The Silver Beast
In Licence Renewed Bond drives a Saab 900 Turbo. For some editions of the book, the car is shown as black or red on the book cover; however, in the book the car's colour isn't mentioned. It only became silver and took on the nickname the "Silver Beast" in the follow-up Gardner novel, For Special Services.
The car is Bond's personal vehicle, updated on his own expense by Communication Control Systems Ltd (CCS), a real life company (now known as Security Intelligence Technology Group) that advised author John Gardner with ideas about feasible gadgets to be used. Consequently, Gardner gave them the credit in the book and not Q Branch.
With the release of Licence Renewed Saab Automobile took the opportunity to launch a Bond themed promotional campaign complete with an actual car outfitted like the one in the book (but using smoke instead of tear gas).
Read more about this topic: Licence Renewed
Famous quotes containing the words silver and/or beast:
“I never thought that the possession of money would make me feel rich: it often does seem to have an opposite effect. But then, I have never had the opportunity of knowing, by experience, how it does make one feel. It is something to have been spared the responsibility of taking charge of the Lord’s silver and gold.”
—Lucy Larcom (1824–1893)
“Dialect words—those terrible marks of the beast to the truly genteel.”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)