Spy shots: What James Bond's future cars could look like

Designer - Francis John: Francis John proposes a plot into which his new-era Lexus supercar fits perfectly. Bond is in Japan chasing down Hideaki Heger, an international criminal intent on infiltrating MI6 with a strain of humanoid robots.

Using “futurised” Lexus design cues, this special Superfast coupé is specially built and provided for Bond by a regional ally, Shiro Nagawe. It’s powered by a permanent-magnet electric motor whose 1200bhp is matched by 1200lb ft of torque. The car’s performance is immense – possibly a mite too great for Kyoto, the ancient Japanese city in which the designer suggests much of the action should take place.

Spectacular though it all may sound, John’s best on-paper achievement is to power the car with an ultra-rapid-charging, 1360kWh solid-state battery that he reckons can yield a 600-mile range.

Naturally, the armaments and defences smack of the future: a sentinel-protected, sealed and isolated cabin shields occupants against everything from old-fashioned bullets to biochemical exposure.

The Lexus’s primary assault weapon is a pair of laser-guided cannons, but the car can also drop novel pneumatic air canisters the size of cricket balls from a rear compartment. They instantly expand to many times their original size either to create roadblocks for pursuers or to explode under chasing cars and throw them off the road.

Commended: Aston Martin Concept

Designer - Tonglian Xia: Here’s a designer deliberately making life hard for himself by bidding to out-design Aston Martin – by far the most frequent provider of Bond cars. But he succeeds admirably.

Tonglian Xia presents several alternatives here, the most arresting of which is a blue-sided design with a superb-looking flat-plane surface below the windows that effortlessly assumes a curvature as it runs forward to the front wheel arch. It’s quite different from current Astons, yet the provenance is unmistakable. There’s also a massive, muscular haunch over the rear wheel – an obvious Aston reference but a copy of nothing.

“The side surfacing of the body is deliberately flat ahead of the door shutline,” explains Xia. “To me, it’s inspired by the suits James Bond wears. He’s an English gentleman, so the car needs to be very clean and elegant, too.”

One spectacular feature is the confident, egg-crate design of Aston’s grille, whose design takes inspiration from origami, the Japanese art of paper-folding. Again, the Aston reference is fresh but unmistakable.

What about armaments? It has plenty, but its details are secret, and the designer has decided not to reveal exactly how Bond will defend himself in 2030. “He’s a gentleman,” says Xia. “He’s not the type to show off his weaponry.”

Commended: Maserati Bond Concept

Designer - Tianyu Zhang: Now we move to Italy, because designer Tianyu Zhang believes that its capital, Rome, provides some of the world’s most spectacular opportunities for a plot comprising both romantic locations and all-out action.

Zhang likes the juxtaposition of Bond’s ultra-modern supercar escaping his enemies with the Colosseum in the background. He bases his design on the atmosphere created in the Fast and Furious productions, with a helping of Transformers thrown in, because this car has active body components that can configure it radically for extreme stability at high speed.

Maserati is the marque that Zhang has chosen for Bond (the first time Britain’s greatest secret agent has taken the wheel of such a car), because the designer believes it has the right components of style and cool. The body is ultra low, for spectacularly good stability and aerodynamics, and also to present a small target to pursuers.

The Bond Concept’s main form of motive power is battery-electric motors on all wheels, but also there’s a bank of nitrogen-powered rocket boosters in reserve at the rear for when 007 strikes trouble and needs a really rapid getaway

Runner-up: Aston Martin Off-Roader

Designer - Yuteng Ha: Reckon the new DBX is all the offroader Aston Martin needs? Try this all-terrain assault vehicle for 2030 from designer Yuteng Ma, designed to help 007 beat his enemies whatever the road conditions.

“Villains always seem to chase James Bond over complex terrain in Land Rovers or other familiar off-roaders,” says Ma. “That inspired me to create a much more dramatic Aston off-roader that can cope with any surface and leap over any obstacle, from the deserts of the Middle East to the grasslands of Africa.”

The Off-Roader is electrically powered, with hydrogen fuel cells on board. There’s a forwardfacing driver’s seat and a rearward-facing seat for operating the car’s variety of weapons. Among them, missiles are hidden in the front bumper, while smoke canisters can be released from the rear to disguise the Off-Roader’s departure route.

The armaments seat has a selection of good old-fashioned hand weapons (machine gun, sniper rifle), because when he’s in escape mode and on his own, 007 can simply stick the car in autonomous drive, swap seats to where the weapons are and set about defending himself. We’re keen to see this one in the movies…

Runner-up: Genesis X 007

Designer - Tanay Nandanwar: Basing his design on James Bond’s own character (“unpredictable, classy, stealthy”), designer Tanay Nandanwar introduces the 007 franchise to Genesis, a marque new to the UK car market as well.

Nandanwar reckons the next Bond movie is likely to be based in South-East Asia, which is his reason for choosing a brand from that region. He believes the class and cost of the cars, especially, match Bond’s persona very well.

The proportions of the X 007 also reflect the power and dominance of Bond’s character, says the designer. The car is sleek, but its compact proportions imply agility, while the innovative intersecting lines and surfaces on the sides inject a satisfactory helping of complexity and style.

In contrast to some other proposals, this one is proposed as capable of autonomous driving (perhaps freeing Bond to engage in other life-preserving activities on the move). The defence-cum-assault weapons are plasma cannons accompanied by electromagnetic-pulse grenade-launchers.

However, this design’s most spectacular feature is a drone-like escape pod carried on exploding mountings that provide occupants with an abrupt means of departure from the bulk of its surface-borne mother vehicle if it were to get into trouble and need to evacuate the scene.

Winner: Polestar 007

Designer - Joao Neiva: For proposed 2030 movie action in a snowy region near Sweden’s Kebnekaise mountain, Bond naturally drives a Polestar 007. At least that’s how João Neiva, our winning student designer, sees it.

He proposes a coupé that makes good use of Polestar’s distinctive design cues while adding even more geometric surfaces: flat shoulders at the sides plus big front air intakes covered by aggressive-looking, long, straight headlights.