car flipped,
and flipped, and flipped, and did a world record
seven and a quarter turns,
when it was only really intended to do one.
[dynamic music]
"Skyfall," with the DB5, in 2012.
If you look at "Skyfall," Bond drives M
all the way from London to the Highlands of Scotland,
which is a long journey.
That's probably an eight or nine hour journey
up into the Highlands.
- It's not very comfortable, it is?
- Are you gonna complain the whole way?
- Oh, go on then, eject me.
See if I care.
- M's statement about the DB5 not being very comfortable,
actually the seats are pretty comfortable in the DB5.
And the seating position is quite comfortable.
The cars were created as GT cars,
so grand touring cars, cars designed for long journeys.
The difference today is that there are so many aides
and advances in terms of technology,
smoothness, quietness, seat comfort, ventilation,
that make our journey so much more pleasurable.
The journey would have been great then,
but you just wouldn't have the creature comforts.
"Spectre," DB10 and DB5, in 2015.
So "Spectre" featured the DB10,
which was the first time that a car had been designed
just for James Bond and for the movie.
Barbara Broccoli, Michael Wilson,
Daniel Craig, and Sam Mendes came to see me in the studio.
And up on the wall, I happened to have a sketch
of a future car, which then became Vantage,
which was sat next to a mood image of a shark.
And it was the DB10.
And as we were coming out of the studio,
Daniel and Sam happened to see the sketch and say,
what's that, can we see that?
I said, well, you can't see that, it's just a sketch.
And Sam Mendes looked at me, he said, but what is it?
I said, well, it's our hunter, it's our sports car.
Two seats only, very agile, more sporting,
very dramatic, just a single line, lots of power.
And he just looked at me and said,
well, can we have 10 of those?
And I looked at my team, I said, when do you need them by?
September.
This was April.
And I just said, yes, we can do it.
My team fell over,
but we produced 10 cars to support the movie.
So not only did Bond get a unique car designed for him,
he also got the mock of DV10, and only 10 were ever made.
If you notice it, it doesn't have traditional air venting.
It's got kind of dot matrix pattern air vents on the hood.
And in terms of gadgets,
it was very much how we used the car,
and how the theme of the movie
inspired what the car should look like,
particularly from the inside.
And this was a bit of kind of
postmodernist addition of objects.
It wasn't the smooth interior this time,
it was putting random switches.
So it looked as though someone had developed the car,
like it was a prototype.
- Oh yes, that old thing is taking quite a bit of time.
- You see the DB5 in the movie,
when James first spots the DB10.
And on a bench is a DB5,
which is being restored back to its former glory.
And then the very last scene is James driving off
into the London sunset, off on a journey, in the DB5.
Valhalla, DBS, V8, and DB5, "No Time to Die," 2021.
If you look back to the prior movie,
driving off into the sunset in the DB5.
cut to "No Time to Die," the first scenes,
beautifully photographed and beautifully shot,
through the Italian village Matera.
And it kind of sets up the language for the movie.
And new gadgets, donuts with Gatling guns
that come out of the headlamps,
just a superb scene in the movie.
[dramatic music]
The V8 appears in "No Time to Die."
And actually when Cary came to the studio,
he saw the V8 and immediately fell in love with it.
Because I think if you're a film director,
the car holds light beautifully well,
it's presence is, it's dramatic.
I think if we look at the V8 versus the DB5
for James Bond, for Daniel Craig in particular,
in "No Time to Die,"
it really is a transition point for him,
his character in the movie.
So without giving too much away,
he comes to a lockup and unveils dramatically the V8.
It's almost a unpack moment.
The car immediately says power.
The DBS Superleggera really, again,
as going back to "Quantum of Solace" with the DBS,
it's a very similar color.
So it's a much darker Xenon Grey, we call it.
And this really doesn't have any gadgets.
It's the car itself, which again, for Aston Martin,
it's a bonded aluminum chassis,
with an all carbon fiber exterior.
V12, lots of power.
Valhalla has a cameo role.
And it's seen behind M
as M is having a very serious conversation.
And the car is in a wind tunnel,
so you're not quite sure what the car
is going to be used for.
Maybe it's a gadget itself.
I think as ever the biggest challenge with producing
four cars for a movie is it's always time.
I mean, there are very, very strict filming schedules.
And scenes, areas are booked well in advance.
And the multiples of cars.
Potentially no support, not even a fueling station.
It really is a logistical challenge.
But obviously the timing challenge of preparing
all of the cars, getting them onsite,
and being part of the movie.
[dramatic music]
Aston Martin partnered with "Goldfinger" in 1964 originally.
And from then on, it's been an amazing journey,
with all the cars that you see behind me.