Spectre - great film, shame about the cars

I’M THINKING of opening a sanctuary – perhaps on some remote Scottish island – for fellow film fanatics in the run-up to James Bond’s next outing.

I can’t be the only film fanatic determined to avoid anything that might have prematurely ruined Spectre, but it was nigh on impossible to avoid finding out the plot details unless you spent the last six months in a cave or with your head planted firmly in the sand – something the film’s creators didn't exactly help by dripping trailer after trailer onto my Facebook feed every other night.

In the end it turned out to be a belter of a film. Don't worry - I’m not going to reveal which femme fatale he beds or what facial disfigurement the villain has if you haven't seen it, but you’ll have to allow me one spoiler alert. Why was Daniel Craig – the best ‘real world’ Bond since Timothy Dalton leapt into a swimming pool in Licence to Kill – getting involved with cars you and I can’t actually buy?

Everyone knows great cars – whether they’ve been approved by Q or not - and Bond films go together. Sean Connery being told his Bentley’s ‘had its day’ and then being introduced to a silver car with a few optional extras is one of cinema’s greatest moments, and Roger Moore winding down the window of his aquatic Lotus and casually throwing out a fish one of its funniest. Then there’s the moment Timothy Dalton fights his way through the roof of a swerving army Land Rover in the opening moments of The Living Daylights, and that glorious moment when Daniel Craig flicks on the lights to reveal a gleaming DB5 in Skyfall.

All of these vehicles have one glorious thing in common – you can, even if you might need to be a millionaire in some cases, buy all these cars in real life. Yet you can’t with Spectre’s automotive stars.

For starters there’s Bond’s car – an Aston Martin of course, but unlike the DBS or DB5 the DB10 Daniel Craig uses is not actually a production model. The closest you’ll be able to get is next year’s DB11. Close, but not exactly the MI6-spec the Bond fantasists who propel Aston’s fortunes will be wishing for this Christmas.

It’s the same story with the baddies’ choice bit of kit – a Jaguar C-X75, which was mooted as an XJ220 successor at the Paris motor show five years ago. It wasn’t a production car then and it still isn’t now – and I reckon using one in Spectre is giving today’s kids false hope.

It's a top-notch 007 outing – but I just thought the cars (except the one at the very end) were a bit of a letdown.

Why The Goodwood Revival is a motoring event every petrolhead should visit

THIS week I’ve managed to achieve something entirely new. I’ve been complimented by some Belgians, and it’s all thanks to a borrowed hat and a jacket bought in a charity shop in Southport.

Our continental chums had pulled up at something called the Goodwood Revival in an assortment of old Austin-Healey and Porsche sports cars, dressed like extras from Goodnight Sweetheart. They took a fleeting glimpse at the riot of tweed, smiled knowingly, and one of them, who’d just emerged from the cabin of a Jaguar XK120, said it all. “Fantastic outfit”!

The Belgians, the Dutch and the Swiss – and, to be fair, most of the English too if the nearby traffic jams were anything to go by – had all made a beeline for this corner of the deepest Sussex countryside. I reckon quite a few petrolheads in Sefton and West Lancashire did too, to check out what has to be the highlight of my motoring year to date.

The Goodwood Revival is one of those things you have to do at least once, because it’s quite unlike any event I’ve ever been to. To badly paraphrase an office cliché, you don’t have to wear period costume to go, but it helps. The whole weekend is designed to wind the clock back to about 1966, to a time when people would tune into the wireless on their Ford Anglia to catch the latest Cliff Richard record.

It’s marvellously silly, of course, but when you’re battling through a crowd of hippies, Teddy Boys and RAF airmen fresh from the Battle of Britain in a bid to get a glimpse of an E-type Jaguar, you really wouldn’t be In The Mood if you’d turned up in a GAP t-shirt and a pair of Levis.

As my mission there was to help get a hot report on all the action into the latest edition of Classic Car Weekly, I went overboard with the 1950s Fleet Street look, and brought along a tweed jacket which I’d bought from a charity shop in Southport the previous weekend. Combined with an equally tweed hat I’d borrowed off a mate, I actually felt like I’d wandered through the gates and back in time fifty years.

In fact, the retro attire helped me grant me an audience with perhaps the best known car of the Sixties – the very same Aston Martin DB5 used by Daniel Craig in Skyfall! I know Goodwood is miles away and the idea of going to a car show in fancy dress might sound ridiculous, but it’s worth it for the spectacle of seeing no less than 27 Ford GT40s in a row while a Supermarine Spitfire thunders overhead. I cannot recommend donning the tweed and going to Goodwood highly enough.

As Harold Macmillan might have put it, you never had it so good.

Read this week's edition of Classic Car Weekly for a full report on all the highlights and racing action from the Goodwood Revival

Bond's Aston Martin DB5 looks stunning in Skyfall

YOU always know from the amount of secret agent-themed ads on telly when there’s a new Bond blockbuster on the way.

