No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to vroooooom: the Aston Martin Vanquish

In “Skyfall,” James Bond is back in the iconic 1963-65 silver-birch Aston Martin DB5. I do hope the world is in no big hurry to be saved.

Bond's automotive anachronism can't go unchallenged. The DB5 was a hot piece in its time: the in-line six punched out to 4.0 liters, triple SU carburetors, a German transmission and a superleggera magnesium-alloy body, which is pretty OMG. The coachwork is sculpturally perfect, the stance heroic, the car's presence as cutting as a sword of ice.

MORE AT THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

• » Koenigsegg's Blasting Horizontal Roller Coaster 
  

• » McLaren Spider: An Open-Air Symphony of Loud 
  

• » GM India Introduces Small Car Sail to Challenge Suzuki, Hyundai 
  

But by modern standards, the 282-horsepower, five-speed DB5 is markedly leisurely motoring. Actually, the average late-model minivan could run it down. Oh, you wanna go, shorty? Anybody ever tell you look like Deputy Dawg?

It's not like I don't appreciate the DB5, a suave, powerful and exclusive car with few rivals in its era, the Facel Vega Facel II and Ferrari Lusso among them. Sir David Brown should be buried in Westminster.

Still, I marvel at this automotive disarmament of Bond's. Is he in some nutty British car club we didn't know about? You know, Bond? Beefy guy, works for the government, owns two Morgans?