Folklore is that the only James Bond movie where he doesn’t actually drive a car is Moonraker. Not quite true. But try as I may, I cannot find a moment during the film where Roger Moore is in any way involved with this Herb Grasse creation.
Moonraker isn’t much of a car film. There’s this VW-based MP Lafer that Bond thankfully never drove.
It was driven by a gorgeous woman following him luxuriating in a Rolls-Royce. It’s a 1973 US-market Silver Shadow Long Wheelbase, differentiated from the 1976-onward renamed Silver Wraith II with its more pronounced flares over the wheel arches.
He also got driven in a 1936 Hispano-Suiza Type 68 J12 Cabriolet around Drax’s French estate. But he really had his eye on the AMC products, thinking back wistfully to those golden days in Bangkok.
You could probably count the gondola ‘hovercraft’ he piloted into St Mark’s Square in Venice as a car. Four wheels and an engine with a boat top and balloon skirt. Nevertheless I’m not showing you a screen grab of it because it’s one of the most embarrassing moments in Bond. Ever.
The only car James Bond seems to have officially driven in the movie was this Ken Adams creation, which was likely built over a stretched Moke recycled from the Volcano set of 1967. I think that’s Roger Moore driving it in the lower frame.
No chase but.
That was saved for this.
Bond had form with boats. Roger Moore’s first outing Live And Let Die featured a fantastic chase through the bayous with boats were supplied by US maker Glastron, with the star being the airborne GT-150.
In 1978, Glastron Carlson provided a CV23HT to the Bond production. It was a variant of their senior model with a hardtop added, of which only 300 were made.
This was the coupe of boats.
Moonraker got the shooting brake variant.
Designed to accommodate more occupants than just the driver under roof, it also featured an awning for those wanting to take a dip without catching the sun.
Ha, tricked you! It was another absurdly expensive creation from Q destined for a moment’s practical use before being completely destroyed. Over a waterfall in this case, with hang-glider as lifeboat.
It’s actually a nice looking shape as a longroof.
Glastron’s next coupe arrived in 1980. With T-tops.
The Ford Fairmont Ghia Moonraker Special was a promotional car, given away on the Don Lane Show.
Lane was a US import, and the only talk show host on local TV I remember as a kid. In late 1979, when the prints for Moonraker reached Australia for its summer, the Fairmont special was probably presented. I don’t know how the competition was run, but someone seems to have won this car.
The 1979 XD Fairmont Ghia was the highest spec SWB sedan, and this one came loaded with 351 and some juicy extras; tv in the rear built into a custom console, a ‘computer’ up front mounted on the dash, drilled hole motif in the rockers and grille, colourway introducing the lameness of the 1980s and best of all, the official 007 gun logo. On the door. So everyone knows who you are.
The base XD was a superb shape. Easily the best around the world in this language for Ford at the time.
The guy who prepared the package was the same guy who worked up the Playboy option when Ford Australia was considering a runout package for the last 400 XC coupe bodies.
His name was Herb Grasse. He graduated from Arts Center College of Design in California in 1968, and one of his first jobs was helping George Barris prepare the Batmobile. His career took him to Ford and Chrysler US, before making his way to Ford Australia.
Grasse is most famous for the Bricklin SV-1. Certainly an iconic shape, but more so for its extraordinarily desultory provenance than its looks. He did manage to channel the 240Z credibly, but his simpler overall shape missed the tension of the sugar scoops up front.
This 1973 Lola T70 reskinned racer an example of his showcar leanings.
He also worked at Chrysler. This is some of his work in the lead up to full fuselage. See that swirl in the cobblestones near the rear wheel of the top car? Herb hid a cuss word in the artwork, which chromjuwelen swirled out. He got in a lot of trouble for that after some student noticed it.
In 1978 Grasse arrived in Australia at FoMoCo. One project he did on the side was Waltzing Matilda. It was a Ford LNT 7000 Louisville prime mover powered by an ex-RAAF Rolls-Royce Avon Mk1 jet engine taken from a Canberra Bomber. It was claimed to be the world’s first jet truck, and the first truck ever to exceed 200mph (322km/h).
Grasse also seems to have had a clean eye. Top is one of his impressions for the EA Falcon. His work at Ford down here also included time on the Laser and Telstar. Beneath a proposal for Mad Max. I’m not sure but I think it might have been for the third one with Tina Turner and a lot more money.
I wouldn’t expect Herb ever considered the Moonraker Special a highlight of his career. As far as I can tell, it came out of Ford Australia. But the only promotional material I can find featuring it is for its sunroof.
