Watch an F1 Star Go Wild in a James Bond Car

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Posted by Zach Doell 
                               

 

If you think about it, F1 drivers are not too dissimilar from silver screen icon James Bond. Both live the playboy lifestyle, both drive fast cars…very, very fast cars. And in the run-up to this weekend’s 2015 Mexican Grand Prix, the worlds of Formula 1 and James Bond converged in spectacular fashion. 

 

F1 star Felipe Massa, one half of the Williams Martini Racing squad, got the chance to take the Jaguar C-X75 hypercar—the “villain car” from the new James Bond flick Spectre—for a spin in Mexico. Lots of tire smoke and noise resulted, and it’s safe to say the Brazilian F1 ace enjoyed the ride. Take a look.

 

In the film, the svelte Jaguar is driven by Bond baddie Hinx (played by Dave Bautista), who gives chase to Daniel Craig’s Bond in an Aston Martin DB10 through the streets of Rome. While it’s said to make quite the appearance on film, there’s a bit more to the C-X75 story than the cinema tells.

Effectively, the C-X75 is the hypercar that almost was. Developed jointly by Jaguar and Williams Advanced Engineering, the C-X75 was to be a hard-hitting rival to the McLaren P1, Ferrari LaFerrari, and Porsche 918 Spyder hypercars. A scant 250 were scheduled to be built, boasting over 850 horsepower and 738 lb-ft of torque from a turbocharged and supercharged four-cylinder engine, plus a pair of hi-po electric motors. Zero to 100 mph? Less than six seconds. Top speed? 220 mph. That is what you’d call fast.

Unfortunately the plug was pulled in late 2012 when the world hypercar market looked a bit too small for a fourth competitor. The C-X75 dropped out of the race, but instead of jettisoning the existing cars into some warehouse of forgotten concepts, Jaguar continued development of five prototypes.

Some important phone calls were made, the Spectre crew and Jaguar got on board, and now one very special C-X75 features in the Bond film, albeit with an F-Type R V8 bursting out of the back. Spectre arrives in U.S. theaters on November 6th.