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BOND BOMBSHELLS

THE CARS ARE AMONG THE STARS IN THE LONG-RUNNING SERIES OF JAMES BOND MOVIES

- BY JIM GORZELANY CTW FEATURES

One of the many highlights in “Spectre” – the latest James Bond cinematic adventure – is a pulsepound­ing chase between an Aston Martin DB10 and a Jaguar C-X75, both built exclusivel­y for the movie.

“I love the idea of this fantastic car being in a one-on-one battle with another incredible car,” says the film’s director Sam Mendes. “It’s a catand-mouse game through the night time streets of Rome, at great speed, between two of the fastest cars in the world. It’s one of those things you only see in a James Bond film.”

While Ian Fleming’s famed secret agent has piloted just about every manner of vehicle ever conceived in the long-running series of James Bond films – from a helicopter, fire engine and jet pack to a snowmobile, Russian tank and even a NASA lunar rover – it’s 007’s seemingly endless fleet of exotic cars that wind up being the movies’ un-credited costars. In many of the films “Q,” the fictional head of the British Secret Service’s research and developmen­t division, craftily customizes Bond’s rides with an amazing array of vehicular armaments and gadgetry.

Here’s a quick look at some of 007’s most iconic rides:

• Aston Martin DB5. First seen in the 1964 film “Goldfinger,” the venerable DB5 is the car that’s most associated with James Bond. A luxury grand touring car produced between 1963 and 1965, Bond’s version featured such essential secretagen­t accessorie­s as a front-firing machine gun, passenger-ejection seat, smoke screen, oil slick dispensers, a bulletproo­f barrier, revolving multinatio­nal license plates and front and rear retractabl­e ramming arms. It also came with extendable wheel hubs that could slash an adjacent vehicle’s tires.

• Aston Martin DBS. Another old-school British sports car, the original DBS was featured in 1969’s “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” – the only film in which George Lazenby portrays 007. A later iteration was Daniel Craig’s ride of choice as Bond in the 2006 version of “Casino Royale” and the subsequent 2008 installmen­t, “Quantum of Solace.” Unlike the gadget-laden DB5 above, the Aston Martin DBS featured in either film stands on its own merits without being retrofitte­d with assorted armaments.

• Ford Mustang Mach 1. In 1971’s “Diamonds are Forever,” the vehicular star was a Mustang Mach 1 owned by diamond smuggler Tiffany Case (Jill St. John). In the process of preventing the villainous Blofeld from controllin­g the world, Sean Connery’s Bond pilots the Mach 1 in a chase with police cars down the Las Vegas Strip that leaves assorted collisions in its wake. The sequence’s signature maneuver is an extended escape down an otherwise too-narrow alleyway with the Mustang somehow squeezing through on only two wheels.

• Lotus Esprit. As seen in 1977’s “The Spy Who Loved Me,” the sleek Esprit was able to perform double-duty as a compact submarine. Roger Moore’s 007 takes the Esprit deep below the surface to engage in a reconnaiss­ance of the villain’s underwater facilities and uses the vehicle’s handy anti-aircraft missiles to blow a helicopter out of the sky.

• BMW 750iL. BMW’s flagship sedan was featured in 1997’s “Tomorrow Never Dies” with Pierce Brosnan’s Bond driving the car during the film’s signature chase scene – while hunched in the back seat – all the while engaging all manner of weaponry including flash grenades, tear gas, rockets and a metal spike dispenser, using a specially modified cell phone as a remote controller.

• BMW Z8. In 1999’s “The World is Not Enough,” Brosnan drives this low-slung sports car equipped with radar-guided stinger missiles. In the film it winds up being sliced in half in Azerbaijan by a helicopter that was fitted with tree-cutting saws. Guess “Q” couldn’t prepare 007 for everything

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