GoldenEye still holds up as the perfect Bond film for its time. The bungee jump off the dam. That punchy little quip in the toilet. A proper villain with a secret lair and a dark Soviet past. There’s a tank tearing through Moscow, a femme fatale fond of a good squeeze, and one of the all-time great Bond debuts in Brosnan. Everything hits.

Well… almost everything.

Because up in the hills above Monaco, something doesn’t sit right. The car chase – Bond in his vintage DB5, Xenia Onatopp in a brand-new Ferrari F355 – looks the part. It’s slick. Stylish. The tyres squeal on cue and the cars drift balletically along the Route de Gentelly as the chase unfolds. But even with a healthy dose of disbelief suspended, there’s no getting around it: Bond’s DB5 wouldn’t have stood a chance.

Even if Xenia was toying with him, she’d barely have made it past tickover. The Ferrari had more than 100bhp on the Aston. It's lighter, sharper, mid-engined, and running tyres twice as wide. And while Bond might’ve bridged the gap with a level of driving skill that would shame François Delecour, he’d still be fighting a ’60s four-speed, nursing crossplies, and praying the brakes – or the head gasket – didn’t boil before the first hairpin.

The thing is, Bond could’ve been driving any number of equally beautiful, contemporary machines – cars that looked the part and matched his reinvention. We had a new Bond. And Aston Martin had a new car.

The DB7 should have been the one. Like GoldenEye, it marked a clean break – penned by Ian Callum, and a shape that finally felt worthy of the DB5’s baton. Its supercharged straight-six made 335bhp – not quite a match for the Ferrari, but close enough for a few well-timed racing changes to close the gap.

Perhaps the casting of the DB5 was a deliberate move to avoid stepping on the toes of the Z3, a car BMW paid handsomely for 007 to promote. But if the Bavarians had kicked up a fuss, they already had something in the stable that could’ve done the job: the V12 850CSi. A big, imposing GT with genuine pace and a touch of M Division chassis magic. It had the power to match the Ferrari, and the looks to make its own case. With its pop-up headlights and pillarless windows, some might even argue it’s prettier than the Aston.

Speaking of V12s – what if Bond had gone fully rogue and chosen a Ferrari for himself? He’s never driven a Maranello machine on screen or on paper, but if one ever aligned so perfectly with 007 and the actor portraying him, it’s the 456GT. Tour de France Blue over tan. Old-money espionage versus new-money arms dealer. And if nothing else, the soundtrack alone could’ve stolen the entire scene – a cultured V12 trading notes with a snarling flat-plane V8, the kind of duet that tests the limits of Dolby Surround.

Of course, the legacy pick on pure performance grounds would have to be the Lotus Esprit S4S. Now that’s a battle worth a cinema ticket. British Racing Green against Rosso Corsa – protagonist and antagonist equally matched in firepower and intent. Brosnan’s Bond, however, might’ve docked the Esprit points for lacking a champagne chiller. And truthfully, the Esprit belongs to Roger Moore. The two are inseparable.

To his credit, director Martin Campbell got it right the second time. Casino Royale brought in a new-age Bond and handed him a new-age Aston Martin. The DBS wasn’t just fast – it looked lethal. It suited Daniel Craig better than any Savile Row dinner jacket or silenced Walther PPK.

In the Rush director’s cut of GoldenEye, Bond still drops the quip, still wins the girl, and still tears through Moscow in a tank. But when he’s carving through the hills above Monaco and happens upon a scarlet Ferrari, he’s not in the DB5. He’s in something British Racing Green or Tour de France Blue – a car that signals confidence in the new era of Bond rather than nostalgia for the old. Think: From Ronin with Love.

Bonus trivia: In a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it oversight, Xenia is shown downshifting into reverse mid-corner. Maybe that explains it all...