Unless you’ve been hiding in a cave for the past year you’ll already know that 007’s latest adventure is called Skyfall, and will feature Daniel Craig in his third outing as the suave secret agent, once you’ve got through Adele crooning her way through the theme song. I also freely admit I’m very nearly as much of a Bond nut as I am a car nut – even though I’ll enjoy pretty much any movie which features explosions and car chases, I always reserve a particular fondness for the Bond films.

But what’s really whetting my appetite for the new one isn’t a sultry sidekick or a spectacular storyline. It’s those publicity shots of Bond’s DB5 on the spy’s trip to the Scottish Highlands.

The DB5 has always been a fabulously good looking thing but I don’t think I’ve ever seen the quintessential Bond car in a more breathtaking setting. There’s a moody, bleak beauty to the scenery while the car obviously gives the shot a very retro feel; the classic English GT eating up the miles through the stunning Scottish landscapes.

In fact, that’s pretty much what director Sam Mendes went for, and told national media earlier this year: “I felt it was a thematic thing. It's definitely about the old and the new. And there's something about the last part of the movie which deliberately, very consciously, could have taken place in 1962.”

The thing I love most of all about these pictures is that, in much the same way the Daniel Craig movies have tried to take Bond back to basics, devoid of CGI and gadgets, so these shots take the DB5 away from being a cheesy automotive cliché and remind car nuts what it really is and what it does best; it’s a classy, handcrafted GT car, designed to wind its way over mountain passes in speed and comfort.

Forget the race against the Ferrari F355 in Goldeneye – this is what a classic Aston is all about. Fingers crossed then, with Mr Mendes appearing to do the DB5 justice in these shots, that’ll he take good care of 007 himself in the new film.

Skyfall hits the cinemas later this month. I, for one, can’t wait.

Aston Martin DB5 by James Bond 007

S6 / 3.996 cc / 286 PS / 288 lb/ft (390 Nm) @ 3.850

(click images for a larger view)

I'd rather have one of these than a BMW Z4

I KNOW it’s a risky thing to say, but it’s true.

It’s something I discovered yesterday doing that most dangerous of things; driving to IKEA. Anyone who’s ever tried this and then failed to get the flat-packed wardrobe home has already discovered that almost every car, from my Mini up to and including the latest in BMW’s long line of glitzy sports cars, is suddenly useless.

Having actually driven the current Z4 I can testify that it’s fabulously fast, very good looking and really rather nice to drive, but there’s no way you could own one as your sole vehicle because furniture will defeat it. I actually imagine the only reason why you never saw any missiles firing out of Bond’s Z3 in Goldeneye is depressingly simple – there wasn’t room for any!

What Britain’s top secret agent actually needs for his missions into Swedish territory, as ridiculous as it sounds, is a Ford Mondeo ST TDCi Estate.

It might have been overtaken by BMW’s 3 Series as the rep’s car of choice but I’ve always liked the Mondeo, and this particular version is the one for the job. It’s made for trips to IKEA, yet because it wasn’t made by IKEA, it’s solid and more than capable of handling a heavy load.

To be honest any extreme estate will do the trick, but unless you’re prepared to scratch the precious materials that line a secondhand Audi S4, Ford’s finest will have to do.

Porsche’s Boxster might have two boots, but neither of them are as cavernous as the Cologne Catheral space in the back of a Mondeo estate, and it’s even sort of nice to drive. You might think the petrol ST 220 is the way to go but for once diesel is the engine of choice; it’s all but identical until you get to the pumps.

It depresses the Z4-owning purist in me but if meatballs and shelving units are part of your life, the best car in the world is a fast estate.

Rumours I work for Ford remain unfounded.

Silly but brilliant

DOES anyone have £20,000 I can borrow?

I only ask because I've completely changed my opinion on Aston Martin's forthcoming city car - no, really - codenamed Cygnet. It's not so much as ugly duckling as an utterly brilliant idea.

Behind the blu-tacked DB9 grille and silly bonnet vents is actually an IQ, Toyota's 67bhp solution for anyone who wants to look stylish in a traffic jam. Its boot is laughably tiny and it costs more than its (far roomier) Aygo sister, but it's brilliant.

The IQ, with its full foursome of seats, is so much smarter than a two-seater Smart, and there's something about its silly dimensions that makes it more fun to hoot about in than Ford's Ka or Vauxhall's Agila. In fact, the only thing that would come close to me writing a cheque for ten grand is Fiat's 500, but for very different reasons.

The Cygnet, though, costs twice that, and blending the IQ with Aston's DBS is like putting roast beef and sushi on the same plate. Either that or a very bad hand at Scrabble. The working title's not exactly racy either; DBQ, anyone?

Yet somehow, in a slightly chintzy sort of way, I still want one. It's just a shame then that even if I did have £20,000 I still can't have one, because they're all going to existing Aston owners.

Never mind. I'll just look forward to seeing Bond chasing baddies in Fiat 500s at the helm of his DBQ...