161 replies to this topic

[J J]

If there is any truth to the rumor that CR is all about young James Bond's first assignment, I find it very hard to believe MI6 will hand him the keys of the Aston Martin... he's got to earn that one! I therefore wouldn't be surprised if the Fiat Panda is indeed going to be Bond's ride in this film.

Hate to say I told you so (a few days ago already)...
Though secretly my bets are still on a return for Pierce behind the steering wheel of a nice Aston Martin

[ComplimentsOfSharky]

Well that's nifty, it's Bonds car.

I guess if Bond is off-roading in South Africa this isn't too bad...I just don't want to see him driving up to the casino in his tux in it.


I wonder how credible this report is though? We've been hearing a back to the basics Bond is in the works yet it includes a Fiat Panda that is an armored fortress.

[rogermoore007]

Something tells me that if this is the real Bond car for CR (which I doubt) EON are going to have a lot of trouble creating a believable Bond, young or old, when he doesn't even drive an exotic car. Oh no, we're going "back to basics" so we have to have a basic car....ummmmmm.....no. And isn't his car a major staple in Bond's triumvirate of guns, girls and ummmmm EXOTIC CARS. At any rate, this probly won't be the car anyway, but that's just my opinion so we shall see...

[rogermoore007]

Sorry for the double post. Typing from my phone with bad reception.... : )

Edited by rogermoore007, 03 August 2005 - 12:28 AM.

[zencat]

[quote name='zencat' date='28 July 2005 - 16:25']You know, I might be crazy, but I would rather see Bond driving this car that that Aston Martin Vantage. He is going to South Africa, so Q gives him this completely tricked out bad- little car the flies along at 200MPH. We expect to see guns flip from behind the headlights of a Aston because, well, we've seen it a zillion times. *yawn* But Bond pulling up in this thing and people chuckling...but then later on we reveal a bazooka behind the grill and a rocket for an engine...the thing can somersault through a house and roll down a mountain and still drive away without a dent...that's Bond!

Oh, but maybe that would be too "Roger Moore" and too much fun. We now take our Bond soooo seriously. Yes, we do.

But if I heard they had dumped the Aston for a Panda

[trumanlodge89]

isnt the car company the group reporting this? this could be little more than positive spin...

[Qwerty]

I've no problems with this. Maybe this means less of an influence of cars in the film, or maybe that's just hopeful wishing on my part again.

[Loeffelholz]

Harmless promotional gimmick. A few shots of it---driven by a secondary or tertiary character; eight to fifteen seconds' screen time. The accompanying TV commercial tie-ins...$$$$

But you never know, it could be a surprise chase vehicle, like the clunker Moore drove in the FYEO car chase. Maybe Le Chiffre's goons tool around in armored Pandas.

[MrDraco]

LOL this should be interesting though.. i almost want to scream 'Your spy cars a mini?' lol this could be a interesting concept...what if they did it like th Q Boat and bond just uses it in the pretitle or something..

[K1Bond007]

Although the car chase is pretty much the only action in the entire novel, seeing this news makes me wish they would have just scrapped the car chase altogether. Maybe things will turn out differently, I don't know, but after Die Another Day, I can only be left to assume that this car will not only fly, but also have magical powers that kills anyone who glances at it.

....really sick of "tricked out" Bond cars.

[Blofeld's Cat]

Maybe this car will be Africanised (ie: decked out for African conditions), and it may be an attempt to face up to the fact that it's quite pointless to ship an AM from England to another country (ie: Iceland in Die Another Day) just to drive around in.

[Trident]

It's just a little incident that happened to me about two years ago. It's nothing to do with CR but it came to my mind when I saw the article about the Panda.

I was sitting in my car, driving to the supermarket to do some shopping for the weekend. Before I could park my car at the parking lot I had to wait because a woman was just leaving the lot. She was driving a Fiat Panda that looked pretty much brand new to my unexperienced eye. When she turned the steering wheel to the right side to turn onto the road the left hand front wheel of her car broke away with a tremendous crash. It just came off, without any obvious reason. The woman wasn't speeding, wasn't driving against the kerb or something. She just tried to turn right and the wheel came off.

I probably wouldn't buy a Fiat if my life depended on it. If EON is using one in CR, they may need a whole days output of the FIAT-site in Turin for shooting the film.

