An exhibition of 50 vehicles featured in James Bond action movies opens on Tuesday at the National Motor Museum in southern England to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the famous spy saga.
The James Bond movies are the longest continually-running film series in history, having been in ongoing production from 1962 to the present. The series has grossed just over $5 billion to date.
The Bond In Motion exhibition, which will run until December 2012, showcases a range of Bond vehicles from 22 films, including cars, boats, motorbikes, sleds, jets and more.
The exhibition has largely been assembled from two major collections — one owned by the U.S.-based Ian Fleming Foundation and another owned by Eon Productions, which makes the Bond films.
The stars of the show are, undoubtedly, the iconic silver 1964 Aston Martin DB5 from Goldfinger and the 1937 Rolls-Royce Phantom III from the same movie.
Other fan-loved vehicles include the underwater-driven Lotus Esprit S1 from the Roger Moore movie The Spy Who Loved Me, the Bede Acrostar mini jet from Octopussy and even the famous cello case used as a sled during a snow chase in The Living Daylights.
The long-awaited new installment in the James Bond movie series, Skyfall, is slated for release on October 26 in the UK and November 9 in the United States.