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.

Noble House: British Caledonian Airways

Another of the many connections between James Bond and the television mini series Noble House is an airline. British Caledonian Airways is one of only a few product placements in Noble House, just like it was Bond's choice of airline in Never Say Never Again, 1983. Since British Caledonian no longer exists, I personally think the product placement is a nice piece of history. In one of the first scenes in the first episode, Lincoln Bartlett and Casey Tcholok arrive in their private jet at Hong Kong's Kai Tak airport. The camera pans over from a 747 that belongs to British Caledonian, to the private jet from Par Con Industries.

In the second episode, Quillan Gornt picks up Bartlett in his Daimler and they drive across the Central district in Hong Kong. One of the trams is striped with logotypes of British Caledonian Airways and it has the same tartan livery that could be found on the Stewardesses' uniforms at the time. It is obvious that Gornt is driving at the same speed as the tram in order for the brand to be visible.

Sometimes the product placement gets a little ridiculous though.
After having invited Casey for dinner on board a djonk in Hong Kong Harbour, Ian Dunross is sending her away in his Rolls Royce. The Rolls is parked next to a bus stop where a bus with the British Caledonian logo is conveniently parked.




For one of the final scenes, the Shaun Tak centre in the Central district (which today houses the Macau ferry terminal) was remodeled as the departure terminal of Kai Tak airport. None of the interior scenes taking place at the airport were filmed on location at Kai Tak. One of the top floors of the Shaun Tak centre was converted to look like the departure terminal at the airport and signs of British Caledonian Airways were put up to give the right feeling.

The ferry terminal Shaun Tak Centre converted to Kai Tak Airport

Because BCal was one of only a few product placements in the series, you do not get the same "cheap feeling" as you sometimes get in a few of the Bond films like Moonraker and Die Another Day. 

British Caledonian existed between 1970 and 1988 and was an independent airline that operated out of Gatwick airport. British Caledonian Airways had daily flights to Hong Kong before it was taken over by newly privatised British Airways in 1987/1988. Since Noble House was produced in 1988 this was probably the last time the airline featured in a film or TV-series.

Hovercraft to Holland

When Bond travels to Holland in Diamonds are Forever, posing as diamond smuggler Peter Franks, he takes the hovercraft across the English channel. This was a fairly new transportation method in the early 1970's and probably a little more exiting for the audience back then. 

                 "-What can I bring you back from Holland?

                                -A diamond, in a ring...

                 -Will you settle for a tulip?" 

                                         -Bond to Moneypenny-

Bond in Peter Franks' Triumph Stag Mk 1.

Bond is embarking from the ferry terminal in Dover, with Calais in France as the likely destination. Since the hovercraft service was not available to Holland, Bond would have had to drive up to Amsterdam from northern France. It is probably meant for the audience to believe that the hovercraft went straight to Amsterdam, but consequently that route was not available. The hovercraft would either go to Calais or Boulogne-sur-mer.

The hovercraft in the film belongs to Seaspeed, which was a joint hovercraft operation of British Rail in association with the French SNCF. Seaspeed started cross-channel services in 1968. The hovercraft Bond is traveling on is called Princess Margaret and the model (SR-N4) was the largest hovercraft in commercial operation. This form of transportation was quite new at the time of filming and that is the reason why the cool, dramatic Bond theme was used when the hovercraft leaves port. The fact that this hovercraft service is no longer available makes this scene a nice piece of history, even though the excitement of a hovercraft feels a little dated today. Still, this was the fastest way of crossing the channel and the record of 35 minutes across has yet to be battered. The hovercraft technique was invented in Britain in the 1950's.

Following the opening of the Channel tunnel (1994), the hovercraft operations were discontinued in 2000. The service had become unprofitable and the hovercrafts were getting old.

Ocean Sky - The Private Jet Company

With this 101st post I will reach 100 000 pageviews since my blog inauguration! Hopefully it will take less than 2 years to reach another 100 000.