The car is still around. It’s mentioned on oldschoolaussiefords, and I think the current owner chimes in. That’s mid-80s money above, not sure I’d even pay that today.
I do want an XD. But one like this instead.
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Further Reading
007: The Cars That Never Were
Morris Minor GPO Van
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Ford Granada (german version) was a dead serious competitor for Mercedes W123.
One of the best cars Ford has ever made.
I had the much lesser Ford Taunus 1.8, which was still superior to any VW.
I looked down to all those poor minions who couldn’t afford a Ford.
I agree the Euro Granada was Ford doing the sedan really well, but I prefer the XD shapewise. The sunken greenhouse makes much of the difference but I also like the bumper treatment on ours better as well.
I still love Moonraker. Sure it’s probably the cheesiest Bond ever made, but it’s fun and set in great locations. I much prefer the old adventures compared to the modern ones that have none of the class and charm of the old James Bonds.
These were some sad times for Bond cars though.
As far as I’m concerned every Bond is cheesy, and every time they try making them meet a standard set by the Connery ones(which, newsflash, are also cheesy) They end up carrying over the old ridiculous scenarios, with ridiculous gadgets with ridiculous stunts the series is known for, but substitute a brooding unlikable bond(Craig) and perfectly choreographed epic fights and chases that in effect are boring as hell to watch.
Moonraker is fun. No it’s not as deep and “realistic” as Casino Royal, but if I’m flipping channels and Moonraker is on one and Casino Royal is on another, I’m blasting off to space with Jaws!
With you here. Daniel Craig is trying to be Jason Bourne, but all the tension is killed with such grandiose villains instead of the more insidious and realistic anti-Bourne bureaucracy. If the modern James Bond movies reflected this sort of truth, they’d all end like The French Connection.
Yeah, it seems as though most modern “heros” are broody, full of angst, and just flat out depressing. Craig is no exception. People today seem to like feeling bad and the acting reflects that.
There’s some cheese, but not like A View To A Kill. I love it too, it was the first Bond I saw at the movies, when I was nine and triggered a life-long affection for the series.
Yes that was pretty cheesy too, just not sure if it’s quite at same level as lasers in space and biting through steel like Moonraker. Grace Jones and Christopher Walken were great villains.
That is awful. Just awful. But I had no idea about his connection to Ford Australia!
I am also surprised that a poverty pac (sic) XD wagon still exists. It must have power steering at least because the corners of the car aren’t dinged up from being unable to manoeuvre it at low speed.
Yellow was wildly popular around 1980 – it seemed to me that half of all VC commodores were yellow.
The owner of that XD wagon is one of Melbourne’s premier vintage Aston Martin mechanics. I love walking past it and dreaming of taking possession.
Neat! I think this car was at the Melbourne motor show one year, on the Ford stand. It certainly got into the magazines as well. Not into moviegoing, so I had no idea whether it was actually in the movie or not. Seems strange that they got the official go-ahead to Bond-ify a car that wasn’t in the show; I guess licensing wasn’t such a big issue back then.
BTW, twice in three paragraphs, after discussing the boats, you call the Fairmont a Fairlane. Oops!
Yeah, I’ve got an unreliable memory of it as a Melb Motor Show thing, maybe even on the cover of the guide? Or have I just got it all mixed up with the fact that Fords could be had with moonroofs?
Thanks for the amends Pete. Licensing was a big issue back then for Bond. The producers very, very zealously guarded their rights and took any infringers on. That gun logo on the side of the car was a prominent property of theirs, no way anyone was using that without permission.
Gotta love promotional items with zero connection to what they’re promoting. Reminds me of my cheap Walgreens toys from my childhood. And people wonder why I’m cynical about name debasement.
Also this passing for a custom car with ruler straight stripes and custom bodywork that clearly was made using a hole saw is what made me cynical of what some customizers call “personal expression“ in car culture.
Yet I love Moonraker. It’s easily in my top 5 most rewatchable 007 films.
The XD took a while to grow on me, as my introduction to Australian cars was the XA-XC coupes from the Mad Max movies, and still regard them as some of the best looking sedan and coupe designs ever, but the XD really does what the German Granada did and improved it in proportions in my opinion(I like larger cars). So the Playboy option was what the Cobra became, correct? Yeah I’m going to say that was a better choice
Definitely the Cobra was the better choice. It played off Ford’s competition successes both here and overseas, and became iconic very quickly. And, usefully, used up all those leftover hardtop shells that were cluttering up the place.
What a bizarre tie-in.
