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Ford Sells Aston Martin In $924 Million Deal

Sold to UK motorsport firm, Prodrive

I couldn't see this discussed elsewhere, sorry if it has been.

Ford are holding a press conference, within the next few minutes infact, to announce the buyer of Aston Martin. Once this buyer assumes control I see no reason why an aston martin car could be elligable for use in Bond 22 under Ford's vehicle placement contract. To me this does seems to be putting an end to Aston Martin's all to short run of appearances in Die Another Day and Casino Royale, perhaps somebody out there can give me some hope!!?

Don't know if we can give you much hope on this one. As Ford will no longer own Aston, but the Ford contract will (presumably) still be in place, it looks like it therefore cannot be an Aston in Bond 22. It will most likely be a Jag, and to be honest, that's not neccessarily bad news at all. Actually, I'm pretty relieved that we won't have an obligatory signature Aston in every single film. I do hope that when this contract w/ Ford runs out, EON will drop them like a bad habit.

a reminder: Ford will retain 15% ownership of Aston which, at the $925,000,000 price tag, amounts to lots of equity. Frankly I'm surprised that they weren't more aggressive about selling Jaguar since it was a real loser, profit-wise, while Aston was just beginning to make money for the company.
Jags are nice and still fir with the Bond legasy since it was between a Jag and a DBIII that the literary Bond had to choose.

Jag, huh?

I'd prefer to see the Aston, at least with Craig's films, for the sake of consistency. (For the moment please disregard all of my previous posts heartily disavowing the necessity for continuity in the series).

Still, between a Jag and BMW, I'd rather see Bond in a Jag.

Here's a link with info on the sale: http://commanderbond.net/components/quickn...&item=39868

I have absolutely NO problem with Bond behind the wheel of a Jaguar. In fact I have always dreamed of it happening

One wonders what the actual contract with Ford says. There may be a possibility that it specifies the use of Aston Martins. But still I’d lose no sleep if they put Bond in a nice Jag or even a Ford Mustang if the film has US locations.

I think Bond needs his Aston, hopefully they dont screw up by not giving him one

If this deal really means no Aston for Bond 22 and if it turns out to become a Jaguar, I wouldn't be disappointed at all.

Jaguar has some promising models up for 2008 and the following years. My personal favourite would be the C-XF as shown here:

http://www.carpages.co.uk/jaguar/jaguar-c-...-1-03-01-07.asp

It's the designated replacement for the S-type-series that will see its end of production then.

Anyway, I see no reason why Bond should run out of acceptable personal transport.


PS:

For years I'm longing to see Bond in action with a Range Rover. The Range Rover Sports model would make for adequate transport on road and performance in difficult landscapes. But thats just my two pennys...

This post has been edited by Trident: 12 March 2007 - 18:58

I don't want an Aston Martin for Bond 22. I would rather see another car for the next movie, but I would like to see Aston Martin's in future Bond films. I clicked on the link above and I was amazed. It certainly does look like a Bond car.

Well...I certainly have no problems with Bond being behind the wheel of a Jaguar.

Although maybe they could have the DB5 he took off Dimitros showing up occasionally. That would be nice IMO. Then again, I kind of saw the crash of the AM in CR as a sort of 'swan song" to the Aston's in future films.

Then again, an AM is as much a part of the cinematic Bond as the Bentley was to the literary 007.

Time will tell.

Sure does. And one hardly notices it's a saloon, not a sportscoupé. But I see no reason why Jaguar couldn't built a coupe-version of the C-XF for use in Bond 22 and for exploring its possible acceptance in the market.

This is what I'm thinking. I doubt for all the obvious reasons that they'd sign a contract with Ford and not throw in a clause like this. It's one thing to see Bond using a Ford briefly as a rental, but as his main car where it's not under similar circumstances as Diamonds Are Forever (a nice Mustang in a US locale)? I don't think EON should be forced to use Jaguar because it's now the nicest Bondian car that Ford has to offer...

If there isn't a clause like that (well I'd be surprised) then I'd rather they just throw in the DB5 as Bond's main car and use Ford for others. It'd be nice to see it get into a wreck, Bond then gets the bill and M doesn't reimburse him because it's his personal car. A good way to piss him off a little bit more.

Oh yes! That would be a nice nod. I like the idea of showing Bond's private car and of it being a classic. And the way he acquired it seems fitting too.