A woman poses with Wet Nellie from the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me at the press preview for the exhibition Bond in Motion at the London Film Museum in central London on March 18, 2014.Leon Neal / Getty Images Roger Moore or Sean Connery? Daniel Craig or Pierce Brosnan? The Aston Martin Vanquish or the Lotus Esprit? There are many great debates to be had about all sorts of details within the James Bond film franchise. We’ve already sussed out and listed the best cars driven by Bond’s various nemeses over the years, but today we’re taking a look at the extra hardware in and on the cars assigned to Agent 007. The purpose of Bond’s automotive gadgets is to save him from peril while he’s on the road, yes, but also to entertain movie-goers. Sometimes producers, along with Q and the brains in his division, nail it on both fronts, providing unnecessarily complex and unrealistic yet totally awesome features like amphibious capabilities or hub-mounted laser beams for 007’s various cars.And other times their contraptions and add-ons miss the mark and prove either too ridiculous or not ridiculous enough.Here are a few of our most and least favourite Bond car modifications. Let us know your top and bottom picks in the comments below. Best: Aston Martin V8 Vantage Volante with Laser BeamsThe Aston Martin DB5 that debuted in Goldfinger (1964) and went on to be featured in a bunch of other films might be the most recognizable of Bond’s rides, with a host of now-de-rigeur features including machine guns, a bullet screen and the classic hub-mounted tire shredders. But it’s the innovation of the wheel-centric technology featured in the Vantage Volante in The Living Daylights, along with Timothy Dalton’s epic one-liner delivery, that sells it as one of the best inventions ever. Lasers, baby!When Bond activates the hub-mounted lasers to sever the pursuing authorities’ car’s cabin from its chassis, he wryly blames it on salt corrosion. Worst: 1980 Lotus Turbo Esprit with Self-destruct SequenceThe first of two 1980 Lotus Turbo Esprits that 007 drives in For Your Eyes Only (1981) was only given one modification by the Q Division. An anti-theft self-destruct device was installed consisting of a bunch of C4 strapped to the sides of the car. Sure, that anonymous henchman didn’t get to steal the ¾-full pack of gum, spare change and sensitive government data from the centre console (or go home to his wife and six young children) but what if one of the gas lines leaked and caused a fire, or there was a collision at a three-way stop while Bond was in the car? They really didn’t think this one through. Best: Aston Martin Vanquish with Ejector SeatPierce Brosnan’s Bond demonstrated how some double-oh-add-ons can be used in more ways than one when he hit the ‘Ejector Seat’ button to pirouette his upside-down Aston Martin Vanquish around a missile and back onto its wheels during the ice chase scene in Die Another Day (2002). And somehow, not a hair out of place. Pierce, you are a magnificent creature. Worst: Aston Martin DB10 with Rear-facing FlamethrowerLook, I understand that an any-which-way-facing flamethrower is inherently kick-ass, but this simply would not be effective as a means of defence. As a means of getting that A-hole off your tailgate, sure – and that’s essentially what Daniel Craig’s Bond did in the 2015 film Spectre – but otherwise pursuers with any sort of stop-start traffic driving skill or even just active cruise control could just hang back behind the hottest point of the flame and roast weenies. Best: 1976 Lotus Esprit with Submarine Function (‘Wet Nellie’) A woman poses with “Wet Nellie” from the James Bond film “The Spy Who Loved Me” at the press preview for the exhibition “Bond in Motion” at the London Film Museum in central London on March 18, 2014. Leon Neal / Getty Images The Lotus Esprit got a decent boost early on in its reign, which lasted from 1976 to 2004, thanks to one of the coolest Bond cars of all time, an amphibious automobile dubbed Wet Nellie. In The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), Roger Moore’s Bond drives the seemingly normal white coupe off the end of a dock, revealing its full potential underwater by blowing up a helicopter with some subsurface-to-air missiles and floating around with Barbara Bach in the passenger seat. In reality, it was an ex-U.S.-Navy-SEAL operating a submarine wearing the body shell of an Esprit S1 underwater. Today, the submarine Wet Nellie from the film is owned by Elon Musk, who claims to have plans to convert it to a functioning amphibious submersible vehicle.Worst: Aston Martin DBS V12 with DefibrillatorThe producers of the 2006 movie Casino Royale must have been feeling extra playful when they chose the gadgets for the Aston Martin DBS V12: a Walther PPK (basically a keychain for Bond) and a field medical kit including a defibrillator.Points for practicality, but not creativity. But as luck would have it, that’s exactly what the spy would need to keep his
Origin: The best and worst James Bond car gadgets of all time