Ocean Sky Bombardier Challenger 604

In Quantum of Solace, the CIA is meeting with Dominic Greene in Haiti to make a deal with the Quantum organisation. The section chief, Gregory Beam together with Felix Leiter are discussing the deal during a flight from the Aerogare in Haiti to Bregenz in Austria. The CIA have chartered a plane from the private jet company Ocean Sky. Greene is assured that the CIA will do nothing to stop General Medrano's coup in Bolivia and in exchange they get the lease to any oil found in the country.

On board the jet is a small fridge visible, containing Heineken beer and Bollinger Grande Année champagne. A Sony TV is also visible, all brands are part of the sponsorship deals for the film. The tail number is G-OCSC and the plane in full Ocean Sky livery is a Bombardier Challenger 604.

Ocean Sky was formed in 2003, originally as an aviation broker, but the company changed their business model to a private jet company in 2005. At this time they bought a fleet of new aircraft but also managed privately owned jets on behalf of other owners. In 2012 Ocean Sky were the subject of insolvency proceedings and on 3 September that year, their operating licence was suspended by the Civil Aviation Authority. Today Ocean Sky is a group that consists of a number of UK and international limited companies with offices in London, Geneva, Moscow and New York involved in e.g. agriculture, aviation and real estate. Weather they still have a private jet service is unclear, but it is not likely that they have their own fleet of aircraft anymore. 

Beam and Leiter leave Bregenz.

The product placement by Ocean Sky was one of the bigger sponsorship deals in the film. The company lent five of its business jets to the film production. The planes, valued at £100 million each and with the standard rate of £5000 per hour, were used to fly the cast and crew to Panama. How much the product placement did amount to is unknown however.

For some reason an Ocean Sky jet with Black livery is pictured at the Bregenz Airport
instead of the one that Greene, Beam and Leiter arrive on. Not a clue why...

                   "Ocean Sky, guten abend!"

Greene leaves on a Gulfstream after the shootout at the opera.

After attending Puccini's Tosca at the Bregenz opera, Greene leaves on another private plane, this time a Gulfstream. Since Ocean Sky did not have a Gulfstream in its fleet, this is evidently another jet company or Greene's own jet. Bond is trying to follow Greene by chartering a jet from Ocean Sky, but M has cancelled his card so it is denied at the Ocean Sky desk. Instead Bond goes to see Mathis in Italy. How Bond could travel to Italy, buy a Tom Ford cardigan for a few thousand dollars and charter a boat to Talamone without a single credit card is beyond me. But then again, the plot in Quantum of Solace has more holes than the Titanic so it is probably better not to go down that road...

                              "Could you do me a favour, you're gonna get a phone call in a minute, would you                                    mind telling them I'm headed for Cairo?" 

In return for providing the planes, the Ocean Sky jets featured prominently in the film, including an Ocean Sky service desk at Bregenz airport. The logotype has several minutes of screen time. 

Drax Air Freight - Varig Brazil

In Moonraker Bond goes to Rio to investigate the affairs of Hugo Drax. In a warehouse belonging to the importer firm 'C&W' (Carlos & Wilmsberg) in downtown Rio, Bond learns that Drax is moving his merchandise through his cargo airline 'Drax Air Freight'. Manuela tells Bond that 'Drax Air Freight' operates out of San Pedro Airport and Bond gets up to the Sugarloaf mountain to check it out.

The airport can be seen from the viewpoint on top of the mountain, no doubt one of the most famous tourist attractions in Rio. In reality the airport is called Santos Dumont Airport, after a Brazilian aviation pioneer. Why San Pedro was used instead of the real name is unclear.

The Varig star logo can vaguely be seen on the tail.

The Drax Air Freight plane however is a Lockheed L-188 Electra, in reality belonging to Varig Airways, the leading Brazilian airline at the time. The dark blue plane livery can be recognized if you compare Drax's plane with the Varig plane in the picture below. Santos Dumont airport was one of the main airports that Varig used in Brazil. In 1959 together with two other airlines, Varig had initiated an "air shuttle service" between Rio-Santos Dumont airport and São Paolo airport. The three airlines coordinated their schedules and operations and shared their revenue. Due to the success of this shuttle service led by Varig, it was abandoned only in 1999. The interesting fact is that this route was served exclusively by Varig's Lockheed L-188 Electra between 1975 and 1992 and the aircraft used on this route did not have the Varig name on the fuselage for the sake of neutrality to the other two airlines. This would have made it easy for the filmmakers to use one of Varig's aircraft in the film and put the name "Drax Air Freight" on the side, since the fuselage didn't have the Varig logo on it.

