The new James Bond film will feature an all-English line-up of vehicles in spectacular chase scenes, highlighted by a Jaguar C-X75 concept car and an Aston Martin DB10 going at it through the streets of Rome.
A Range Rover Sport SVR and Land Rover Defender Big Foot rounds off the line-up of vehicles for Spectre, actor Daniel Craig’s fourth outing as the iconic British spy. Craig (above) playfully gives photographers the ‘fingers’ during filming.
The Land Rover Big Foots were built by Jaguar Land Rover’s Special Operations division, equipped with huge 37-inch diameter off-road tyres to tackle the extreme terrain in the Austrian alps, where some early scenes were filmed.
But they weren’t the only ‘extras’ tailor-made for the movie, which opens in New Zealand later this year. Watchmaker Omega designed a special-edition timepiece for Craig, a variation of the Omega Aqua Terra he wore in the last Bond film, Skyfall.
Omega CEO Stephen Urquhart told American magazine WatchTime how Craig’s choice of watch came about. “In the last film (Skyfall) Bond started off wearing a Planet Ocean and later wore a blue Aqua Terra, so we and Daniel agreed he would wear another Aqua Terra,” Urquhart said.
“Daniel, who knows a lot about watches, also liked the idea of an anti-magnetic one. So we made a limited-edition, not the same as the one we first launched with the anti-magnetic movement, but one with a blue dial, like the watch he wore in the last film.”
Urquhart said the link with Omega and the Bond films goes back to 1995 when Pierce Brosnan starred as 007. “They came to us and they chose the Seamaster Diver,” he said. “The watch was more or less the same in all the films with Brosnan.
“In Casino Royale, we introduced the Planet Ocean, because Daniel didn’t want to have the same watch as the other James Bond. We were 100 per cent okay with that, but which watch is worn is not really our decision.”
Urquhart said there are usually three ‘Bond’ parties involved in the choice of watch. “Daniel is a watch connoisseur, so he has his opinion. Then there is director Sam Mendes, who is not as detail-oriented as Daniel but has a big picture in mind of what sort of watch he would like, in terms of colour and the overall look.
“Then, of course, there is the owner of the Bond licence, Barbara Broccoli, who has her say as well. She wants Craig to be happy and Mendes to be happy, so she’s pretty cool about it. I want them all to be happy. So that’s the name of the game.”