[MrDraco]

Is this actually going to be Bond's car? or just something he grabs on short notice? that would be cool but as for something he rolls up in, no...lol maybe Felix, or a sidekicks car

[Jim]

But according to sources close to the production company, it will be a fully armed miniature fortress, as indestructable as the other Bond cars.

Aston Martin DB5 - driven into a wall.
Lotus Esprit - blown up.
Aston Martin Volante - self-destructs.
BMW horrible bank manager saloon car rubbish - driven into shop window.
BMW horrible hairdresser car thing - sawn in half, good.
Aston Martin Vanquish - has windscreen put out (OK, that's not a very good one, but then it's not a very good film).

Whilst I'm well aware that there are cars Bond has had that haven't been destroyed, claiming "indestructibility" as a precedent for using this grotty hatchback thing isn't really terribly convincing.

NB one spells indestructible with two is, not one. The lack of attention to Bond-lore (ugh, I feel dirty) and the general lack of attention to detail make this statement an entirely convincing one to have come out of Eon.

[Skudor]

I wonder where the idea for doing this is coming from... Fiat is pretty much bankrupt, so it may be that they are desperate enough for some nice product placement, the value being that the cinema audience gets to see Bond driving a car that they could actually afford - albeit a very undesireable car of questionable quality. Bond driving a Fiat could actually sell some Fiats, whereas I'm sure Aston Martin sells every car they make whether or not it appears in a Bond movie. The BMW Zs are a different story - relatively (to an AM) speaking a mass market car that surely benefited from the publicity, and sort of looked like something Bond would drive. I just wonder how they expect this to work with a little Fiat? It has to be something to do with an interesting car chase and novelty value. And frankly, it's more believable as Bond's company car than an Aston Martin....

Anyway, I'm more concernced about who'll play Bond and what they do with the story.

[Whalltt]

When EON does this kind of contracts, aren't they supose to agree with the other part involved on when the announcements are made?
If these are official news from FIAT, could we assume that big news are finaly being released?

[1q2w3e4r]

This just get's worse and worse!

[ComplimentsOfSharky]

I've no problems with this. Maybe this means less of an influence of cars in the film, or maybe that's just hopeful wishing on my part again.

I thought of that too. Here's to hoping it isn't just wishful thinking.

[Frostyak]

I believe it will be doing the series and the book a great injustice if the Fiat Panda actually is Bond's main car in the film. What are people going to think in 50 years if after reading the book they follow it up with the movie only to find that their beloved Bentley has been replaced with this thing?

Secondly, this would be the first time that *I* drove a better car than Bond. Better handling, faster, and more well constructed. I should not be driving a better car than James Bond.

- Chris

[Sam Fisher]

I loved that car scene in FYEO.

However I think they should replace the fiat for a Yugo; just for kicks

[luciusgore]

This is terrible news. Maybe it will be an invisible Panda. ... They should just scrap this movie and start over.

[zencat]

Check out this article. "Pierce Brosnan was so enthusiastic about the car that he immediately bought one." Well, we know that's gotta be BS, so how much more of this is BS?

I'm back to thinking the Panda is going to be target practice for the Vantage.

James Bond to Drive Fiat Panda in Next Film in Series (Update1)

Aug. 3 (Bloomberg) -- The Fiat Panda, one of Fiat SpA's cheapest models, will make its screen debut in the next James Bond film due in 2006, replacing the luxury cars typically used by the secret agent such as Aston Martin's V12 Vanquish.

The Panda, which is priced from 12,490 euros ($15,379), 21 times less than the Vanquish, will have cinema's most famous secret agent behind the wheel in ``Casino Royale,'' the latest installment of the James Bond saga.

``Pierce Brosnan was so enthusiastic about the car that he immediately bought one,'' Lapo Elkann, head of brand promotion for Fiat said in an interview in Gazzetta dello Sport and confirmed by Bloomberg. Brosnan, the Irish actor who has played James Bond since 1995, hasn't been officially signed for the movie.

The Panda is Fiat's second-best selling car with over 250,000 units sold annually. Fiat has been rolling out new versions of the car, including a sports utility vehicle, to tap the brand's popularity. Sales of the Panda helped Fiat produce two quarters of operating profit after three years of losses.

