Images provided by Aston Martin/EON Productions
It seems like the Brits are the best at so-called continuations (AKA very accurate replicas built in-house) these days. Jaguar’s done the XKSS, the D-Type, and the lightweight E-Type in the span of a few years, and while the thought of a track day in a factory-perfect sports car with Le Mans pedigree is the kind that sells lottery tickets, Aston Martin’s recent foray into the replica market is a bit more fun. Soon (deliveries are set for 2020), you can drive around in your own factory-perfect replica of 007’s first gadget-laden DB.
Debuting in Goldfinger (1964) and appearing in six other films in the series since, Bond’s original Q-modified Aston was a 1964 DB5 painted in Silver Birch, and if you really needed that reminder then your car enthusiast credentials are in need of revocation—when it comes to on-screen autos, a gorgeous grand tourer capable of strafing henchman and sending unwanted passengers for a flight on Ejector-Seat Airlines is hard to top. This version of the car (25 will be sold, with three additional examples to be built for Aston, EON, and a charity auction), isn’t likely to come with every single piece of villain-eliminating kit that was shown in the films, but mainstays like the revolving number plate will be included along with the rest of the “working gadgets to be developed by Oscar®-winner Chris Corbould OBE, special effects supervisor on eight previous James Bond films,” as stated in today’s press release on the Goldfinger-edition DB5s. “Working gadgets” pretty much rules out the rockets and guns, but not having flip-down indicators with non-functional gun barrels poking out of them would be a missed opportunity.
The 28-car production run to ship in 2020 will be built in the factory where the original DB5s were born in the ’60s, at Aston Martin Works, Newport Pagnell, which is today dedicated to restoration and other classic car services for the factory. The specifications will be as close as possible to the 1964 spec, but certain components are likely to be altered in line with the manufacturer’s statement that “[The Goldfinger edition DB5s] will be authentic reproductions of the DB5 seen on screen, with some sympathetic modifications to ensure the highest levels of build quality and reliability.”
As much fun as it would be to play with the spy toys on public roads, sadly the cars will not be road legal, as you can imagine. That’s part of the catch with a continuation like this: a 1964 DB5 on a city street is if anything less safe than these upcoming Bond versions, but since the new ones need to adhere to the standards in place in their time of manufacture, there’s no way to legally put these on the road without really delving into the loopholes, and on home turf in Britain it will be nigh impossible with the strictness of IVA certificates and whatnot. Maybe we’ll see some in the US with Montana or Florida plates though…
Pricing starts at £2.75m plus taxes, or about $3.5m, so if you have a penchant for suave secret agent gear and a big bank account, this is the closest you’ll come besides finding one of the exceptionally rare originals. One such car used in the filming of Goldfinger sold in 2010 for $4.6m, which granted was almost a decade ago, but still, when we’re in this range of pricing that’s not that much more dough for some bonafide Bond provenance. What do you think about the Goldfinger-edition DB5? Worth it for the right person, or would you rather see Aston’s efforts going toward a purer, Jaguar-type approach to their heritage (like they demonstrated they were capable of with the DB4 GT continuations)?
