Marking the 20th anniversary of Daniel Craig's debut as 007 in Casino Royale, we revisit the Aston Martin DBS: the ultimate "brute in a suit."
By Scott McClure.
Brutes in suits.
Credit: Collection Christophel
By the early 2000s, the producers of the James Bond film series finally had access to Ian Fleming’s “Casino Royale,” and planned to take the opportunity to take the series back to basics.
This was a major change from the extreme approach taken in the previous film, “Die Another Day,” which featured CGI glacier surfing, heavy use of gadgets, and an invisible Aston Martin Vanquish.
Pierce Brosnan and the vanishing Aston Martin Vanquish from 'Die Another Day' (2002)
Credit: William Conran / PA Images
The new film would introduce a new James Bond, played by actor Daniel Craig. His Bond would be more physical, darker, less polished, and newly promoted to 00 status. This portrayal would land somewhere between Sean Connery and Timothy Dalton, and be much less like the highly polished Bonds of Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan.
Daniel Craig's Bond: more physical and less polished than his predecessors.
Credit: Pictorial Press
The producers were looking for a new signature vehicle for their new Bond to drive. It had to reflect the changes in the character: brutal, modern, very British, but also be unmistakably Aston Martin.
They visited the design studio at Aston Martin’s HQ in Gaydon, Warwickshire, where designer Marek Reichman showed them a number of design concepts. They saw the full-scale clay model of an upcoming top-end GT car, which would later be named “DBS.”
They were captivated by its powerful, beautiful lines.
They had found the next 007 car.
Marek Reichman, Chief Creative Officer of Aston Martin, joined the company in 2005.
Credit: Marco Kesseler
There was a problem, however. The car didn’t actually exist. It wasn’t scheduled to go into production until a year after the film’s target release date in 2006. The Aston Martin team committed to work with Eon Productions to make sure that they would have their car in time for filming.
This DBS took its name from the original DBS, designed by William Towns in the late 1960s, as a departure from the earlier designs of cars like the famous DB5, as seen in many Bond films, starting with “Goldfinger” in 1964.
Marie Hardie , wearing mink tunic and while leather boots , reclines on the bonnet of an Aston Martin DBS - a highlight of the 1967 London Motor Show at Earls Court (16 October 1967).
Credit: Smith Archive
Unlike its predecessor, this car wouldn’t be a radical redesign. It would instead be an evolution of the recently launched mid-range Aston Martin GT car, the DB9. It would feature significant upgrades throughout, many of which were derived from technologies developed for Aston Martin’s DBR9 racing program.
HM King Charles III, then Prince of Wales, at the wheel of the new Aston Martin DB9 during a visit to Aston Martin's factory in Gaydon, Warwickshire (22 March 2004).
Credit: PA Images
Aston Martin’s CEO at the time, Ulrich Bez, explained that “the DBS is the ultimate expression of Aston Martin’s engineering and technical ability. It offers pure performance without compromise.”
The new DBS would be “a brute in a suit,” tasteful and elegant, but with power, precision, and aggressive styling that would suit the new James Bond. It would replace the outgoing flagship model, “Vanquish” as the top of the range.
In January, 2006, Aston Martin CEO, Ulrich Bez, announced that the still-secret DBS would appear in the film: “We have built him something special to enable him to do his job in style.”
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While the Eon Productions team prepared for the start of principal photography, the team at Aston Martin were hard at work. They had done development and testing for the DBS program using heavily modified DB9 “test mules,” but they were unglamorous test cars subject to constant modifications and stress testing - not polished and ready for the public to see.
They had to build at least one “hero” car for shooting close ups and interior shots. It reflected early design concepts, and some special unique features just for the movie. These included a special glovebox that concealed a Walther P99 9mm pistol with an extra magazine and suppressor, along with an emergency medical kit.
The Casino Royale Aston Martin DBS Prototype.
Credit: Aston Martin
There were two other special features not highlighted in the film, but can be very briefly seen if you look for them: a bespoke fire extinguisher featuring large silver Aston Martin wings mounted in the centre behind the seats, and custom racing helmets fitted behind each seat. Although not visible in the film, the helmet behind the driver’s seat was customised with Daniel Craig’s name on it.
At the film’s world premiere on November 14, 2006, audiences saw Craig’s new Bond and his new Aston Martin together on the big screen. The DBS appeared in a brief but memorable chase, ending with the brand-new Aston coming to a spectacular end as it rolled seven times.
The record breaking Aston Martin DBS performing in Casino Royale (2006)
Credit: Danjaq, LLC and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc
The secret behind the stunt was that the car was actually too stable to flip naturally. The special-effects team installed a nitrogen cannon that fired a piston downward into the road, kicking the car into the roll. The crew had hoped for two or three rolls, but the car completed seven, earning a Guinness World Record at the time.
While the stunt DBS met a spectacular end, the real production DBS was officially launched on 19 August, 2007, at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. Aston Martin built 2,536 DBS coupes and 845 DBS Volantes before production ended in 2012. This generation of DBS has become a modern classic, with top-condition, low-mileage manual examples holding their value particularly well.
Aston Martin celebrated at the 57th annual Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance.
Credit: Bonhams
As modern performance cars increasingly trade their petrol engines for silent electric motors, the experience offered by a machine like the DBS feels rarer with each passing year. Its appeal is not measured only in acceleration figures, or lap times, but in sensation: the weight of the steering, the long bonnet stretching toward the horizon, the mechanical violence of a naturally aspirated V12, and the way its note rises in direct response to your right foot.
A spirited drive on a twisting mountain road in a car like this is not merely transportation, or even performance. It is theatre, involvement, and occasion. The DBS arrived as the perfect car for Daniel Craig’s newly grounded Bond. Nearly two decades later, it remains one of the rare modern movie cars that was not merely placed in a film, but seemed to reflect the character driving it.
The movie-star profile of a "Brute in a Suit" - Scott McClure's 2009 Aston Martin DBS. A long-time Aston Martin enthusiast and Anthony Sinclair customer, Scott makes his debut as a contributor to The Transatlantic Journal.
Credit: Tiffany Davis