Concept cars playing feature roles in movies is nothing new. Typically those concept cars preview future cars or future design directions. In a rare twist, the Aston Martin DB10, which was featured in the James Bond movie “Spectre,” was actually based on the then-forthcoming production version of the 2019 Vantage.
Speaking with a Aston Martin spokesman, Motor Authority has learned that when the team producing “Spectre” approached Aston Martin in search of a worthy vehicle for Mr. Bond, the design of the 2019 Vantage was complete. The movie crew saw the car and said, “We want that.”
ALSO SEE: 2019 Aston Martin Vantage debuts with bold look, raucous V-8
Obviously Aston Martin wasn’t willing to put its unannounced car into the film before it was ready to be shown to the public, so it agreed to make a new car, dubbed the DB10, specifically for the movie. The design would be based off of the new Vantage but would be different enough not to give it away.
Having sat in both the a DB10 featured in the Bond flick, and the new 2019 Vantage, I can tell you that the similarities and differences are both striking and apparent.
In person, the overall proportions between the two cars are nearly the same, but it’s in the specific design details where the exteriors depart from one another.
The DB10 has a round, smooth front end with flowing lines on the hood, a strong crease down each door from the front fender vents, and taillights that nearly wrap into the rear fenders but don’t flow completely across the rear end.
The 2019 Vantage features a front grille that sits low like the DB10’s, but it’s wider and far more pronounced with a Vulcan-like lip around it that can be optioned in carbon fiber, body color, or contrasting color. The hood features a power dome instead of the DB10’s flowing lines, and the headlights aren’t as long or swept back as the Bond car. The fender vents on the Vantage are more pronounced, and they are even available in black metal if carbon fiber or body color isn’t your thing. The crease on the door features slightly more sculpting than the one on the DB10. The rear is also a large departure from the movie car, with taillights that flow all the way across and a lower diffuser that’s even more aggressive than the one on the DB10.
Entering the Vantage via the swan-style doors (which open slightly upward as they swing outward) you’ll find an interior, that like the exterior, is both different yet familiar to the DB10’s. The steering wheels share the same overall shape, and the interior switch gear in both cars all feels and looks chunky with easy-to-use buttons and knobs, though the production Vantage features a lot more controls and switches. The Vantage’s gauge cluster shares its overall design with the DB10’s, with a large, round, speedometer front and center. However, the DB10 has analog gauges, while the all of the Vantage’s gauges are digital.
The short and long of it, the DB10 looks like a smoother, more luxurious GT compared to the Vantage, which looks more aggressive and sportier.
However, the DB10 is a single-purpose movie car that customers weren’t going to use in the real world. It would just be driven by Bond…to save the world.
This article, written by Joel Feder, was originally published on MotorAuthority, an editorial partner of ClassicCars.com.
It seems like they are going out of their way to retain the signature Aston Martin grill shape even if it is an unattractive afterthought, like it is on the Vantage. It actually looks a little better on the DB10, but not much. Many other brands have managed to incorporate historically significant elements into their vehicles without making such a mess of it. Reduce it to the size of a lower scoop and put fog lights on either side of it, perhaps. Or just consider letting Ford have it. They’ve certainly done a better job of integrating it, even if it was by accident.