The Aston Martin DB5 is James Bond's most iconic car, but one 007 actor never actually drove one in a film: Roger Moore. Kicking off with Sean Connery as the suave British secret agent in 1962's Dr. No, five other actors have portrayed James Bond across 25 films. The current and longest-serving Bond, Daniel Craig, drove the classic Aston Martin in 2012's Skyfall, 2015's Spectre, and 2020's No Time To Die, which is expected to be his final outing as 007 (though he also drove another version in Casino Royale). However, Roger Moore, the actor with the second-longest tenure as 007, never got behind the wheel of the famed automobile.
Bond's silver Aston Martin DB5 debuted in 1964's Goldfinger, where it instantly became the quintessential 007 gadget. Equipped with machine guns, tire slashers, a bulletproof screen, oil slick dispensers, and even an ejector seat, the tricked-out DB5 became as synonymous with James Bond as the Batmobile is to Batman. 007's Aston Martin returned in 1965's Thunderball but George Lazenby's James Bond drove an Aston Martin DBS in 1969's On Her Majesty's Secret Service. When Sean Connery finally retired as Bond after 1971's Diamonds Are Forever (where the DBS was glimpsed but not driven), the Aston Martin was retired as 007's signature vehicle. In the 1980s, Timothy Dalton's James Bond drove an Aston Martin V8 Volante before the DB5 came back, with Pierce Brosnan's 007 behind the wheel, in 1995's GoldenEye. The classic DB5 returned again during the Daniel Craig era and it was destroyed during Skyfall's climactic battle before it was rebuilt by Q (Ben Whishaw) in Spectre.
Roger Moore, however, drove many different vehicles instead of an Aston Martin during his 7-film run as James Bond from 1973's Live And Let Die to 1985's A View To A Kill. In fact, Moore's 007's became synonymous with the white Lotus Esprit S1 in 1977's The Spy Who Loved Me; this supercar became world-famous when it transformed into a submarine and it was the apex gadget of Moore's run as 007. Sadly, the Lotus S1 submarine was destroyed in the film, but in 1981's For Your Eyes Only, Moore's Bond was back to driving a new Lotus, this time a red Turbo. Yet as popular as the Lotus was during Moore's era, the Aston Martin would inevitably return after Roger retired as 007.
The reason Roger Moore never drove an Aston Martin as James Bond (he did drive one on TV in The Persuaders! before he was 007) was because of a concerted effort to differentiate Moore's incarnation of Bond from Sean Connery's. Along with eschewing the Aston Martin, Moore's 007 initially smoked cigars instead of cigarettes and used a Smith & Wesson handgun instead of a Walther PPK (although Moore would eventually switch back to Bond's signature weapon).
When Moore's James Bond movies became wildly popular and profitable - proving Roger as a sturdy replacement for Sean Connery - companies and brands flocked to the 007 films for product placement opportunities. This included Lotus, which provided Moore's most famous vehicles. The Lotus was also sleeker and sportier - less recognizably "British" - than the Aston Martin, which further helped popularize Moore's James Bond with global audiences. In short, the Lotus brought a different type of "cool factor" to 007 that epitomized the late-1970s and the emerging Me Decade of the 1980s.
Ironically, the fact that Pierce Brosnan's Bond films had a licensing deal with BMW didn't prevent his James Bond from driving an Aston Martin in GoldenEye. However, every Bond actor after Roger Moore - even Daniel Craig - has displayed spiritual links to Sean Connery's original version. Instead, Roger Moore truly tried to differentiate his version of James Bond from his immediate predecessor. This included leaving Sean Connery's famous Aston Martin in Q's garage so that Roger Moore's James Bond could blaze his own path in his own cool cars.
