Nov. 30 Weekly Open Thread
As always, this is the right place for discussion that doesn't belong anywhere else.
Suggested topic: One of my favorite events during Thanksgiving weekend is the inevitable James Bond marathon on cable. I know I'm not the only one here who marries a love of cars with an insatiable enthusiasm for Bond movies; so for those other Bond fans, which movie offers up the best cars? This isn't necessarily about which Bond car is your favorite--we have covered such favorites as the Lotus Esprit and Toyota 2000GT--but which movie offers the best total automotive smorgasbord.
The question came to me as I watched 1971's Diamonds Are Forever for the umpteenth time and lusted after the combination of a Triumph Stag, a Ford Mustang Mach 1, a Ford Thunderbird, and a Ford Econoline. The full lineup is available here; and in fact IMCDB (the Internet Movie Cars Database) makes an excellent resource for this search.
Candidates for the weirdest car mix include The Man With the Golden Gun, or the AMC movie--it bizarrely featured an AMC Hornet car chase and an AMC Matador that converted into an airplane. Live and Let Die is another odd one; it featured the infamous Chevrolet freeway.
--Chris H.
Cookie the Dog's Owner on November 30, 2009 at 07:53 AM
"Live And Let Die" is worth it for the boat chase and the Dunham Corvorado--the "white pimpmobile" that menaces Bond on the freeway. The Corvorado was a C3 'Vette (in its smogified, can't-get-out-of-its-own-way 1970s version) with Eldosaurus bodywork and disco-ball levels of bling. Utterly hideous and over the top.
That Car Guy on November 30, 2009 at 02:42 PM
Did somebody say, "The James Bond Cars?" LOL!
http://www.carlustblog.com/2009/04/james-bond-cars.html
David Drucker on December 02, 2009 at 09:19 AM
Off the top of my head, Goldfinger had two of the wackiest Bond Car moments:
1. Bond's Aston Martin couldn't outrun the bad guys in their ponton Mercedes Benz sedans. Sheesh!
2. The gratuitously squashed four-door Lincoln didn't gratuitously squash the (very cool) Falcon pickup that was dropped into its bed.
And why, for heaven's sake, couldn't Bond turn off the incessant beeping of the Aston's tracking device when he was following Goldfinger's Rolls? It reminds me of the completely unnecessary noises the computers on "Bones" make when they're hard at work.
And get off my lawn!
That Car Guy on December 03, 2009 at 11:19 AM
As much as I love the Bond films, the Parisian car chase in "A View To A Kill' was almost embarrassing. First, the roof was miraculously cut off at speed (The driver/stunt double looked nothing like Roger Moore) by a mere post, then the car was neatly and impossibly sliced in half by a side impact, but still kept going. The trickle of gas that would have remained in the fuel line never ran out. Oh, and you can see the caster-like wheels under the frame that allowed the car to move.
As Jed Clampett might say... "Pitiful. Just pitiful."
Cookie the Dog's Owner on December 04, 2009 at 07:37 AM
Two more websites to add to my list from the other week (http://www.carlustblog.com/2009/10/if-you-like-car-lust-you-may-also-enjoy.html):
"Cars of Coolhaven" (http://www.carsofcoolhaven.nl/) is a look at interesting cars parked on the streets of Coolhaven in The Netherlands. Any one of his posts could be a Car Lust posting.
"Grease Girl" (http://greasegirl.wordpress.com/howdy/) is the story of an attractive young lady's long-term relationship with her 1955 Studebaker Champion coupe. Like The Studeblogger (http://studeblogger.blogspot.com/), she writes a lot of detailed tutorials on repair, maintenance, and restoration.