The Many Car Crashes of James Bond: Can They Be Fixed?

Ellie Dyer-Brown, 1 year ago

5 min read

Creative
Film & TV

FixMyCar discusses the crashes seen in James Bond films and whether the cars could be repaired.

The Bond films are iconic for many reasons, from their award-winning soundtracks to exotic filming locations. Most important, though, are the cars. From the stylish Aston Martin DB5 to the less exciting Renault 11 TXE, the cars featured in these films have one thing in common: most of them end up utterly, magnificently destroyed.

Spectre, released in 2015, saw a staggering £24 million worth of cars written off, including seven specially designed Aston Martin DB10s, a Jaguar C-X75 and a Land Rover.

The film franchise has enough collisions, crashes, flips and catastrophes to leave us wondering: are any of the cars salvageable? And how much might it cost?*

Aston Martin Vanquish, Die Another Day (2002)

In Piers Brosnan’s final stint as the enigmatic 007, he gets to bomb around in an Aston Martin Vanquish, known as The Vanish due to its invisibility capabilities (just one of the, er, less well-received parts of this widely disliked instalment).

Bond must race against time to save Jinx, who is trapped in the ice palace. He smashes the front of the vehicle through an ice wall to save her, draining the water out of the room where she is drowning and shatters the windscreen with a sonic ring to pull Jinx into his arms.

By the end, the Vanquish is battered at the front, the engine is flooded, and the car has no windscreen. So how much would it cost to repair?

A windscreen replacement will likely cost between £1800 and £2000, which is already eye-watering for the average motorist. An engine replacement can cost £4,000 or more, and that’s for a regular car - not a powerful one like the Vantage. Let’s just say this repair job would be expensive. Very.

Range Rover Sport SVR, No Time to Die (2021)

Two Range Rovers pursue Bond and Madeleine, who are in a Toyota Land Cruiser, in a tense off-road chase across the rugged Nordic countryside. After shunting the back of the Land Cruiser, one of the Range Rovers is pushed off the road and rolls several times. The second car fares even worse, driving into the edge of a sheer rock face before plummeting towards the water.

The damage to the bodywork of these tough 4x4s is mild for a Bond film and probably repairable. Maybe. Our data shows that the average cost of body shop repairs for a Range Rover Sport is £747.50, while a “large dent” will set you back £332.50 on average.

Learn more about bodywork repairs in this guide.

Lotus Esprit, For Your Eyes Only (1980)

The innocent-looking Esprit meets its end when one of Gonzales’ men tries to break into it, activating an anti-theft self-destruct system. As you can see from the clip above, the car is blown to bits and won’t be driving anywhere any time soon. Or ever again, actually.

There’s no repairing this one.

Aston Martin DBS, Casino Royale (2006)

Ever the gentleman, Bond swerves in his sleek DBS as he races through the Montenegro countryside to avoid hitting his love interest, Vesper Lynd, who is tied up on the road. The resulting car flip is brutal, seeing the car roll several times. The bodywork is destroyed, and the engine ominously hisses as Bond comes to.

It's another write-off - and not a cheap one. This is the most expensive of Bond’s cars, valued at a whopping £2.4 million. According to our data, the average cost of body shop repairs for a comparable Aston Martin DBS Superleggera is £365, and that’s for vehicles that probably haven’t rolled over at speed until they are almost unrecognisable.

We hope he was insured.

Did you know: this scene set a new world record - the car rolled seven times, which the Guinness Book of World Records confirmed was the most cannon rolls ever completed.

Renault 11 TXE, A View to Kill (1985)

Roger Moore’s final adventure as Bond features a 1984 Renault 11 TXE, a modest little car that looks like it wouldn’t hold up well in a collision. And, of course, it doesn’t. This is a James Bond film, after all. Where’s the fun in using a car if you can’t smash it up for cinematic effect?

Bond pushes the car to its limit through Paris in hot pursuit of May Day after she catapults from the Eiffel Tower. The busy streets of Paris blur by as the mighty Renault faces off against another car, which smashes into its side and tears it in half. Yes, in half. You really do have to see it to believe it.

On the plus side, the engine doesn’t sustain any damage. Perhaps a little bit of welding, a tinker with the suspension, and the car would be almost as good as new. If you looked at it from a distance. Squinting. And didn’t try to drive it anywhere, ever.

So, let’s dig into the numbers. We’re looking at the average repair costs across all Renault models since the 11 TXE isn’t around anymore.

First, you’ll need to make it look like a car again rather than two broken bits of metal. The average price of a Renault welding job is £1,500. Front suspension repairs will set you back £268.07 on average, while rear suspension bushes come in at £279.86.

An exhaust fitting costs around £125.63, though that doesn’t account for the fact that the existing exhaust system has been entirely severed. Likewise, the average fuel injection system repair cost is £134.05. A fuel pump will set you back by roughly £219.10. You’re looking at an average price of £484 for brake repairs.

After all that’s done, you’ll want to make the little Renault look presentable again. A trip to the body shop costs £451.56 on average.

Are any of the cars worth repairing? Probably not - especially if you’re as rich as James Bond.