Ride along in these 6 awesome Bond cars

As automotive enthusiasts, there’s a few movie series we’re practically required to support. Franchises like Mission: Impossible, Batman, Fast and Furious, and… Bond. James Bond. All the Bonds, in fact. Independent of their cinematic merit, various Bonds share the limelight with the four-wheeled members of the cast and, thanks to Top Gear, you can get 20 minutes of only the cars. Without those pesky suit-wearing spies getting in the way, you know?

Feast your eyes on this roundup of six Bond cars. More properly, six cars representing six different Bonds. In honor of Sean Connery, we’ll start with the drop-dead gorgeous DB5. Though the $6.38M final price of the Goldfinger-starring gadget car from last year may pop into your mind—let alone the $800K average value of a 1965 DB5—this particular DB5 is promptly upstaged in rarity and expense by the $2.5M, one-of-10 Spectre DB10. (A detail we love? The array of tiny air holes punched in the hood for that 4.7-liter V-8.)

The DB10 is Daniel Craig’s honorary entry, though it is not included in the impressive array of Bond-famous Astons in No Time to Die. Among the historic cars of previous Bonds that will star in that upcoming flick is a 1985 V8 Vantage, a tip of the tweed cap to Timothy Dalton (The Living Daylights, 1987). (If you want to revisit all things Vantage, head here.) The roof of Dalton’s V8 Vantage, in particular, was a source of confusion in the film; both a hardtop and a convertible appeared on screen. The inconsistency was neatly explained away by Q’s winter-season customization procedure but makes it difficult, in movie-car-collector-land, to settle on an exact hero car.

In addition to Dalton’s V8 Vantage, Top Gear also rounds up the black sheep of the automotive Bond legacy, the 1968 DBS.  Some may give this gadget-less car short shrift, and true—in George Lazenby’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, it had exactly zero tricks up its sleeve. However, the DBS marks an important time in Aston’s history as the first major break (in aesthetics, if not powertrain) from the incremental changes of the DB4, DB5, and DB6.

We’d forgive you for being distracted by Bond’s Aston legacy, but not if you ignore this spectacular British wedge: the Lotus Esprit S1. Trimmed in plaid and just as fetching on land as its fin-sporting underwater counterpart, an Esprit ferried around Roger Moore in The Spy Who Loved Me (1997). Representing another non-Aston marque, and the first hailing from outside the UK, is a BMW Z8. This particular one is a road-going version, so it doesn’t boast the surface-to-air missiles that Pierce Brosnan’s did in The World is Not Enough (1997).

As icing on the cake, we also get to see professional Bond stunt driver Mark Higgins toss around a replica DB5, a carbon-fiber-bodied stunt car from No Time to Die. If you didn’t know this car was fabricated purely for stunts, with Higgins driving, you’d think a DB5’s natural position was tail-out through a beautiful tree-lined lane. Who even needs straights when you look that good sideways, tires smoking?

Last up is the Valhalla, Aston Martin’s entry into the hybrid hypercar space ruled by the P1, LaFerrari, and 918. The Valhalla is destined for some screen time this summer, but it’s anyone’s best guess what its role will be.

Which of these six historic Bondmobiles would you park in your driveway, given the chance? Or would you take the ultra-exotic Valhalla, even before it makes its Bond-flick debut? Let us know below.