Copyright Bill Hough, used with permission. 

The Lockheed L-188 was developed in the 1950's by the American manufacturer Lockheed. It first flew in 1957 and was the first large American turboprop airliner. However, the engines would soon be replaced by turbojets and many of the aircraft that still used this engine type were modified as freighters.

Copyright Bill Hough - airliners.net. 

Another Varig aircraft, or at least the tail, can be seen behind the Concorde when Bond arrives in Rio. The Concorde did not land at Santos Dumont Airport however, but at the larger Galeão International Airport. Varig also receives a thank you in the end credits of the film.



Varig was the leading and almost only international airline in Brazil between the years 1965 and 1990. Beginning with the new millennium, Varig experienced financial difficulties and after a reconstruction and two failed attempts to auction the airline, Varig was split into two companies. The call sign ceased to exist in 2008.

On a Lockheed related subject, both the president and Goldfinger have private planes from the Lockheed company in Goldfinger. As Pussy Galore points out:
    "The humming means you're in Mr Goldfinger's Lockheed Jetstar heading for Baltimore."

Pendolino train to Casino Royale in Montenegro

Bond and Vesper are traveling to Montenegro for the poker game at Casino Royale. Vesper is contacting Bond in the restaurant car with the brilliant recognition code "I'm the money". The background story to the film states that Bond is suppose to trade place with Mr Arlington Beech on a station in Switzerland and travel down to Montenegro in his stead. This scene was however not relevant for the film.

As Bond and Vesper are enjoying their dinner in the restaurant car, the train passes a station with the name ''Chur Ost''. Chur is a city in the western part of Switzerland and although Chur West is a real station, Chur Ost does not exist. Apparently Chur is known as the oldest town in Switzerland. It is a contradiction that it says 'Montenegro' in the first scene, but you probably have to read into it that the train is on route for Montenegro, since (given the size of Montenegro) it is very unlikely that they would have time for dinner and a good nights sleep, before arriving at their destination the next morning if they were already in the country by time for dinner.

The Pendolino at Prague central station. Picture from Wikipedia.

In reality however, the train is not operating between Switzerland and Montenegro at all, since this is the Czech Railways' Pendolino fast train, also known as the ČD Class 680, operating between Prague, Slovakia and Austria.

The only indication that this train is connected to Montenegro is the fact that the logo has been changed from ČD, which is the Czech Railways symbol, to MEFT. The meaning of MEFT is unclear, but you can assume that the M stands for Montenegro.



"The treasury has agreed to stake you in the game."

The Czech Railways ordered the Pendolino train in 2000 and the first set of trains were delivered in late 2004. However a number of problems delayed it from entering into regular service for another year. The train entered regular service between Prague and Ostrava in December 2005. Today the Czech Railways' Pendolino trains operate routes between Prague and Ostrava, Bratislava and Vienna respectively.

Bond is having lamb for dinner and together with Vesper he shares a bottle of Château Angelus 1981. Also on the table are two bottles of Evian mineral water. They are in seat 47 and 44 respectively. I have not yet had the opportunity to try the Pendolino in the Czech Republic, but I doubt that they will stock 30 year old wines and serve well skewered lamb onboard.

"-How was your lamb?
           -Skewered. One sympathizes..."

The beautiful train curve is located in the eastern part of the Czech Republic, on the route between the cities Pardubice and Olomouc, more specifically just outside the city of Ústí nad Orlicí.


The train scene is definitely one of the many highlights in Casino Royale.

Virgin Atlantic, updated - still red hot

Casino Royale

The pin-up girl, called the Scarlet Lady, carrying the Union Jack is seen on every Virgin aircraft. 

