In our on-going series about Land Rover movie cars – or should that be movie stars? – we’ve focussed on the early 007 movies. Now we’ll take a gander at the Roger Moore era. Moore’s no stranger to the Land Rover, given that he rode one in The Wild Geese, but he also starred alongside these fine automobiles while playing MI6 operative James Bond.
The Man with the Golden Gun
The Man with the Golden Gun was Roger Moore’s second outing as Agent 007, going up against his equal – a hitman by the name of Francisco Scaramanga, played by Christopher Lee. Scaramanga charges a million dollars a kill, which makes the single bullet he uses the most expensive in the world. He also drives a car that can fly, because when you’re charging that much, you can afford those sorts of flights of fancy. The film was largely shot around Asia, and so the Bangkok police drive a familiar friend: the Land Rover 109 Series II station wagon, this time a 1967 model.
For Your Eyes Only
After the madness of The Man with the Golden Gun and the equally silly Moonraker, the Bond producers decided to rein in the crazy by making For Your Eyes Only a more grounded thriller. As such, Bond has little action – although a car chase in a Citroen 2CV is a welcome highlight – as he tries to locate a stolen missile command system. More of a cameo, our background star in this film, at the Swiss ski resort, was the Land Rover Range Rover Series I.
Octopussy
After the seriousness of For Your Eyes Only, it was back to business as usual for Roger Moore’s tongue-in-cheek take on the super-spy. Octopussy was what fans might call a ‘romp’ – and critics call ‘a total waste of film’. The pre-credits sequence is a genuinely terrifying opening, featuring 009, dressed as a clown, on the run from armed henchmen and in possession of a Faberge egg which holds the clue to the whole mystery. It’s pretty downhill from there, despite Bond’s light aircraft stunt-flying, but it does feature Bond and his girl towing a rather gadgety horse-box with a rarely seen 1980 Land Rover Range Rover Convertible Series I.
A View to a Kill
Roger Moore’s final outing as James Bond came in 1985. Singer Grace Jones plays the memorably villainous Mayday, with Christopher Walken hamming it up brilliantly as entrepreneur Max Zorin. And while the 57-year-old Moore might be a bit long in the tooth, the same can’t be said for the beautiful sierra silver metallic 1983 Land Rover Range Rover Series I that’s being driven by Zorin’s henchmen.
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