It must be a tough life being James Bond. When he's not risking his life for Queen and country, Bond is travelling to the most exotic locations on earth, playing poker with the high rollers and having access to the most sophisticated technology on the planet. Don't even get me started on the Bond girls … Still, Bond has to make some difficult decisions like the rest of us, and the most difficult of all is, "what car am I going to drive today?" Well, there's only one way to find out - a Bond car showdown.
Aston Martin DBS V12 vs. BMW Z8
Daniel Craig was responsible for bringing Bond kicking and screaming into the 21st century with Casino Royale, but it seems that a modern Bond also means a boring car, albeit a gorgeous one. Craig's DBS V12 has no gadgets whatsoever, which is more than a little disappointing.
The BMW Z8 driven by Pierce Brosnan in The World is Not Enough at least had a set of missile launchers and a cup holder. Both cars were spectacularly destroyed; Brosnan's Z8 was sawn in half by a helicopter with a giant saw blade, and Craig's DBS flipped, rolled, cartwheeled and pirouetted itself into oblivion.
Winner: BMW Z8, mostly for having a cup holder.
Lotus Esprit S1 vs. Aston Martin V8 Vantage
The sharp nosed Esprit driven by Roger Moore in The Spy Who Loved Me had the advantage of an easy getaway from helicopter attacks; when the road runs out, take to the water. Moore's Lotus is the only Bond car to turn into a submarine, complete with anti-aircraft missiles.
Timothy Dalton tried to bring a darker, more serious Bond to the big screen, and with a serious Bond comes serious gadgets. The V8 Vantage from The Living Daylights boasted wheel mounted lasers that could cut the chassis out from beneath enemy cars, and also had a self-destruct mechanism.
Winner: Lotus Esprit S1. As cool as wheel mounted lasers are, nothing trumps a submarine.
Aston Martin V12 Vanquish vs. Aston Martin DB5
Let's be fair; you knew it could come down to an Aston Martin showdown. Aston Martin is Bond's car of choice, and these two models have gone to town on the gadgets. The Vanquish comes from Brosnan's Die Another Day, and has some pretty sophisticated tech including a cloaking device that makes it almost completely invisible. Throw in a missile launcher and mounted machine guns, and it sounds like we're onto a winner, right? Wrong.
The Aston Martin DB5 has appeared in a number of Bond films from Goldfinger right up to the newest instalment, Skyfall. The most famous DB5 in Bond history is the one driven by Sean Connery in Goldfinger. This 1964 model had an oil slick, a smoke screen and a passenger ejector seat activated by a button in the gear stick. Even Connery's Bond seemed impressed with that, and if it's good enough for Bond, it's good enough for me.
Winner: Aston Martin DB5. There's a reason why it's the most loved Bond car.
This guest post was written free of charge by Jamie Gibbs, the resident blogger for multi car insurance comparison site, Confused.com. As well as all things on four wheels, he is an avid movie fan and will frequently point out trivial bits of information, even when no one is listening.
All images courtesy of: IMCDB.org - Internet Movie Cars Database