Area Rep Terry Jones had advised members on a few occasions before the movie launch that he was discussing with the SA distributors of Aston Martin, Solitaire Motors, the possibility of a sponsored, combined event to celebrate the long-overdue launch of the last Bond movie starring Daniel Craig. Unfortunately, nothing eventuated from Solitaire, apparently because Aston Martin were not the ‘official’ sponsors of the movie – this was the province of Land-Rover/Jaguar!
Because this information was only provided a few days before the launch date (November 11th), this made the likelihood of arranging an event on the day of the launch impossible.
AMOC members are a resourceful lot however and Assistant Area Rep, Terry H stepped up. In in his capacity as Chairman of the local Bentley Drivers Club, he arranged a joint viewing of the movie at the Wallis Cinema, Mitcham for November 18th. Terry also organised a black-tie dinner at the cinema to precede the movie.
Numbers were restricted and, in the end, some 50 members from both clubs attended and we enjoyed a good meal as well as a bottle of water and the classic cinema favourite, a chocolate coated ice-cream to enjoy during the film. With movie as well, the $59pp was very reasonable indeed.
The two Terrys discussed the plot at great length after the movie and both agreed it was not Daniel Craig’s finest Bond movie but nonetheless, both enjoyed the event greatly. This was the first time that four different Aston Martin models had been placed in the same Bond movie and both Terrys particularly enjoyed seeing the AMV8 Vantage again. The classic DB5 was there too, this time with mini Gatling machine guns behind the headlights – apparently there were two actual DB5s and eight replicas used to make the movie! The southern Italian town of Matera was one of the settings and, to overcome the slippery cobble-stoned streets, hundreds of litres of soft drink were poured onto the streets and when it dried, the sticky effect from the drying sugar allowed sufficient grip for the cars to ‘do their stuff’.
It was good that our members could come together to celebrate one of the most celebrated Aston Martin connections dating back to 1964 when the bullet-proof DB5 was driven by Sean Connery in Goldfinger. I suspect the James Bond connection is one of the more common reasons that ‘men of a certain age’ end up owning an Aston Martin – it was a factor in my ownership!