Aston Martin's sneaky Bond reference

Monday, 15 July 2019

Formula1 isn't know for its subtlety, so it was nice to see Aston Martin's clever and surprisingly subtle nod to two of the coolest James Bond movie cars this weekend at the British Grand Prix.

One of the most enduring movie partnerships was in the spotlight at the race where Aston Martin Lagonda and EON Productions, the company that produces the James Bond films, celebrated by slathering the Aston Martin Red Bull F1 cars with 007 logos.

Why? For no other reason than it was the 1,007th Formula 1 Grand Prix. So why not?

Big 007 logos on the wing and flanks of the Red Bull were the obvious part of the tribute. The number plates, less obvious.

But a bit more cryptic than the obvious 007 logos on the flanks and rear wings of the Red Bull cars was the slightly out of place appearance of British number plates on the rear wings.

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Why would an F1 car need a number plate? Well, obviously they don't, and the number plates were fan-boy obsessive-level nods to the Aston Martin DB5 from the 1964 Bond film Goldfinger and the Aston Martin V8 Vantage from 1987's The Living Daylights.

Max Verstappen's car ran the number plate from the Goldfinger DB5 (as Sebastian Vettel can tell you after getting a good close-up look at it) while Pierre Gasly's car featured the Vantage's number plate.

While the car from Goldfinger is an obvious choice for tribute - being, as it is, possibly the most famous movie car of all time - why the Vantage from the Timothy Dalton Bond-era film?

Two reasons - firstly, The Living Daylights marked the return of Aston Martin to the Bond franchise after Eon switched to Lotus for the Roger Moore era, reviving the partnership until the films again ditched Aston for BMW during the Pierce Brosnan era (well, new Aston's, at least, Brosnan's Bond still drove a classic DB5 on occasion).

But even more significantly, Aston Martin has confirmed that the 1985 Vantage will feature in the latest Bond film, sporting the same number plate, adding to the ever-increasing number of Aston Martin's appearing in Bond's as-yet-untitled 25th cinematic outing - DB5 and Valhalla supercar are confirmed to appear, while the all-electric Rapide E has also been reported as featuring.

Also adding to the significance of the Vantage is the fact that the 'pre-winterised' version of Bond's car in The Living Daylights (actually a totally different car - a V8 Vantage Volante convertible - the movie just pretended they were the same car with and without a hard top) was the personal car of Aston Martin's chairman at the time, the Bond villan-esque sounding Victor Gauntlett.

While the relationship between Aston Martin and Eon has run hot and cold, Bond has driven many Astons through the decades including the DB5, Vantage, DBS, Vanquish and DB10 to name a few. To mark the 50th anniversary of the Aston Martin DBS, which featured in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, 50 special-edition 2019 Aston Martin DBS Superleggeras are being produced, with first of these also putting in an appearance on-track at Silverstone during the Pirelli Hot Laps sessions.