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Aston Martin DBS
If you’re one of the few remaining people in the country still to see Casino Royale, you may not be aware that the latest Bond movie features a stunt that’s made it into the Guinness Book of Records.
If you have seen the movie, you’ll know that the stunt in question features an Aston Martin DBS and seven full rolls.
In the scene in question, Bond swerves to avoid his partner who has been bound, gagged and left in the middle of the road as an obstacle. What follows is a spectacular sideways flip which propels Bond’s DBS into the air and back down before the car rolls axle over roof a world record seven times. Ouch!
The stunt required a nitrogen cannon to propel the car through the air and beat the previous record of six rolls performed by a Top Gear stuntman last year.
Unsurprisingly, it’s not the first outrageous car stunt to feature in a 007 movie. Other breathtaking stunts include Roger Moore’s AMC Hornet barrel-roll over the river in 'The Man with the Golden Gun', aquatic adventures with a Lotus Esprit in 'The Spy Who Loved Me' and Pierce Brosnan’s radio-control BMW antics in 'Tomorrow Never Dies', to name but a few.
But it’s not only the Bond franchise that has produced spectacular automotive stunts over the years. There are plenty of other movies that have raised the bar with regards to breathtaking car stunts including;
Bullitt (1968):One of the most classic car chases of all time is immortalised by San Francisco’s spectacular street setting and Steve McQueen’s cool persona behind the wheel. The sequence lasts nine and a half minutes and took two weeks to put together, with McQueen and stunt drivers meticulously choreographing hand-brake turns and intersection swerves. McQueen liked to lean out of the window just a few inches to make sure the camera picked up that it was him and not a professional stunt driver behind the wheel.
The French Connection (1971):In a dramatic chase sequence, New York detective "Popeye" Doyle (Gene Hackman) pursues a suspected drug dealer in a hijacked elevated subway train above him. Amongst things, he dodges a mother and her pram, collides with another car, and side-swipes a city bus!
Hooper (1978):In a film packed with stunts and daredevil challenges, a car driven by stuntman Sonny Hooper (Burt Reynolds) drives through a collapsing factory before making a rocket-propelled leap over a 456' chasm over a river where a bridge once was.
The Blues Brothers (1980):One of the film's most memorable scenes features a spectacular chase through a shopping mall in the Chicago area. Ex-con, renegade musicians Joliet "Jake" Blues (John Belushi) and Elwood Blues (Dan Aykroyd) are pursued by police in their Bluesmobile. The last half hour of the film features a maniacal chase with reportedly the largest number of car crashes in film history.
Ronin (1998):Ex Formula One driver Jean Pierre Jarier was a stunt driver in this heist thriller containing two of the most realistic car chase sequences ever filmed. One features a Peugeot 406 pursuing a BMW M5 against traffic through a Paris tunnel under the Seine River and the other involves an Audi S8 and a Citroen on twisting and steep streets in Nice culminating in a car ploughing through a waterfront.
The Bourne Identity (2002):Amnesiac CIA assassin Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) escapes from the CIA and local police in Paris driving a vintage Austin Mini through heavy traffic. In an action-packed sequence, Bourne drives through narrow alleyways, across pavements, up one-way streets, and down stone steps before eventually losing his pursuers.
The Matrix Reloaded (2003):Features an incredible high-speed 12-minute freeway chase sequence against oncoming traffic between white-suited albino agent twins in a black Cadillac Escalade EXT, freedom-fighting Morpheus and Trinity on a black Ducati 996 motorbike. The ensuing carnage involves one SUV, 17 cars, 2 Chevy Impala police cars, one Jeep, one truck, and two 18-wheelers!
7th December 2006
