EXHIBITION: Petersen Automotive Museum presents “Bond in Motion,” a large display of cars and other vehicles from the James Bond film franchise.
James Bond’s sleek cars roll into the Petersen museum
His name is Bond, James Bond.
He likes to get his martinis shaken, not stirred, and his cars fast, not slow, and preferably with machine guns and rocket launchers attached, and maybe with some spiked tires and the ability to operate underwater.
And Bond always gets what he wants.
“Bond and his gadgets and his cars create the persona, so the cars are the extension of the character. And when you think of a Bond film and you think of the most exciting scene, it typically involves a car or another vehicle,” said Michael Bodell, chief operating officer of the Petersen Automotive Museum, as he stood amid a new exhibition titled “Bond in Motion.”
Made up of more than 30 cars, motorcycles, boats, submarines, helicopters and even models of vehicles that have appeared in all of the James Bond films, the exhibition opened Saturday in celebration of the 60th anniversary of the James Bond film franchise and runs through Oct. 30, 2022.
The next film in the series, “No Time to Die,” opens today.
“These are the official cars. You’ll see some reproductions out there but these are the real official cars,” Bodell said.
Here are five of the coolest, and even some of the deadliest, vehicles in the exhibition.
1 Experienced wheels
The 1964 Aston Martin DB5 is one of the stars here, not only because it’s so pretty to look at but because it’s the most experienced car in the exhibition. Painted in silver birch, this DB5 has been featured in more Bond films than any other vehicle — four — including 1995’s “GoldenEye,” and it will return in “No Time to Die.”
2 ‘Wet Nellie’
In 1977s “The Spy Who Loved Me,” Bond (Roger Moore) flies off a pier and into the water to reveal that his white 1977 Lotus Esprit S1, nicknamed the “Wet Nellie,” converts into a submarine with surface-to-air missiles, torpedoes and a mine launcher, all while keeping Bond’s suit nice and dry.
3 Road rage machine
Sometimes a super secret agent has to blow things up, and Bond often did it in style from behind the wheel of a luxury automobile like the 2002 Aston Martin V12 Vanquish, which appeared in the 2002 film “Die Another Day,” with Pierce Brosnan as Bond. This slick gray machine was nicknamed “The Vanish” because of the ability to turn invisible with the clever use of cameras that projected images that made it seem like it wasn’t there. And if you saw it coming, that was maybe even worse for you because the car has heat-seeking missiles, machine guns that pop out of the hood, spiked tires and shotguns. Yeah, Bond does road rage perhaps better than anyone else in film history.
4 Hitting the slopes
A little snow and ice may slow down most vehicles, but not Bond’s ski-loving Aston Martin V8. Used in 1987’s “The Living Daylights,” starring Timothy Dalton as the spy, the car in this collection was not only equipped with wheel lasers, Stinger missiles and a rear jet-engine booster, it came with skis that popped out the side doors for, you know, carving turns down the slopes while saving the world.
But with the jet booster, this thing could probably ski uphill, too.
5 Taking the plunge
Bond wasn’t just hell on wheels, he was a shark on water, too, and he proved it in 1979’s “Moonraker,” where he sped down the Amazon in a silver, glittery speedboat on display at the Petersen under a hang glider.
Why a hang glider? Well, that’s because, besides boasting hidden rocket launchers, mines and a bulletproof shield, it came with a hang glider, which Bond used to escape his pursuers as he let the boat plummet over a waterfall.