Mi6-hq.com reported in late 2011 that Virgin Atlantic would once again be flying Bond in Skyfall. I thought it appropriate to look at the airline's previous engagements with the Bond series and I have now updated the post to include Skyfall. Virgin has featured in all three of Craig's film. Casino Royale 2006, marked the change not only from Brosnan as Bond, but also from British Airways as Bond's choice of airline (featured in Die another day and GoldenEye).

Virgin's Airbus A340-600 seen in the background

Even though Bond never flies with Virgin in the film, several airplanes and a Virgin Atlantic catering truck can be seen during the action at Miami airport. The airplanes featured in the film are all the biggest and longest in the Virgin fleet. All the scenes were filmed at Prague International airport doubling for Miami, something that becomes obvious when, at one point, a plane from Czech airlines (CSA) is seen in the background. This airline does not fly to Miami.

Virgin's Boeing 747-400

Sir Richard Branson, the founder and owner of Virgin even has a cameo in the film. Branson is being searched by a security guard when the terrorist enters the airport, watched by Bond. Since British Airways and Virgin Atlantic have been bitter rivals for many years, both the Virgin airplanes and Sir Richard himself were edited out of the in-flight movies shown on board of all British Airways flights. No hard feelings eh?
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Quantum of solace
Bond and Mathis are flying to Bolivia in pursuit of Dominic Greene. They have chosen the upper class at Virgin Atlantic, which can be described as other airlines first class sections. The upper class features a bar and other amenities like seats converting to fully flat beds. The overhead compartments indicates that they are supposed to be flying on a Boeing 747.

Bond is spending most of his time in the bar during the flight. A flight attendant is behind the bar with a Virgin name tag visible. He is serving Bond Vespers made from Smirnoff black, Gordon's gin (for the UK market) and Lillet Blanc. The bottles, among others like Bacardi and J&B can be seen in the bar. Bond drinks at least six Vespers instead of sleeping and still manages to look more alert than Mathis upon their arrival in La Paz. It must be the suit...
                             "Six of them..."
                                       -Flight attendant to Mathis-

The logo is visible behind Bond in the cabin but a Virgin airplane is never seen in the film. Quantum qualifies as one of the worst films in the series (together with Die another day and Diamonds are forever), due to the poor story, extreme cutting, lack of dialogue and too much action. It is a pity that a scene with a Virgin airplane in-flight or filmed landing in Bolivia (similar to the scene in Die another day) didn't appear in the film.

Upper class at the Boeing 747-400

Since Virgin does not fly to any destinations in South America (a factual error in the film), it is possible that Bond and Mathis have changed airline in the USA or the Caribbean. But of course in the world of Bond, Virgin flies everywhere.
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Skyfall

Virgin Atlantic has a very brief encounter with Bond in Skyfall which only includes the presence of some Virgin Atlantic signs at Shanghai Airport. It is probably meant to look like check-in counters but upon closer inspection it's just signs with the logotype. They are only visible for a second in the background to the left of the 'arrivals exit'. Bond is posing as a chauffeur in order to blend in with the crowd when Patrice arrives. The reason why they didn't use real check-in counters is due to the fact that the airport scene was filmed at the Royal Ascot Racecourse in Berkshire that doubled for Shanghai airport.

Patrice is arriving in Shanghai on EWA flight 226. This can refer to 'EVA air', an airline based in Taiwan and the second largest Taiwanese airline. It would make sense since the action is taking place close to Taiwan.  But since the 'EVA air' flight number should have been EVA not EWA, it is more likely that the flight number has no relevance.

A 747 from EVA air, a likely choice when flying to Shanghai

An airline that actually used the abbreviation EWA was the Australian airline 'East West Airlines'. This was a domestic airline that ceased operations in the early 1990's. The fact that no airline uses this abbreviation today can be the reason why they choose to have it in the film.






Virgin Atlantic did a Bond style commercial in 2011, well worth watching:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Hbib-A6NpW8

and another one celebrating their 25th anniversary. Both are excellent and funny commercials:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cM4EOeJzHA