StanleyVanBuren
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- Pacific Palisades, CA
Everyone remembers the three-piece suit Sean Connery wore in Goldfinger. Or the tuxedo he slipped out of a wetsuit to reveal in the opening sequence. Or even his golf attire, as pictured above.
But what would any of these style choices be without proper transportation to go along with them? I'm speaking, of course, of the Aston Martin DB5. It's as much a part of the James Bond image as anything else in Goldfinger. We remember the car just as much as the clothes, if not more so. This particular year and model has reached such iconic status it seems to keep popping up again in even the most recent 007 incantations.
This brilliant choice of car was crucial, because style isn't just the clothes or the way you cut your hair, it's the complete image.
And that's something that people sometimes forget when concentrating so hard on getting one thing just right. The others may fall to the wayside. I recall a recent conversation I had with an acquaintance about style and fashion. Throughout the conversation he slowly rose up the pegs on the sartorial ladder as he impressed me with his knowledge of things armholes and the like. Then I asked what he drove and got a look like "Well what does that have to do with anything? Here we've been having a lovely conversation about clothes and you have to turn to something like cars. How dare you." I then learned that he drove a Ford Focus and didn't see how it mattered... And he plummeted right back down again to where he was when we started the conversation.
Same goes for guys who buy brilliant cars and then dress like crap, but that's not us, so I'll move on.
So, what is a classically-inspired guy to do about a car these days? Clearly we can't be driving around in Focuses (or is it Focii? -- forget trying to figure that one out). No, that will simply not do. And we could say fine, let's go buy cars from the Golden Era, and that'd be wonderful, but we'd be fools to drive those on a daily basis.
So again, I ask, what is a classically-inspired guy to do about a car these days? Armed with the internet, I set out to find an answer.
We'll start by assuming a number of variables. You're buying a car to be your daily driver. You're mostly going to use it for going to & from work, and maybe a few other places. Maybe you've got a girlfriend, maybe you've got a wife and kids, maybe you don't. But in any event, you're going to want to, at some point, carry around some other folks comfortably. You're not outrageously rich so don't worry, I won't be suggesting a Morgan, as nice as that might be.
The question here is, now that you've got your suit, what reasonably priced, reasonably built, reasonably practical car can you go out and buy today that will reflect your sensibilities?
I live in Los Angeles so I'll start with what everyone in Los Angeles drives. The BMW 3-Series.
Here is a car that has been tested by over 25 years of continuous research and development and refined over and over again by those very, very efficient Germans. BMW invented the small sport sedan and they still to this day own this class of vehicle. Audi, Lexus, and others come close, but the 3-series is still the car by which all the others are judged. I've driven one, and it was brilliant. Fantastic way to get from point A to point B. And starting at $32,400, it won't break the bank either. By all accounts, a perfect car.
It won't do.
See, the thing about the BMW is, well, look at it. It's a great looking car but apart from the round headlights, there's nothing classically-inspired about it. It's all very very modern, and that's all very nice, but it's just not what we're going for. Yes, it's more stylish than the Ford Focuses and Honda Civics and Toyota Corollas of the world, and yes, the smart money probably is on the BMW. But we're not here to talk smart, we're here to talk style.
Let's throw caution to the wind and see where it lands us.
After much searching, I found three cars that I think will fit the bill.
In third place...
Cadillac CTS
OK, let's be honest. I'm not quite sure what Cadillac are doing here, but at least we can see that they are trying. They've got stacked headlights like Cadillacs from the 60s and their advertising would have us believe they are truly inspired by their heritage. Um, I'm not buying it. But this is how bleak things really are out there. The CTS is in third place because at least it looks more classically American than all the other boring rounded sedan offerings out there... just.
You can get it with a V6 that puts down, oh something around 255 horsepower and about that much torque (252 ft-lb), or so Cadillac claim. But that won't be too far off the mark which means the power is decent. Best thing is that you can get it with a 6-speed manual gearbox if you like. And they've bothered to make it a properly American car, which means it is rear-wheel drive, thank God, so apart from all the modern bits, it will handle and feel more like a vintage car than say, a Nissan Altima would.
It starts from under $30,000, just, so we're still in range of the 3-series BMW. And hopefully we're looking a tad better, just.
In second place:
Jaguar S-Type
Yes, the design is distinctly British, but its built by Ford so you know it won't completely fall to bits after the first two blocks.
And... it's brilliant.
I was almost going to make this number one, and in fact, it's the one I'd have. The dual round headlights in front, the size and shape of the grill, all the lines from front to back; every single inch of this car is an aesthetic masterpiece. So is the 3-series, but this car is not overly modern. Not in the slightest! In fact, it's actually made to resemble the Jaguar MkII, which was sold from 1959-1967.
Absolutely stunning.
Now, all lauding aside, this one is the most expensive. The base model alone will run you $48,335. I set an artificial limit of $50k upon myself before starting out and the S-type barely makes the cut. But look what you get for your money!
The specs aren't bad either; the base model gets a V6 which puts out 235 horsepower and just slightly less torque. So, less power than the Cadillac. I personally would have to stretch my budgetary limits and get the larger V8 engine, which fixes this, putting down a solid 300 horsepower. Either way you're stuck with a 6-speed automatic transmission, unlike the Cadillac, but the Jag is so refined, you won't care once you're driving it.
All in all, a fantastic looking car, purposefully inspired by a classic. Cannot go wrong here.
But...
In first place:
Chrysler 300
Ah yes, you probably could have seen this coming. This is pretty much the only American car that truly gets the "retro" look right these days. And not only does it look great, it's a great car too, and popular. It's been a huge success since its launch and today, you'll see them everywhere.
And it's American, so it's that much more appropriate to our goal of finding a car that is truly inspired by classic Golden Era styling.
You can skip the base model and go right to the 300C, starting at $34,975, which has the 5.7 liter Hemi V8. This engine puts out a solid 340 horsepower and a whopping 390 ft-lb of torque, which pretty much stomps the other two. It kills the Jaguar on power for money, and the Cadillac... well, it just kills that outright. It's rear-wheel drive, of course... but wait, you can get it in all-wheel drive as an option as well. With it's cylinder-deactivation technology, it's not even a problem that you've got a V8 around town because the car is smart enough to just shut off 4 of the cylinders. So you still get decent mileage with it ever. Talk about fusing vintage and modern.
The Chrysler 300 is the car, hands down. It truly has style, and it has pretty much everything else you should be looking for in a car as well.
And, as the car salesman say, the only thing to decide now is the color. Which is quite simple, I'll give you a rule: if you wouldn't buy a suit that color, don't get a car in that color either.
Being a Los Angelino, I'd have the black.
So, remember the next time you don your suit and head on down to the Ford dealer to buy that next Focus. Think twice before you do. And, if you can afford to, get one of the cars on this list instead. They may not be the most practical things out there, but probably neither are the clothes you're wearing. And these two should match.
After all, what did we all think when we saw James Bond driving a Ford Mondeo in Casino Royale?
I know my stomach didn't sit right until I saw him safely behind the wheel of an Aston Martin DB5 again.
