Audiences cheered when the 1964 Aston Martin DB5, fully laden with gadgets, reappeared in the James Bond franchise with 2012’s Skyfall after first appearing in Goldfinger. Along with the DB5, SPECTRE will have another automotive connection to one of the best Bond films of all time.
As I am currently going through Jalopnik’s own Top Ten James Bond films counting down to SPECTRE’s release on November 6th, I can’t help but admire the variety of classic cars sprinkled through the franchise. Yet, no film comes close to the standout cars of James Bond’s third feature, Goldfinger.
With Skyfall, the filmmakers wanted to emulate the best memories from the franchise on its 50th anniversary, so they wheeled out an almost-exact 1964 Aston Martin DB5 - machine guns and ejector seat and all - and it did the trick.
With SPECTRE’s advertising campaign in full motion in the final month before the film’s release, we’ve been showered with a massive amount of new images and trailers to wash over - with quite a few callbacks to previous franchise films already being notable.
Not only will the DB5 supposedly return for SPECTRE, the eighth(ish) appearance of the car in the franchise, but there will also be a Rolls Royce Phantom III, as seen in the most recent trailer for the film.
We get a quick glimpse of it in the trailer above, but Sam Smith’s music video for his title song really sealed the deal:
In Goldfinger, the villain of the same name is famously chauffeured around by his mute henchman Oddjob in a black and yellow 1937 Rolls Royce Phantom III.
In SPECTRE, it appears as though a similar car will serve a similar purpose - instead this time an all black Rolls Royce Phantom III appears to chauffeur Bond and possibly his Bond-girl to the villain’s hideout.
(Image not of the car in SPECTRE, just a Phantom III of period with a creative commons license)
The villain in SPECTRE, played by Christoph Waltz and tentatively titled Franz Oberhauser, is known to be chauffeured in a modern Rolls Royce Phantom seen on set in London, and driven by veteran Bond stuntman Paul Weston in a cameo role.
I honestly had my reservations for this film until its most recent push of promotional material - but now I can’t wait. It looks like the filmmakers are not only capturing the various elements that made the classic films great, but perhaps capturing the feeling of them as well.
Either way, I purchased my day one tickets long ago.
Photo credits from Goldfinger, SPECTRE, and Sean Hollister (Goldfinger Rolls-Royce Museum photo)