This article is taken from the June 2026 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Find our subscription offers here.
Back in the day when motoring was redolent of freedom and excitement rather than a lecture from the liberal establishment on the perils of pollution (the same liberal establishment that wags its finger from the business class lounge at Heathrow), heroes drove fast cars that radiated personality. During their heyday in the Swinging Sixties, speed and sophistication shared the same side of the street, and as a result the car and the star became synonymous.
The Aston Martin DB5 is inextricably linked to 007 — or perhaps with tiger-hunting Charlie Croker who took on The Italian Job in a DB4. “On Days Like These”, who can think of Rossano Brazzi without recalling that red Lamborghini Miura on the St Bernard Pass? The Saint had his heavenly Volvo P1800, reminding us that even the Swedes have style. And when Roger Moore swapped his halo with Simon Dutton, the new Saint swapped his Volvo for a Jensen Interceptor.
Jensen had already helped with the manufacture of the first Volvo P1800s until production shifted to Scandinavia, but without any attribution. So they could honestly claim to have given Moore for less. Not that Jensen got their design right every time. The C-V8 provided for the TV series The Baron appeared the progeny of a mésalliance between the Batmobile and a Hillman Imp. Still, the crimson leather interiors looked very voguish on colour television whilst the BAR 1 plate gave antique-dealing agent John Mannering the sort of attention most spies eschew.
Of course, Europe has not had it all its own way.
On the other side of the Atlantic, our American cousins have built their fair share of iconic autos. In the 1968 thriller Bullitt, the first film to feature a prolonged high-speed chase filmed on real city streets, Steve McQueen squealed around San Francisco in a Mustang GT 390. When it was not roaring up and down Russian Hill, it was growling slowly around the Marina or the garage of the SFPD.
A few years later, a Pontiac Trans Am generated a great deal of high octane smoke for Burt Reynolds in the hit action comedy Smokey and the Bandit. Uncle Sam was no slouch when it came to putting the dream factory on wheels — even if they did invent David Hasselhoff.
Today, all too many cars look like they were made with Keir Starmer in mind: dull, squat and uniform. Typically, today’s most fashionable colour is battleship grey. Yet there are still some shining points of light, though they seem mere pinpricks in a stygian vault.
The Bugatti Chiron, in its trademark twin tone, looks the kind of car in which Connery would tail Goldfinger. The new Sport Les Légendes du Ciel, insolent in iron grey (gris serpent), certainly exudes the required menace, although I suspect that Bond would want the French tricolore wheel trim replaced with the Union Jack.
Alfa Romeo’s Giulia SWB Zagato, a V6 super-coupé on a shortened chassis, has the verve that many motors lack, whilst the Jaguar F-type, at least until Jaguar’s 2024 midlife crisis, stood out like a sunbeam on a sea of mediocre similarity. Perhaps the new management will refocus their energies on producing breathtaking cars and not commercials.
For we badly need a bit of propulsive beauty to brighten these drab days. Although the age of the Alvis, and Douglas Bader bellowing “make way for the quality”, has ended, there is surely still space for a motorcar that a modern Connery, Moore or McQueen would want to be seen dead in? And I do not mean the Bentley Bentayga, which really does resemble a hearse.
Even the Humber Super Snipe, beloved of prosperous doctors and regional bank managers had a touch of class. Today’s ugly Peugeot 3008 is not fit to be touched with a bargepole. So come on car men. We deserve deluxe designs. Get to it. Think Sting, not Starmer!
