7. Ford Mustang Mach I

Starred in:

• Diamonds Are Forever (1971, Sean Connery) — $155 million*

For his adventure in glittering Las Vegas, Bond secures a suitably flashy car, a red 1971 Mustang Mach I. This muscle car has a body style known as a fastback, for its smoothly sloped backside.

In a stunt-packed chase sequence, Bond uses the car to escape a swarm of local police. He drives it over the roofs of parked cars and (most famously) tips up on two wheels to squeeze down a narrow pedestrian alley.

Like many of the cars Bond drives, this one is not actually his; it belongs to yet another Bond conquest, diamond smuggler Tiffany Case (played by Jill St. John).

Although a hot-rodded version of the standard Mustang, the 1971 Mach I failed to ignite the same passion among car enthusiasts as its precursors. A redesign that year left the car larger and heavier. Then tougher U.S. safety and emissions laws conspired to dampen its performance even further.

But perhaps most importantly, many considered the new styling a step in the wrong direction — flat and uninspired compared to previous Mustangs. To purists, who look to the first-generation Mustang as the ultimate Ford pony car, the 1971 redesign marked the beginning of the end of the Mustang golden years. Despite its Bond connection, the car went into a sales slump.

The Gadgets:

None, but it can pop a sideways wheelie.

Did You Know …

• Bond has tipped vehicles up on two wheels at least three times, but the stunt is most closely associated with — and best remembered from — Diamonds Are Forever. It would be more than a decade before audiences saw the maneuver again, with a Mercedes-Benz in Octopussy (1983), then a tractor-trailer in License to Kill (1989).

• The film shows the Mustang Mach I tipped one way going into the alley, but tipped the other way as it exits. This classic continuity error supposedly happened because the stunt was shot on two separate occasions with two different stunt drivers. During the initial filming, it was not possible to get a usable shot as the car exited the alley because of onlookers crowded in the background. After doing the stunt again later, a different problem emerged. The filmmakers realized — apparently too late — that the second stunt driver tipped the car up on the wrong two wheels. To account for the inconsistency, the final cut of the film inserts a shot of Sean Connery and Jill St. John in the car as it goes through the alley, where the car switches sides. It plops down on all four wheels then tips up the opposite way — even though the alley would have been too narrow for that.

• This film features the first American Bond girl — Jill St. John, who plays Tiffany Case.

• An Aston Martin DBS gets a cameo appearance. Shown in the workshop, it is being tricked out with rockets.