Aston Martin. Bentley. James Bond may be famous for his sports cars, but the secret agent inherited the love of high-speed design from his literary father, Ian Fleming. My favorite Fleming auto is the Studebaker Avanti. In fact, I featured the car in my upcoming Miki Zero spy novel. The Avanti was designed in 1961 by none other than Raymond Loewy. One of the principal creators behind modern industrial design, he created the Coca-Cola bottle, Greyhound Bus, Lucky Strike package, PA Railroad locomotives, logos for Shell, Greyhound, Exxon, Nabisco, and the US Postal Service, and even the interiors of NASA's Saturn I, 5 and Skylab! Loewy was born on November 5th, 1893 in Paris and spent much of his life in the United States. Google paid tribute to him on their site today. Below are preliminary studies for the Avanti by Loewy. I like to imagine Ian Fleming pouring over these drawings with a rush of excitement. The 007 author famously replaced his second Ford Thunderbird with the Studebaker Avanti you see below, which he said was "an infinitely higher class of machine." (The model in my book is white). You can see more Avanti details on my Spy Vibe Novel image reference page on Pinterest here. Spy Vibe's Ian Fleming image archive here.
Recent Spy Vibe posts: Steranko S.H.I.E.L.D. Artist Editions, David Tennant's Ian Fleming audio books, The Prisoner & Captain Scarlet, HMV returns to Oxford st w Beatles promo, Diego Fortunato & Verner Panton, Saturday Morning Cartoons, Assassination Bureau on DVD, new Young Bond series, Peter Asher, Gerry Marsden tour, Elio Petri on Blu-ray, Sophia Loren, new Beatles BBC album, new Hercule Poirot novel, Beatles fall 2013 releases, A Hard Days Night cinematographer dies, Magic Christian on Blu-ray, Early Beatles image archive, Julie Newmar, Erno Goldfinger, Hitchcock tribute
Recent Ian Fleming posts on Spy Vibe: Erno Goldfinger, Ian Fleming Music Series links:
Noel Coward,
Whispering Jack Smith,
Hawaiian Guitar,
Joe Fingers Carr, new
Ian Fleming Catalog,
Jon Gilbert interview, Double
007 Designs, Bond
audio book reissues, discovery of one of Ian Fleming's WWII
Commandos, James Bond
book covers, Ian Fleming's
Playboy interview for Kindle, Spy Vibe's discovery of a rare
Ian Fleming serialization, rare
View to a Kill, Fleming's Royal gold
typewriter, Ian Fleming's
memorial address
