Top Gear

By MI6 Staff

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The BBC motoring show Top Gear this week had access to a lot of James Bond vehicles, presumably after the Bond In Motion exhibit closed down and the cars were removed from London back in January.

Co-host Chris Harris said: "To get access to the back catalogue of Bond cars was amazing and I love the fact that we feature some of the cars you’d forgotten about. It’s all very well to turn up in a silver Aston Martin, the famous cars are fine. But we’ve got a lovely old Toyota 2000 GT and the Alfa GTV6 from Octopussy, some really cool cars that allowed us to tell stories. And, of course, we dressed up as some Bond characters, which should keep people amused.”

Freddie Flintoff was blown away by the lively handling of the Renault 11 which features prominently on tonight's show as a “Bond car bargain”. He said: "[Paddy] was driving round in this £3million Aston Martin DB5, which I don’t get to be honest. The car’s beautiful, but why anyone would want to put fake guns on and smoke coming out the back, ruining it, is beyond me. I’m not really into the Bond films, but to be around the cars was amazing. I got to drive a Lotus Esprit – not one that goes underwater, but a similar car. Driving an old Lotus was enough for me, even without the Bond connection, it was amazing.”

Paddy McGuinness said: “It was just one of those things where I thought, 'Blimey I can’t believe I’m driving this car!' This is the mad thing with Top Gear, I was skidding around a corner in this really expensive car with machine guns on the front, being chased by Freddie and Chris, who were dressed as Jaws and Nick Nack, driving a Cortina. I just thought, 'What has happened, here? This is a mad life!' But it was fantastic and it made me feel really lucky to be doing such a fun job."