From Leylands to Ferraris, James Bond’s female acquaintances – friend and foe – have shared an eclectic taste in wheels. We look at the best female leads’ cars in 007 movie history. Click here for a video preview of the car chases in 2015’s new film, SPECTRE.
1) Ford Mustang, Goldfinger
Conniving Bond waves Tilly Masterson’s Mustang through on Switzerland’s tortuous Furka Pass before using his DB5’s knife-edged wheel spinners to slice through the Ford’s flanks as if they were some flimsy cardboard facsimile bashed together in a shed at Pinewood studios.
2) Leyland Sherpa, The Spy Who Loved Me
Agent Triple X struggles with the vagaries of the Sherpa’s manual gearbox while Bond sits smugly in the passenger seat throwing in snarky one-liners that make him sound only marginally less misogynist than a Saudi lawmaker.
3) Toyota 2000GT, You Only Live Twice
Japanese secret service agent Aki hogs the driving seat of one of the sexiest Bond cars of all time, proving that she’s easily a match for Bond behind the wheel – and every bit as unconvincing in the green-screen shots as Connery and his Sunbeam Alpine were in Dr No.
4) Mercury Cougar, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
Diana Rigg swaps her four-cylinder Avengers Lotus Elan for a thumping 7.0-litre V8 Mercury Cougar as she takes on the role of Teresa di Vicenzo and dispatches a host of Minis and Ford Escorts so easily after gatecrashing an ice race, 007 knows he simply has to make her Mrs Bond.
5) MGB, The Man with the Golden Gun
Hottie halfwit Agent Goodnight drives a golden puke-coloured MGB in The Man with the Golden Gun, but at least had been paying enough attention to CAR magazine’s 1970s scoops to know to order her company car before Bs were blighted by ugly rubber bumpers.
6) BSA Lightning, Thunderball
Appropriately, Fiona Volpe, the baddest Bond girl of the lot, isn’t a car driver at all, but a leather-clad biker chick who probably spent weekends blowing up mods’ scooters on Brighton beach with her BSA Lightning’s rocket launchers.
7) Citroen 2CV, For Your Eyes Only
After an over-zealous car alarm obliterates his Esprit, Bond is forced to ride shotgun with Melina Havelock in her bright yellow Citroën, fortified in this case by four-cylinder GS power for a better chance of escaping the villains’ Peugeot 504s.
8) Renault 5 Turbo, Never say Never Again
Barbara Carrera ought to be driving a 911 with a name like that, but instead battles Bond’s scary Yamaha XJ650 Turbo in Renault’s bargain alternative, the mid-engined, wide-body 5 Turbo for this toupee-tastic Thunderball remake’s stand-out chase.
9) Ferrari F355 GTS, Goldeneye
Famke Janssen’s hopeless-driver baddie could crush a man to death with her thighs, but struggled to squeeze past Bond’s creaky DB5 in her then state-of-the-art Ferrari, wildly spinning out and almost ending up Onatopp at one point.
10) Land Rover Defender, Skyfall
It’s hard to work out which is the most implausible: that MI6’s Eve Moneypenny is able to keep pace with a modern Audi A5 in a Land Rover Defender, or that she manages to get through the whole chase without having to return to the dealer for a product recall.
Click here to find out how to buy a Bond car on a budget.