Range Rover - the car of choice for the villain

A View to a Kill 

First generation Range Rover - 1983 year model in A view to a kill

Range Rover has played a rather significant part in the later half of the Bond series. Bond has not only himself been seen behind the wheel of Range Rovers (in Octopussy, Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace) but Range Rover has been the car of choice for several of the villains in the series. Range Rovers have been useful to the villains' henchmen in not less than six films.

The tradition started with Max Zorin, played by Christopher Walken, in A View to a Kill 1985. After having disposed of Bond and his car in the lake near Zorin's chateau outside Paris, Zorin and May Day are picked up by Zorin's men. In the film, the Range Rover that was used is the first generation Range Rover from 1983. This first generation model was produced between 1970 and 1996.

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Tomorrow Never Dies



In Tomorrow, Carver sends his men after Bond and Wai Lin, after they both have jumped off his skyscraper in Saigon and escaped on a BMW motorcycle. The chase, with the spectacular motorcycle jump over Carver's helicopter in the finale, supposedly set in Vietnam was actually filmed in Bangkok.

Carver's Range Rover cars feature rather prominently in the film, and consequently this was the second time in the Bond series that the villain had purchased Range Rovers for his henchmen. The assassin in The Living Daylights, who is driving a Land Rover down the rock of Gibraltar does not count as that Land Rover is stolen from the British Army.

Second generation Range Rover - 1995 year model in Tomorrow Never Dies

The Range Rovers chase Bond and Wai Lin through the streets of Saigon crashing into almost everything. This second generation Range Rover was produced between 1994 and 2002 and was replaced by the model seen in Die Another Day.

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Die Another Day

Third generation Range Rover - model year 2002 in Die Another Day

When Gustav Graves is being knighted in Die Another Day he is being picked up by his men outside Buckingham Palace in two Range Rover cars of the third generation. The cars are only briefly seen in this scene and Graves is only seen driven off, supposedly through the gates of Buckingham, but the cars can also be seen parked in Iceland later in the film.

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Casino Royale
This model was seen again in Casino Royale when Le Chiffre's men are driving a Range Rover Series III from 2005 alongside the Jaguar in Montenegro, parked in the picture below.

Earlier in Casino Royale three Land Rover Defenders model 110 from 2005 are also used by Le Chiffre while he is in Mbale in Africa.

The third generation Range Rover was introduced in 2002 and was produced for ten years. This model was also driven by Bond in Bolivia in Quantum of Solace.

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Skyfall
Silva's henchmen in Skyfall have chosen a Range Rover Police car in London, before driving to the inquiry M is attending. The car is a 2011 Land Rover Discovery of the fourth generation. A Land Rover Defender Pick Up was also driven by Eve in the pre-title sequence.

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Spectre
In Spectre, Hinx and his henchmen are kidnapping Dr Swan in the Austrian alps. The henchmen are driving off in two Land Rover Defenders Big Foot and Hinx is riding in a Range Rover of the fourth generation. The model is a Range Rover Sport SVR from 2015. Both models have been customized for an alpine drive. Blofeld himself keeps two Mercedes-Benz AMG models in the Moroccan desert.

The fourth generation Range Rover was introduced in 2012 and is still being produced.

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Goldfinger

A bit off topic, but even Goldfinger had a Land Rover in Goldfinger 1964, as a 1958 Land Rover is seen parked on the premises of Goldfinger's factory in Switzerland. 

Bond's rental cars - Hertz and Avis

Diamonds are forever

When Bond is renting a car in Las Vegas for him and Tiffany Case, he turns to the car rental company Hertz in Diamonds are Forever. He waits for Tiffany just outside the Hertz office. Although this is not the first time that Bond has rented a car, it is the first time that a rental car company featured rather prominently in one of the films. In Dr. No Bond drives up to Miss Taro in a rented blue Sunbeam Alpine. This rental car was however organized by Bond's hotel, where he also receives the keys, and an car rental office is never seen in the film.

In Diamonds are Forever, the Hertz office was located at No. 2310 South Las Vegas Boulevard, just opposite the Holiday Motel and Bagdad Inn. Bond's rental car in the film is a Ford Galaxie 500.

Hertz is an American company that was founded in 1918 and is the largest car rental company in the world.

Tomorrow Never Dies 

When Bond arrives at the Hamburg airport, he approaches the Avis counter to pick up his "rental car", only to be greeted by Q in an Avis uniform. Bond gets his new BMW 750iL by Q and a new Ericsson telephone with modifications in the following scene, actually filmed in an hangar at Stansted Airport in the UK. Very little is seen of the Avis counter at Hamburg Airport. On Q's name tag, his name is stated to be Quentin Quigley.

 "Mein büro hat ein auto reserviert"

"-Will you need collision coverage? 
    -Yes. "

Q is called Quentin Quigley as the Avis employee in the film

After a car chase through the Atlantic Hotel's car park, Bond crashes the car through the wall on the top floor and it finally ends up inside the Avis car rental office in Hamburg.

When Q demonstrates Bond's new phone, part of the Avis rental form is seen. This form is part of the "Bond in Motion" exhibition that currently tours the world. The Avis form, as well as Q's jacket from the film and a model of the BMW crashing into the Avis office, is part of the exhibition and could be seen on display at the London exhibition in 2014.

Like Hertz, Avis is an American company and actually the first car rental business to be located at an airport. It was founded in 1946 and the slogan "We try harder" was adopted in the 1960's, to make a more positive reference of Avis' status as the second largest car rental company in the United States at the time, second after Hertz. That slogan stayed with the company for 50 years before the re-branding took place in 2012.

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However, where Melina Havlock rented her Citroën 2CV in For Your Eyes Only still remains a mystery.