Roger Moore is effortlessly cool. Some say he can’t act, but then some also say the Loch Ness Monster is real. One thing that can’t be disputed is that Moore’s taste in cars remains impeccable. Here we run down the top five cars our Roger has personally endorsed. Good enough for Sir Roger, good enough for us.
When you pair Roger Moore and automobiles together, that ever-lingering 007 connection is never far away. Yet, the James Bond shadow masks some hidden gems from Sir Roger's personal garage. Forget about The Saint, The Persuaders or The Cannonball Run, as searching for glimpses of Moore behind the wheel will purely result in his epic appearances on screen - very little can be found to do with his personal set of wheels. So, we've done a bit of digging around in the archives to see what CCFS could find.
5. Smart Electric
Yes, 007 currently drives an Electric Smart Car due to space restrictions in Monaco. Let's move on.
4. Renault 5
1985's A View To A Kill may be the first calling point upon the mention of Roger and Renault together, but what you may not know is that Rog' used to dart around in a perky little Renault 5. Whether this little slice of French chic is still buried away in a garage somewhere is unknown - but all we can be sure of is that the image of Sir Brett Sinclair in a tatty-old Renualt 5 is very, very cool.
3. Jaguar XK150
When under contract by MGM during the 1950s, Sir Roger could be found wafting around the California mountains in his 1956 Jaguar XK150. Having trouble with your Jaguar? Well, you and the British king of cool have something in common.
Driving his XK150 to the set every day, it started to develop the unpleasant habit of stalling and stopping. Degrading to the point where starting the big cat became a battery flattening experience, Sir Roger turned up at the Jaguar dealership on Hollywood Boulevard asking for assistance. After being told they couldn’t look at it for at least two days, Moore threatened to drive it through the forecourt glass wall to help with their ‘publicity’. Something he later helped AMC with during The Man With The Golden Gun. Unsurprisingly, his Jaguar was serviced pronto and never proved a nuisance again.
2. Volvo P1800
Ol’ Sir Rog continues to hold a soft spot for Sweden’s premier estate car manufacturer, but Moore’s fondness for Volvo didn’t stem from the trademark box on wheels, but rather, from the saintly P1800. As part of the publicity deal Volvo enjoyed with The Saint’s producers, Moore was given a pearly white P1800S to use as a personal hack.
Simon Templar himself enjoyed his time behind the wheel of his Volvo so much that, despite venturing through Lotus Esprits, Range Rovers, Rolls-Royces and Jaguars, his affiliation with Volvo continues to this day. His latest addition is a Volvo C70, which he had delivered to his home in Monaco. Eyebrow raising, indeed, but it’s not our favourite…
1. Rover SD1
Even through the intensive barrage of publicity Lotus pushed forwards during production of The Spy Who Loved Me, Roger had his eye on something a tad more revolutionary. The ‘other James Bond car’ of that year was a Midas Gold Rover SD1 3500. Saucy.
Taking delivery of the Rover on 20 August 1976 at Pinewood Studios, the trail thereafter goes cold. What we do know is that the tax expired back on 1 November 1983. Sadly, it looks as though OUL 334R met the big metal claw over thirty years ago. However, as far as cool cars with cool owners goes, this is the pinnacle example to beat all others.