V8 Vantage

To me it wouldn’t have mattered who uttered the celebrated “Bond. James Bond,” line after Sir Roger Moore quit the character. I knew nobody would do it better and it made me sad for the rest. But when Tim ‘nice but dim’ Dalton was hired to portray the British spy, I thought there was a real danger of the entire franchise going up in flames.

In my opinion, Dalton was the worst Bond ever. I suspect the producers felt the same way, which is probably why they paired him up with the hottest car possible — a 1987 V8 Vantage.

The Living Daylights was considered average by critics but what wasn’t average was the Aston Martin, which confusingly doubled up as a Volante with a hard-top. Yes, the film was a bit of a jumbled mess, but the car’s clean lines brought some order to proceedings.

Launched in 1977, it wasn’t just gorgeous, it was hailed as Britain’s first supercar thanks to its 270kph top speed. Powered by a Lagonda V8 and mated to a five-speed ZF manual, it had 375bhp and was able to sprint from 0-100kph in 5.3 seconds thanks to high-performance camshafts, an increased compression ratio and bigger carburettors.

To help keep the car glued to the road it featured a spoiler on the tail, a deep spoiler under the nose and blanked off radiator. Keeping up with the best from Ferrari and Porsche was no problem and it was one of the best looking GTs around. Bond’s car was way more powerful.

The output of its 5.3-litre V8’s rose to an incredible 430bhp. That was no joke, but the gadgets that Q outfitted the car with, which included a pair of outrigger skis and a jet engine in the boot, were.

This Aston combined power and comfort and aged gracefully by the time production came to an end in 1989. As a convertible, it looked just as good, but, if I had the Dh360,000 to buy one now, I’d go for the hard-top. It did it for me on the big screen, and I’ll always hate Dalton for pressing that self-destruct button.