For his first outing as 007 James Bond in "Goldeneye", Pierce Brosnan got to drive this BMW Z3 1.9 litre roadster as his "Bond car". I'm sure he felt short changed as up to then he was more likely to have been driving an Aston Martin or Lotus Esprit, either of which would have been preferable to this hairdressers special! The movie was released in November 1995 a few months before the Z3 went on general sale. BMW got alot of publicity for their new sports car through the 007 link, which pleased them no end. The Z3 is a nice car, but it's just not a Bond car! Especially not the base model with it's weedy 1.9 litre four. A 2.8 or 3.0 litre version or better still the Z3M would have been better suited, but these were not available at the time. Hence it is probably the lamest Bond car since the Citroen 2CV Roger Moore drove in "For Your Eyes Only"!
The car only had a brief exposure in the film, none of it central to the plot. We first see it in Q's laboratory where he explains to Bond how it has "the standard features" including "all points radar" (whatever that means!) and missiles behind the front foglights. None of the gadgetry supposedly on the car is used in the movie. About halfway through the movie we see Bond and the main Bondgirl (the beautiful Isabella Scurrupco) in the car briefly, before Bond swaps it for a Cessna light aircraft flown in by a CIA agent. And that's it!
UT made this model of the Goldeneye Z3, and it was one of the first of many versions of the Z3 roadster and coupe they released. Frankly it is one of their worst models ever and in no way reflects the average standard of UT models which tended to combine good value with high quality (a rare feat). There are no brake calipers, just featureless plastic discs, the front headlights do not look right, the interior is extremely plasticky, the boot lid does not open and the engine bay detail is average. Hence it only gets 35% (a low score for a UT). What earns it it's 35% is the nice blue paintjob and the fact that it is reasonably well made and of course the only Bond version of the Z3 available (hence a must have for a James Bond car collector like me). UT have now become part of the Gateway/AUTOart company, and no longer make this Z3. Before they stopped production, a newer version of the Z3 (the facelifted version of the car with the new look rear end that was introduced around 1999 by BMW) was released that had most of the faults I mentioned above corrected. It has realistic engine bay and headlights, a higher quality interior and an opening boot. I have an orange facelifted Z3 2.8i in my collection as well.
Not the best Bond related model in my collection then, but fits in well with my DB-5 Aston Martins, BMW Z8 and Lotus Esprits.
35%
