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the best equipped agent
in fiLM history?
Since the first film, Dr No, was released in 1962, the Bond
films have been setting standards for the ultimate spy, at
least on screen. Each film has entertained the audience with
the beautiful women, exotic locations, and incredible stunts.
There is one more thing, though, that one almost always
associates with a James Bond film – the state-of-the-art tech
gear.
You could say there is a Bond for each generation and time.
I grew up with Roger Moore and one of the first Bond films
I saw, and which I still remember is The Spy Who Loved
Me (1977) for one of the coolest and perhaps famous scenes
ever. In a long car chase Bond drives a white
Lotus Esprit into the ocean and disappears,
then you can actually see the car transforming
into a small submarine under water! Some scenes
later the car emerges and drives out of the
water on a sandy beach, much to the surprise
and horror of the people sunning and bathing.
This was probably each tech buff ’s wet dream!
Actually, the car being in the film was pure
chance. It became known to the founder of
Lotus Cars, Colin Chapman that the upcoming
Bond film was to be filmed at Pinewood
Studios. So in 1975 he took a pre-production
Esprit to the studios, bribed the doorman and
left the car, where anyone trying to get in or out of the studios,
would see it. Soon Cubby Broccoli, the producer, and
the production staff saw it and were so impressed that they
decided Esprit would be the James Bond’s car in the film.
To transform the Esprit from car to submarine, Lotus
lent the film company two Lotus Esprit’s, five Esprit body
shells, and two Lotus personnel. The body shells were used
to make a 1:1 scale replica of the underwater Esprit, built
by the firm Perry Oceanographics, and it cost the film company
100,000,000 dollars to convert the Esprit body shell
into a submarine. It featured fins, front-mounted rocket
launchers, mines, a periscope, a smoke screen, a surface
aUTHor: KaTErina SCHwETz
PHoTograPHEr: jörg bEHrEnS
PHonE PiCTUrES: EriCSon
The Lotus, that was featured in the car chases PPW 306R, can be seen at the ”Car of the Stars” Museum in Cumbria. The underwater
Esprit is at the Beaulieu National Motor Museum.
to air missile, and a cement sprayer concealed behind the
registration plates. The other body shell was used in various
underwater scenes and was powered by compressed air and
equipped with a space-frame and a locked steering wheel.
The remaining three body shells went back into production
of new cars. After the film was released in 1977 Lotus
Esprit became so popular, that there was a three year waiting
list.
A custom made smartphone
A new Bond era with Pierce Brosnan started in 1995 featuring
new state of the art technological gadgets that reflected
the development in technology at the end of
the millenium. One of those was a concept
mobile phone designed by Ericson and used in
Tomorrow Never Dies (1997). The phone had
several different features as a stun gun with
20,000 volt shock to any unauthorised user
and could also disable a high tech door lock;
a fingerprint scanner/analyser/transmitter
that also could open high-tech fingerprintidentification
locks; and a ”flip-open” remote
control for operating 007’s BMW 750iL (Directional
steering pad, LCD monitor for the
front and rear view, controls to fire rocket
launcher and operate the car’s other defense
mechanisms).
Ericson R380 was launched in 2000, and much of its style,
as for instance the ”flip-open” design, was incorporated.
With its touchscreen and partially covered by a flip it can be
seen as a predecessor to the P800/P900 series of smartphones
and it was the first phone to use the new Symbian OS
version 5, unicode. It is said that the phone was the world’s
first smartphone, though users could not install their own
software on it.
You could say what you like about one of the world’s longest
franchise, but one thing is for sure – if you are watching
a Bond film – everything in it is first rate quality!