AFTER 24 movies spanning more than half a century, the Bond franchise has brought us some great cars.

Who can forget the iconic Aston Martin DB5 from Goldfinger, the scene-stealing submersible Lotus Esprit from ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’ or the beautiful Toyota 2000GT Roadster in ‘You Only Live Twice’? But for every hero car there’s a whole cornucopia of stinkers. We’ve lined up ten of the best here for your consideration – if you can think of any that are worse than this collection of clunkers, let us know in the comments or email us at wheels@wheelsmag.com.au

Renault 11 A View To A Kill was never a Bond movie for the connoisseur. Roger Moore’s final outing saw him at his most hackneyed and arthritic, the most entertaining sequences being those where the 57-year-old was forced to run. Moore himself stated that it was his least favourite Bond film, and mentioned that he was mortified to discover that he was older than his female co-star’s mother.

Volvo S40 Prize for most obscure car JB ever drove? That could very well be the unassuming Volvo S40 rental that Daniel Craig drives in Quantum of Solace. Towards the end of the Pierce Brosnan era, Ford went a bit crazy with its product placement, loading the movies with cars from its subsidiary brands, Aston Martin, Jaguar, Land Rover and Volvo. This carried over into the early Daniel Craig films, the Volvo Bond drove to Bregenz being a metallic grey S40 T5 R-Design. In case you were wondering, it was also specified with power seats, an armrest/cupholder, Premium Sound 6 CD player and came with a can of mobility tyre sealant.

BMW Z3 1.9 Another era, another piece of crass product placement. Powered by a mighty 1.9-litre four-cylinder engine, the BMW Z3 that Pierce Brosnan drove in his debut, Goldeneye, didn’t have enough power to shift a hair from his immaculately-moulded coif. Q branch had considerately made the car bullet proof, fitted Stinger missiles behind the headlights, given it a radar system, a self-destruct mode and an emergency parachute braking system, for when the 103kW became too terrifying.

Citroen 2CV Step up a performance bracket from the wheezing Z3 and you arrive at the yellow Citroen 2CV used in the 1981 jaunt For Your Eyes Only. Bond found himself in a 2CV after some crook looked askance at his Lotus Esprit’s wiring loom and the car spontaneously exploded. He chivalrously demotes its crossbow-wielding lady owner to the passenger seat and then proceeds to show her the sort of moves that, for some reason, Victoria Police take offence to when performed in the safe and controlled environment of a McDonald’s parking lot.

Ford Mondeo 2.5 ST You could see the look on Daniel Craig’s face. “My first Bond film and I’m driving a Ford bloody Mondeo?” Well you could have if he wasn’t wearing sunnies and possessed of all the emotional range of a sponge. Things got better later in the movie when he was upgraded to an Aston, but the opening scene in the Bahamas sees Bond appear in the Ford, like some sort of vacationing key account manager.

Triumph Stag Sean Connery was one of the pioneers of on-screen identity theft as he ‘became’ Peter Franks in ‘Diamonds Are Forever’, purloining Mr Franks’ Saffron Yellow Triumph Stag and driving it onto a hovercraft. It successfully negotiated the 400 metre journey onto the vessel without overheating, suffering an alternator failure or lunching its valves which marked it as one of the better examples.

Leyland Sherpa Watching ‘Jaws’ dismember a Leyland Sherpa van in ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’ wasn’t unlike a class trip I remember, where our school’s Sherpa was systematically destroyed from the inside out during a visit to the Science Museum. We didn’t have Roger Moore to casually regurgitate a series of sexist one-liners to Barbara Bach. Instead we had Mr Cunliffe who spent all day walking around the museum with a giant penis drawn onto the back of his shell suit.

AMC Hornet It’s hard to watch ‘The Man With The Golden Gun’ and not get overly absorbed in Scaramanga’s third nipple, but if you can look beyond this particular show stopper, Bond’s corkscrew jump over a Bangkok klong in an AMC Hornet is well worth your time. Brit stuntman Bumps Williard was relying on the outputs of a Cornell University computer program and a team of experts who had modified the Hornet with a central steering wheel and more suspension compliance.

Lincoln Mk VII LSC There are worse cars than the Lincoln Mk VII Luxury Sport Coupe that appeared in ‘Licence To Kill’. On the plus side of the ledger, it had a five-litre V8 and, well, now I’m struggling, but the issue with this car was tone. It just looked so wrong for England’s super-spy to be climbing out of a car that you’d probably more readily associate with a Taco Bell franchisee.

Everything in ‘Die Another Day’ Where to start with this one? ‘Die Another Day’ is a true collector’s piece, the alpha and omega of bad Bond. It’s Brosnan at his cheesiest, with joyously horrible CGI, laugh-out-loud silly stunts, Madonna as a fencing instructor, invisible cars, almost continuous explosions and $70m worth of paid-for product placement. For the ludicrous ice driving scenes, the stunt Aston Vanquish and Jaguar XKR cars were completely stripped of engine and running gear.