Sir Roger Moore: Remembering the Man, and the Cars Behind the Eyebrow

You’ll have to forgive this author. It’s hard to see your heroes die, and today brought yet another sad moment, another painful departure of a silver screen idol. Roger Moore — Sir Roger Moore, to be exact — has died at the age of 89.

As an admittedly Bond-obsessed youth, a great childhood moment was walking up and touching the white submersible Lotus Esprit from the 1977 film The Spy Who Loved Me at a car show. The signs said no touching, but screw that. I wanted to touch a car Roger Moore touched.

Roger Moore was my hero. With honorable mentions to Sean Connery and Clint Eastwood, no one was cooler. The man’s British wit, even if it came in the form of a lewd or eye-rolling one-liner, made a lasting impact. And what a dresser. But it was the addition of very cool cars to Moore’s combination of suave confidence and self-deprecating humility that made the man so iconic.

For a man once quoted as saying, “My acting range? Left eyebrow raised, right eyebrow raised,” Moore was allowed no shortage of fun behind the wheel. Let’s enjoy some of those moments.

While I consider For Your Eyes Only as Moore’s best turn as James Bond (the franchise was in dire need of some seriousness after Moonraker), the campiness of his first two outings contain worthwhile moments. For one thing, is there a more obvious product placement than the Chevrolets filling every minute of Live and Let Die or the awkward AMCs of The Man With the Golden Gun?

Honestly, I can imagine an impoverished Caribbean police force with a fleet of Chevy Novas. Harlem in the early 1970s? Maybe every vehicle was an Impala. What’s less easy to believe is a high-flying secret agent and a millionaire assassin with three nipples preferring the confines of a Hornet and Matador.

No, the Lotus Esprit and Esprit Turbo in The Spy Who Loved Me and For Your Eyes Only were much more tasteful. Never mind the scene where Bond rolls down the window after his submarine adventure and hands a fish to a dumbfounded beachgoer (causing every thinking person in the audience to realize there’s no way that fish could have got there unless both he and Agent XXX drowned, or he stashed it in the glove box for just such an opportunity).

Because Bond is perfectly capable behind the wheel of anything with an engine, even with no prior experience, the double decker bus chase is another notable mention. Especially that slick 180 — who knew a bus was so stable in a slide?

The classic Volvo P1800 Moore drove in the TV series The Saint or the Aston Martin DBS from The Persuaders! deserve mentions, as does the Citroen 2CV in his 1981 Bond film (which is tarnished only by comedic scenes that bookend the movie). C’mon, Margaret Thatcher? Really?

Still, that particular movie showed Moore — often characterized as a lover, not a fighter — being a pretty ruthless Bond, as well as being fairly good at hitting moving targets with a .32-caliber Walther. Just look at what he does to this baddie and his S-Class!

While there’s no shortage of other vehicles Moore drove as Bond, these are the scenes which stand out in my childhood memories. You’ll probably remember others.

The B&B might have other plans tonight, but I plan to sit back, put my feet up, crack a beer and enjoy a full-length Moore movie. Here’s to you, Sir Roger.