I ended up doing a ranking of the Bond films, from best to worst. I put it second-last but it has some redeeming aspects. Lois Chiles, for example, is an excellent Bond girl — utterly gorgeous and not useless. The scenes at Drax’s estate are stunning and Venice was a good location to shoot at. But the film just falls apart as it becomes an utterly stupid sci-fi knock-off.
I was discussing Bond films with my sister the other day and she said she loathes Roger Moore. While none of the Bonds are my “type”, I’d have to agree with her assertion he’s the least charming and desirable of the lot (I’ll exclude Lazenby, only because I barely remember his one performance). That’s not to say I dislike him but he just felt the least “Bond” of the Bonds. It doesn’t help that he has some of the worst Bond films (the tedious The Spy Who Loved Me, the slipshod The Man With The Golden Gun).
Oh, if you were curious, dead last in my Bond ranking is Diamonds Are Forever. They paid a lot of money to get Connery back and they clearly took it from the writing budget…
Glad you like Lois Chiles. Absolutely perfectly beautiful, but not a bimbo. She was also in Great Gatsby with Robert Redford, but much better in Broadcast News with Holly Hunter.
Diamonds has the best sung theme though.
Tied with Goldfinger. Gotta love Dame Shirley…
Collected Thoughts.
1. You don’t want an XD. They rust in a dispiritingly irredeemable fashion, and the resulting creakiness (and leakiness) actually impacts upon the drive long before it makes them unuseable.
2. Anyway, they look too spindly, a good 2D side shape that doesn’t translate properly. I mean, they’ve practically got floor-to-ceiling windows. The Granada mentioned above is the best version of the Ford design lingo at this time.
3. I never did like all that glam rock show car shite of the ’70’s and even ’80’s. Probably too serious a child, but I’ve an inkling many a wee CCer was valuing original standard models over such stuff back when it was not at all a thing.
4. I would dismiss Herb Grasses’ ‘orrible work above as the result of grassy herbs he’d ingested, except that if he was a penman of the EA Falcons as it seems he was, he deserves veneration – for THEY are by far the best of Ford’s ’80’s design language. Acknowledged to be at the time too. Wheels Magazine had the scoop on them in ’85, and I recall reading a later editorial bit mentioning an informal vote of a whole bunch of designers from worldwide where the Falc came up as the sedan favourite.
5. Roger Moore did a very good impression of walnut, stained, but at least raised the bar for humour, if no other bars. But Moonraker was so stupid it went past self-awareness into boredom. The Falcon Moonraker is about as desireable as the film script.
6. Don Lane gave me the screaming heebie-jeebies, then and now. And he was not remotely funny. And represented the most obsequious cultural cringe. Yuk.
7. Thank you for the entertaining post, and for reminding me that the good old days of my childhood are, in truth, just old.
This is a regular rant from me to get you to write something for us.
+1.
Always enjoy your comments, Justy.
Alright, alright, I shall try again. I’ll give you (and all who contribute) great credit for making it look easier than it is!
Go for it justy, your scribblings sometimes remind me of the late great Romsey Quints, who I loved reading as a kid..
Just what I’ve always thought, too.
+2
Justy, you make me laugh, as always.
Agreed the XD was horrible, the waistline far too low. The low volume of body mass in the rear quarter panel emphasised the stupidity and childishness of the design. How can anyone consider the European Granada of the same period to be inferior is beyond me in the extreme. No doubt the Granada itself was a better car overall than the Foulcan, a cynical effort of tizziing up a circa 1960 primitive design.
I rember seeing the XD Moonraker edition on the Don Lane show, which I rarely watched and with good reason. I was very young then but somehow I figured the Moonraker edition was a cynical exercise.
I would have been doubly embarrassed to drive an XD and a Moonraker edition at that.
I love James Bond and like Roger Moore but loathed Moonraker and The Man With The Golden Gun. Refuse to watch them ever again.
You’re obviously a fan of the Datsun 120Y school of auto design, good on ya buddy, never be afraid to express your opinions no matter how crazy they maybe, roll on you magnificent bastard.
WTF are you on about? I’m not sure where your sarcasm begins and ends. For what its worth I don’t lust after the Datsun 120Y. So my opinions are crazy? And no one elses are?
Don lane yep a very poignant part of the terrible movie Razorback, when the wild pig dragged half a room away it was the half with Don Lane on TV, he was boring on a good day.
It seems like it depends on which continent you grew up on as far as if you prefer the Fairmont (in Aus) or the Granada (in Europe). Except for Justy, who is a closet European.