Fiat will provide the cars for the production and won't pay to have the Panda in the film.

``It's a zero-cost operation,'' Elkann said. ``It's a new marketing strategy for us. A nice car is everyone's object of desire, and James Bond is the man of everyone's dreams. Who wouldn't want his car?''

The Panda will have to demonstrate that it can stack up against much faster predecessors that the super spy used to escape his enemies by tapping special gadgets such as pop-up machine guns and missile launchers. ``I don't know how the Panda will be armed for Bond,'' Elkann said. ``Movie producers will make all the decisions on that.''

While the Vanquish -- used in the latest Bond movie, ``Die Another Day,'' in 2002 -- goes from 0 to 60 miles per hour in less than five seconds and has a top speed of 200 miles per hour, the Panda takes four times as long to reach 60 mph, and its top speed is less than half that of the Aston Martin model.

``We've seen James Bond always with beautiful women and luxury cars,'' Elkann said. ``But maybe now he will get married, have children, and will need a Panda!''

``Casino Royale'' should be in theatres next year, with Bond trying to prevent a Russian spy from winning a baccarat game worth millions.

The Panda is built at a Fiat factory in Poland.

Fiat shares fell 5 cents, or 0.6 percent, to 7.13 euros at 4:15 p.m. in Milan. The shares have gained 20 percent this year and on July 29 had their highest close in more than two years.

[Seannery]

Well they repeated the Bond trying to stop a Russian spy from winning millions of dollars in a baccarat game.

[Janus Assassin]

I just hope it won't turn invisible. They say it fits into the plot in which Bond has to drive a "low key car."

[Pussfeller]

Yesss, this has all the markers of an incisive and impartial report, cutting to the heart of the issue. For one thing, they cite a comment from Lapo, the "head of brand promotion", from whom I'm sure we can expect an honest assessment of the Panda's chances.

"Pierce Brosnan was so enthusiastic about the car that he immediately bought one," Lapo Elkann, head of brand promotion for Fiat said in an interview in Gazzetta dello Sport and confirmed by Bloomberg. Brosnan, the Irish actor who has played James Bond since 1995, hasn't been officially signed for the movie."

This article is about as ignorant, credulous, and uninformed as they come. Yeah, not only has Broz not been officially signed, but everyone (except someone with no knowledge of James Bond whatsoever) knows he's completely out of the running. I'm tempted to think this is all just some huge mix-up/publicity stunt, since there's absolutely no evidence of an official announcement. The text is more or less ad copy, mixed in with a few Brosnan fun-facts. Where's the statement from EON? Where's the proof?

I can't even imagine this hideous pseudo-SUV "replacing" Bond's full-time car, but I suppose stupider cars have been used (like that tacky AMC Hornet from TMWTGG). The Panda (would James Bond ever drive something called a "Panda"?) is the kind of thing that would be driven around for a few minutes and then unceremoniously destroyed,

Edited by Pussfeller, 03 August 2005 - 05:07 PM.

[zencat]

Where is this article from, anyway? The Fiat website?

Sorry I didn't include the link. It's from Bloomberg.

[Jim]

in an interview in Gazzetta dello Sport

Seems like a very odd place to give an interview about this sort of thing.

[Whalltt]

quote=Jim,3 August 2005 - 17:09][quote]in an interview in Gazzetta dello Sport [/quote]

Seems like a very odd place to give an interview about this sort of thing.

[/quote]

And when you search for "Bond", "Pierce" or whatever, ... there's nothing there...
[URL=http://www.gazzetta.it]

I think this is all rubbish and EON should deny this now before it goes any further.

Edited by Whalltt, 03 August 2005 - 06:05 PM.

[Brisco]

If they're going "back to the basics," then the basics should be 100% Fleming (not Bourne or Alex Rider or any other successful imitator). And Fleming's Bond would not have driven that car at any age. His first car was a Bentley! Speaking of Bentleys, there is a beautiful new Bentley available right now. Why not tie in with the novel and let Bond drive that? I forget who owns Bentley now. BMW? If not the Bentley, then he sould drive an Aston. But I agree, whatever car he drives, it shouldn't be inundated with gadgets.
Brisco

[Mister Asterix]

Volkswagen owns Bentley. And welcome to CBn, Brisco.