When Ian Fleming’s novel Goldfinger was published in 1959, he provided James Bond with an Aston Martin for the first time. Prior to that, Bond had been driving Bentleys. In the book, he offered the following description: „Bond had been offered the Aston Martin or a Jaguar 3.4. He had taken the DB III. Either of the cars would have suited his cover – a well-to-do, rather adventurous young man with a taste for the good, the fast things of life. But the DB III had the advantage of an up-to-date triptyque: these included switches to alter the type and colour of Bond’s front and rear lights if he was following or being followed at night, reinforced steel bumpers, fore and aft, in case he needed to ram, a long-barreled Colt 45 in a trick compartment under the driver’s seat, a radio pick-up tuned to receive a radio station called the Homer, and plenty of concealed space that would fox most Customs men.” However Ken Adam, the production designer and John Stears, the special effects supervisor, were still not satisfied. In the autumn of 1963, they visited the Aston Martin works in Newport Pagnell, in order to discuss several modifications with a group of engineers. They chose what was then the fastest horse in the stall: a silver metallic Aston Martin DB 5 (silver birch would have been the factory standard). According to the script, Bond was to escape with the car and then defend himself with it. To make this possible, the following extras were installed in the vehicle with the license plate BMT 216 A:
Initially, the effects car, DP216/1 was the only car with the extras fitted by the film production company, DB5/1486/R was in effect just a standard road car. But such was the demand for the DB5 to appear around the world to publicise the films, the road car, DB5/1486/R and a further two cars that never appeared in the films, DB5/2008R and DB5/2017/R, had the 007 extras fitted by the Works. Below are the best pictures that I have found to illustrate the special features built into the cars. These have been taken from a 1965 brochure that Aston Martin produced to be given out when the cars were displayed to the public.
Both DB5’s also appeared in the 1965 James Bond film, Thunderball, with the addition of a Jet pack in the boot and rear firing water cannons. By 1968, DP216/1 still owned by AML was returned to the Works and all the film company fitted special effects were removed prior to sale as a normal road car. Shortly after DP216/1 was refitted with replica effects by a Kent coachbuilder before being sold to an American collector. DP216/1 went on to feature in the 1981 film ‘The Cannonball Run but was stolen in June 1997 from a hanger in Florida and I believe it’s whereabouts are unknown. It may never be seen again.
The other three Works modified DB5’s still exist but two are rarely seen in public. The Road car, DB5/1486/R is privately owned in the USA. DB5/2008/R was for many years on display in the Smoky Mountain Car Museum but was offered form sale by RM auctions in January 2006 where it achieved $2,090,000. And the last works replica, DB5/2017/R is part of the Dutch National Motor Museum, the Louwman Collection, in Raamadonksveer which I have photographed both in its home and at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in August 2007.
After it became clear that Goldfinger would become a huge financial success, and a flood of requests came to put the DB 5 on display, the company built two replicas of the car for promotional purposes. These cars had some additional equipment details. One of them had a telephone that was installed in the door on the driver’s side. It also had a special reserve tank and a very luxurious interior trim with antelope leather. All three vehicles (and two others which had been used during the filming) were exhibited at numerous motor shows and charity events; they turned out to be the best publicity-makers that the luxury carmaker ever had.
Sources:
['The Most Famous Car in the World' by Dave Worrall]
[www.astonmartins.com]
[www.carenthusiast.com]
