Controversial opinion of the week; The Timothy Dalton era Bond films were the best Bond films.
OK, ‘best’ is definitely subjective, but they were perhaps the most accurate to the books. They were dark, rather violent, and a magnitude less absurd than the Roger Moore era movies that preceded them.
1987’s ‘The Living Daylights’ also benefited from a fantastic Bond Car; the awesome Aston Martin V8 Vantage. Fitted with a set of skis, laser hubcaps, rockets, and a rocket motor (Less absurd!? Ed.), 007’s Vantage was rather more highly specified than the police Lada 1500s in pursuit, culminating a snowy car chase that involved a fishing shed and a cello.
OK, perhaps they were just as absurd (our editor has likely interjected already somewhere above to this end…) (Sure has! Ed.), but the Vantage was still awesome.
Cue (or ‘Q’, hah!) this marvellous Speed Champions recreation of Bond’s Aston Martin V8 Vantage from ‘The Living Daylights’, as built by previous bloggee barneius of Flickr. Complete with skis and a rocket motor, barneius’ build is ready to take on a whole fleet of police Ladas, and you can join the chase on a frozen lake somewhere in Czechoslovakia via the link above.
The Living Daylights was my first Bond movie. As such, I will always love Dalton’s “grizzled killer that’s tired of his job” portrayal. The Vantage instantly became my favorite car. It’s probably my favorite Bond car that isn’t the DB5.