James Bond Cars: Every Famous 007 Car and Its Film

James Bond cars are the vehicles 007 drives across the 25 EON films, and the Aston Martin DB5 in Goldfinger (1964) is the best known. Five cars get a full entry here: the Aston Martin DB5 in Goldfinger, the Lotus Esprit in The Spy Who Loved Me, the AMC Hornet X in The Man with the Golden Gun, the Aston Martin DB10 in Spectre and the BMW 750iL in Tomorrow Never Dies.

The wider Bond garage is bigger than those five. The Aston Martin DBS, Aston Martin V8 Vantage, Aston Martin V12 Vanquish, Sunbeam Alpine, Toyota 2000 GT, BMW Z3 and BMW Z8 are other cars linked to 007 and sit outside the full entries. The series itself began with Dr. No, directed by Terence Young with Sean Connery as James Bond, long before the DB5 arrived in Goldfinger.

Why do these cars matter so much? These cars matter because the series treats the car as a character and a showcase for Q's gadgets. Q, the quartermaster, supplies the hardware side of the job (Desmond Llewelyn plays him in 17 films, the last being The World Is Not Enough in 1999, and Ben Whishaw takes the role in Spectre), and the vehicle is usually where that hardware turns into a set piece. A car chase or a stunt gives the filmmakers a clean way to show how a mission gets done, step by step.

Every title is reachable from the james bond movies hub. If you want the gadgets that come with the cars, see james bond gadgets.

The Aston Martin DB5 is the first gadget car in the Bond series, driven by Sean Connery in Goldfinger (1964), directed by Guy Hamilton.

In the film, Bond is sent to watch Auric Goldfinger, a gold dealer with a suspicious fortune. Back in Britain he is handed an Aston Martin loaded with gadgets, and he then follows Goldfinger to Switzerland, where a factory and a larger plan come into view. Gert Fröbe plays Goldfinger, Honor Blackman plays Pussy Galore and Harold Sakata plays the silent servant Oddjob.

The film was made on a budget of $3 million and earned about $124.9 million worldwide. The UK premiere was reported as 20 September 1964 and the US release was confirmed as 22 December 1964. Every later Aston Martin in the series, including the DB10 in Spectre, is measured against this one.

The Lotus Esprit is the Bond car that turns into a submarine, in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), directed by Lewis Gilbert, with Roger Moore as 007.

The film opens with two missile submarines, one British and one Soviet, vanishing without a trace. Bond teams up with the KGB agent Major Anya Amasova, played by Barbara Bach, while the steel toothed Jaws, played by Richard Kiel, keeps coming after them. When henchmen working for the shipping tycoon Karl Stromberg, played by Curd Jürgens, chase the pair, Bond's Lotus Esprit becomes a submarine so they can escape underwater. It is one of the clearest examples of the series folding a gadget into an action beat.

The movie cost $14 million to make. The US release was reported as 13 July 1977 and the UK premiere as 20 July 1977, so the US opening came a week earlier. Elon Musk bought a Lotus Esprit submarine prop for $989,000 at auction in 2013. That sale gives you a real number for what a screen car from this series can fetch, though it says nothing about a road car.

The AMC Hornet X is the car behind the astro spiral jump in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), directed by Guy Hamilton, with Roger Moore as 007 and Christopher Lee as the assassin Francisco Scaramanga.

The film starts when MI6 receives a golden bullet engraved with 007. M pulls Bond off a search for a missing solar energy scientist, and Bond follows the bullet through Beirut and Macau to Hong Kong. Later, Bond drives a stolen AMC Hornet X while chasing Scaramanga, who escapes in a car with wings. The jump is the part people remember, and Guinness World Records recognizes it as the first astro spiral jump on film.

The car is preserved at Beaulieu. The movie cost $7 million and earned about $97.6 million worldwide. The UK premiere was reported as 19 December 1974 and the US release as 18 December 1974.

The Aston Martin DB10 is the car Daniel Craig drives in Spectre (2015), directed by Sam Mendes, and it carries the Rome chase.

Bond goes rogue after a message from the previous M, and in Rome he sneaks into a secret meeting wearing an octopus ring. He is spotted and escapes in the DB10 while the assassin Hinx, played by Dave Bautista, chases him. The car appears in a film with a $245 million budget, one of the biggest in the series. The UK premiere was reported as 26 October 2015 and the US release as 6 November 2015.

The film's last moments bring the original back. Q, played by Ben Whishaw, hands Bond a restored Aston Martin DB5, and Bond drives away in it with Madeleine Swann, played by Léa Seydoux. It is a neat bookend to the Aston Martin that began the story in Goldfinger, 51 years earlier.

The BMW 750iL is the remote-controlled car Pierce Brosnan drives in Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), directed by Roger Spottiswoode, with Jonathan Pryce as the media tycoon Elliot Carver.

Bond is sent to investigate Carver after a British navy ship is sunk in the South China Sea in a way that pushes London and Beijing toward war. He later teams up with the Chinese agent Wai Lin, played by Michelle Yeoh. The BMW is the film's showpiece gadget, and it fits a story about technology and media power.

The movie cost $110 million and earned about $333 million worldwide. The UK premiere was reported as 11 December 1997 and the US release was confirmed as 19 December 1997.

In my opinion, the Aston Martin DB5 from Goldfinger is the best Bond car, ahead of the Lotus Esprit, AMC Hornet X, Aston Martin DB10 and BMW 750iL.

Why does the DB5 win? The DB5 wins because it links Goldfinger and Spectre. It arrives in Goldfinger as the first true gadget car, and Spectre ends with a restored DB5 handed to Bond by Q, 51 years later. The DB5 has no entry of its own because the Goldfinger entry covers it, and the DB10 entry is where its return is told. No other Bond car carries that much history.

The Lotus Esprit comes second because it is the best single idea. A car that becomes a submarine is a joke and a trick in one, and the $989,000 auction price shows it still matters to collectors. The AMC Hornet X is third, and perhaps it deserves higher, since a recognized first on film is rare. It loses ground only because the car itself is less admired than the jump it performs.

The DB10 sits fourth. The Rome chase is well staged, but it is a one film car, and it is hard to separate it from the DB5 that follows. The BMW 750iL takes fifth. It is clever in a story about media and technology, but the car gives way to the plot more than it leads it.

If you are new to this, start with Goldfinger, then watch Spectre to see the DB5 return, and follow the full run in james bond movies in order. For the villains these cars face, see james bond villains.