That wagon, though, I’d go for that although still prefer the Granada wagon, I hadn’t seen a Fairmont one before, at first I thought it was a VW Passat of the same year, very similar look, they were even available in that same shade of yellow as I recall.
Justy is a closet contributor. Time to out him, Jim.
“But it’s cozy in here, and there’s even a chair”, comes the muffled voice from behind the door.
Justy, as a (privately-)published author, I’ll give you all the help I can. You’re welcome to use my reference library too.
I had an XD Fairmont Ghia witha 250 (sorry 4.1) crank windows and cold A/C, it was my 2nd favourite car ever, though I rode in and drove some that were exactly as justy described, (you could tell the leaky ones as soon as you opened a door, the stink of rotting carpet).
Mine was a good one, dry and fresh inside for all its life, the only creak it had was from the passenger front door every time the car moved over bumps or when you put the brakes on, permenantly cured by copious oiling of the hinges.
I reckon the XD was the best of its design language, the metal trimmed A pillars and the panel below the windshield with its big black grille, seemed to give the car more visual strength compared to how the Grenada was done.
Not a fan of those styling jobs back then, but at least they didn’t tack on big square wheelarch flares on this one, though it appears some reshaping was done.
I wasn’t allowed to watch Don Lane when I was a kid, as an adult chose not to watch it of my own volition, don’t think I missed out on anything.
Old Bond movies are fun to watch but never a fan, the only thing I can say about them is they probably allowed the various lead actors to roger more, (sorry for that one)
Prefer the XF 2nd facelift they got most of the bugs out and they didnt rust as fast and the slimmed down frontal styling hides some of the blockiness ok theres no V8 in that model but there was rudimentry fuel injection when it worked the rear cart springs were gone in the XE but the watts linkage seemed more robust in the XF at least I dont remember seeing as many broken ones lurching along the road, XDs are extrememly rare in Godzone in fact all 80s Falcons are getting scarce and finding originals among the survivors is hard most have had some modifications done over their lives even if its just lowering the ride height and wider wheels and tyres.
A mate had something of an XD-XF graveyard on his property. Think there were about half a dozen wagons there. He’s the guy who put a Ford 250 in his XJ6 when the 2.8 wore out. He died a few years back, and though I still come across his widow occasionally I’ve no idea what happened to the cars. Still peacefully rusting under the trees, I guess.
That Lola 70 thing reminds me of the Homer, for some reason…
Interesting stuff, I am always amazed (but shouldn’t be) at the lengths people will go to tie a product in to popular entertainment.
I am amazed the Bond producers were that desperate to allow a bogan taxi to be used as a tie in to their movie. But then again, rubbish car = rubbish movie, so it makes sense in hindsight.
Pure late ’70s kitch. Hideous. And Moonraker is my worst Bond movie. As for the ‘drilled’ holes in the rockers, no need for them. The tinworm will do that for you. The XDs were incredibly crude for their era. This is 1979, and you’ve still got 3 on the tree, cart springs and and handbrake on the dash? Really?
The Falcon Cobra shown above looks like a bigger version of the Mustang Cobra II that Farrah Fawcett used to drive on “Charlie’s Angels” around the same time. “Moonraker” tried to capitalize on the popularity of “space movies” in the wake of the success of “Star Wars”, but it wasn’t entirely convincing. I have watched virtually all of the James Bond movies, and I would say while Roger Moore was clearly getting too old for it by the end of his run, Pierce Brosnan’s movies were the worst of the batch. Daniel Craig’s intensity works, but I slept through part of “Casino Royale” and some elements of the newest movies are a bit cliched.
Mmmm, yum. Fantastic piece Don, I wondered where the heck you were going with it, opening it with that lovely XD sunroof ad and then dancing with boats and a jet-truck. Interestingly the Moonraker XD pictured in the ad has wheelarch flares and a ‘4.9’ badge on the guard, so presumably there were two or more of them – especially as the 5.8 was a competition prize and the ad says the pictured 4.9 is available at McLeod Ford. Ah, the wonderful ads in 1970s Wheels for McLeod Ford Horn Cars. The XD isn’t quite as cool as what they did to the XA-C coupes, but even so, brave of them to give it a whirl although their take on the XD detracts from the cleanness of the shape. XD Falcon wins for me on the Granada-Falcon styling debate, although a 2.8i Ghia X Granada with wraparound chrome-dripping bumpers is a mighty good looker. Thank you Don, top marks as always.
That “Moonraker” paintjob reminds me of the Alitalia sponsored Fiat 131 rally cars.
The wagon looks like an enlarged MKII Granada which is one of my favorite European Fords.