James Bond is back with a Defender
James Bond is back in the 25th Bond movie, called No Time To Die with a Land Rover Defender. This is the third time the iconic Land Rover plays an important role in a Bond movie.
The car was tested by the James Bond stunt team who pushed it to the limits. The vehicle sets new standards for toughness and capability.
To mark the occasion, that „No Time To Die” is coming out in October, Land Rover revealed a special Defender V8 Bond Edition that’s inspired by the Defenders you’ll see in the movie. (For Daniel Craig, it marks the beginning of a delayed retirement from a character he’s played for 15 years.)
The 007-inspired SUV is based on the four-door Defender 110. It’s finished in a sinister-looking black shade. The special edition Defender also features a set of 22-inch gloss black wheels, and supercharged 5.0-liter V8 engine that pumps out 518hp, making it the most powerful Defender ever. Land Rover says the SUV can sprint from 0-60mph in 5,4 seconds.
The public tends to identify the Aston Martin as a Bond car, and they have been used extensively during the Daniel Craig era – no less than seven pieces were crashed to the level beyond repair during the shoot of the 24th James Bond film Spectre. But they also needed another model to rise the tension, a Defender pickup that’s already proven its worth in the Skyfall movie.
After playing a „good role” as the vehicle of transport and chase in the Skyfall, it turned to be a „villain car” in Spectre, taking part in a spectacular action sequence in the snow.
For Spectre, director Sam Mendes conceived of a spectacular snow chase scene and needed a rugged 4×4 car. The second big chase scene is a great one. Bond flies a small plane through the Austrian Alps, hunting down a group of baddies driving menacing-looking, modified black Land Rovers.
For the movie, the producers turned to Bowler Motors to modify ten black Defender 110 crew-cab pickups with 37-inch tires, a full roll cage, toughened suspension and a tuned engine.
Just seven of the ten cars built for the film survived. After filming, a few of the movie vehicles then entered the private market, with one selling in London in 2017 for £230,000 and another one – damaged for the movie – sold in Essen in 2019 for €115,000. One also sold, reportedly to Gordon Ramsay, for £365,500 at the 2018 Goodwood Festival of Speed.
If the rumors are true, the car that Gordon is supposed to be using on his estate in Cornwall must be the world’s most expensive Landie.
Peter Faidt
