There are three incontrovertible facts about James Bond. He plays Baccarat, he likes his martinis shaken not stirred, and he drives a tricked-out Aston Martin DB5. Three actors have been lucky enough to drive the iconic DB5 through six films, starting with Sean Connery as 007 in the third James Bond film, Goldfinger (1964) and again in Thunderball; Pierce Brosnan in Golden Eye and Tomorrow Never Dies; and Daniel Craig in Casino Royale, and Skyfall the movie. Although Ian Fleming’s novels originally had Bond driving a DB Mark III (the “DB” stands for then-Aston Martin President David Brown) film producers chose the DB5 for Goldfinger since it was Aston Martin’s newest model, succeeding the DB4.
[quote align=”left” color=”#000000″]Any DB5 Bond cars will appreciate at approximately 20% per year.[/quote]
The 1965 DB5 model used in Skyfall the movie, discovered at the Aston Martin factory in Birminghamshire, awaiting restoration, was fitted with a non-standard 350 hp engine and stripped of its original green paint and recast in the same Silver Birch color as the original Goldfinger car. Oddly, the Skyfall car’s serial number ends in “007” and is the only Bond car with that chassis number. The Skyfall car also did not have the gadgets that the Goldfinger DB5 sported (front mounted machine guns, revolving license plates and bullet-proof windows), rather, the studio opted to use special effects to show ejector seats and other gadgets.
When the Aston Martin DB5 was released in 1964 it came with a 4.0 liter engine as opposed to the 3.7 liter of the DB4, and had the same DB4 chassis structure and five speeds. Aston Martin also offered a high performance version, the 316 hp Vantage. The surviving Bond cars have appreciated nicely in value. Jerry Lee, owner of a Philadelphia radio station, purchased the original Goldfinger and
Thunderball DB5 from the studio in 1969 for $12,000. It fetched £2,600,000 ($3,929,120.00 today) at auction in June 2010 and has been suggested that since that auction, any DB5 Bond cars will appreciate at approximately 20% per year.
Article By: P. A. Remmell
