AMC Hornet - James Bond Movie

James Bond Movie

As part of a significant product placement movie appearance by AMC, a 1974 Hornet X Hatchback is featured in the James Bond film: The Man with the Golden Gun, where Roger Moore made his second appearance as the British secret agent.

The film's "most outrageous sequence" begins with Sheriff J.W. Pepper, who on holiday in Thailand with his wife, admiring a new red AMC Hornet in a Bangkok showroom. He is about to test drive the car. The action begins as secret agent 007 commandeers the Hornet from the dealership with Pepper in it for a car chase. The Hornet performs an "airborne pirouette as it makes a hold-your-breath jump across a broken bridge".

The stunt car is significantly modified with a redesigned chassis to place the steering wheel in the center and a lower stance, as well as larger wheel wells compared to the stock Hornet used in all the other movie shots. The 360-degree mid-air twisting corkscrew was captured in just one filming sequence. Seven tests were performed in advance before the one jump performed by an uncredited British stuntman "Bumps" Williard for the film with six (or 8, depending on the source) cameras simultaneously rolling. Two frogmen were positioned in the water, as well as an emergency vehicle and a crane were ready, but not needed. The Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory (CAL) was used for computer modeling to calculate the stunt. The modeling called for a 1,460.06 kg (3,219 lb) weight of car and driver, the exact angles and the 15.86-metre (52 ft) distance between the ramps, as well as the 64.36-kilometre-per-hour (40 mph) launch speed.

This stunt was similar to the Astro Spiral Javelin show cars. These were jumps performed in AMC sponsored thrill shows in the Houston Astrodome, where Gremlins and Hornets were also used to drive around in circles on their side two wheels in the arena.

Months of difficult work went into the scene that lasts only fifteen seconds in the movie. The Guinness World Records 2010 book describes this "revolutionary jump" as the "first astro spiral used in a movie" and lists it as third among the top ten James Bond film stunts.

The actual Bond Hornet is preserved in the National Motor Museum in Beaulieu, UK together with other famous items owned by the Ian Fleming Foundation and used in the 007 films.