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In 2015, I was in Rome during the filming of the car chase sequence for the movie ‘Spectre’. On the streets of the Italian capital, Mr. Hinx chased James Bond in a Jaguar C-X75 car, who was escaping in Aston Martin DB10.
On March 8, filming was taking place on Via Montana Street. A scene was then created in which the chase takes place on a long straight section of the street ending with a sharp right turn. Just before the turn, Bond tried unsuccessfully to shoot at the enemy, but was prevented from doing so by lack of ammunition.
All the cars were parked in front of Ministero delle Infrastrutture e dei Transporti at Piazzale di Porta Pia. There were only two cars – one Aston Martin DB10 and one Jaguar C-X75 in the scene, however there were more of them on the set.
About 10 p.m. everybody on a street could hear engines running – the sound was like on a pit lane on a race track. At first the tracking vehicle with cameras on rigs left the parking lot.
Some time later Jaguar C-X75 with license plate “ROMA 860K” appeared and drove away on Via Montana Street.
And finally the Jaguar DB10 left the parking lot and the filming began.
On March 10th the final scene of the chase was shot at the Tiber river in Rome. Cars were riding on a road next to the river that you can in a picture below. The crew occupied for the film the street along the river between Umberto 1st bridge and Sisto bridge and there were crew trucks at Ponte Umberto 1st bridge. I was surprised checking that place in Google Street View. In September 2014 when pictures for google were taken, there were trucks of another film crew in the exactly same place!
Along the river there were film lamps prepared for night shooting. After sunset all city lamps and film lamps were on.
The film crew started preparations for shooting. During the day at the Ponte Umberto 1st bridge there were only crew truck parked. In the evening there were many vehicles including tracking vehicle and several Aston Martins and Jaguars on a road at the river.
The film crew carefully checked the place where the chase was supposed to end with the Aston Martin crashing into the water.
In the movie there was only one Jaguar chasing one Aston Martin, however on the set there were 3 Aston Martins DB10 and 5 Jaguars C-X75 among only 7 existing in the world. 4 Jaguars were standing in one row next to each other, but the last one was parked a few meters from them with sheet of paper by wiper with „FLAME PROOFED DO NOT TOUCH NON TOCCARE” written on it. All of them had the same license plates numbers: “ROMA860K”. Two Aston Martins had paper sheets by wipers with „NO SMOKING” written on them.
There was one Jaguar and one Aston Martin with remote drive POD system mounted on roofs. Using such system, stunt driver can drive a car sitting in metal cage on a roof of the car, while actor is sitting inside, pretending steering. Seven years after visiting the set, Martin Ivanov, who was stunt driver driving the Jaguar told me: I was driving in POD on Jaguar. I remember that this POD was very strange. We were rehearsing for two or maybe more weeks just driving that POD and trying hand brakes, drifting. It was very hard to drive POD on the Jaguar. It didn’t work as we wanted. The steering was super heavy and not responsive. At the end we used it for maybe three hours one night and that was it. We just drove straight on the street. That was just a few seconds in the movie. (Interview with Martin Ivanov – stunt driver who has played in 4 James Bond films)
Around 10 p.m. Aston Martin DB10 and Jaguar C-X75 drove onto the road.
At the end of the scene Aston Martin DB10 landed in the river. Six years later, I asked Mark Higgins, who was a stunt driver in an Aston Martin on the set of the film, if he was behind the wheel when the car plunged into the river. He said: No. I think it was on an air ramp so it was actually fired like from a cannon. So we didn’t get to swimming on that one, but me and Martin (Ivanov, who was driving Jaguar C-X75) had to do some underwater testing in a swimming pool at night. We had breathing apparatuses in the cars all the time just in case they went into the water. Just in case something would brake when we were driving along the river or driving down the stairs towards the water. There were always divers around but me and Martin had to go to a swimming pool in the evening and just practice moving the regulator and things like that. (Interview with Mark Higgins – stunt driver who has played in 4 James Bond films) There was no engine in that car. It was filled with foam so it was not sinking fast.
Before Bond ejected, he set fire to the Jaguar following him. I asked Martin Ivanov how it was filmed. He said: We put protection on ebonite on Jaguar. There were gas tanks or something like that mounted in the car. When the fire from Aston hit the Jaguar the gas caught fire.
Go to LOCATIONS GALLERY – ‘SPECTRE’ to see locations photos compared with movie scenes.
JAMES BOND 