Somewhere on the streets now is an actual James Bond Aston Martin, complete with many of the gadgets and weapons the British spy uses when making his efforts to save the world. This includes nail spreaders, tire slashers, smoke screens, and rotating license plates.
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A winning bidder in Monterey, California put up $6.4 million to ride home in the car (although, whether or not this winner is actual driving the car is unknown). It is a 1965 Aston Martin DB5, complete with all of the gadgets seen in the movies, and they all function. The car is completely street legal, though it’s probably not a good idea for the buyer to use those bonus features on public roads. The buyer’s identity has not been revealed.
“This car was originally created to promote the movie Thunderball, but didn’t actually appear in the film,” CNN reports. “It has an actual nail spreader and oil slick maker that drop real nails and oil behind the car. There’s also a real smoking ‘smoke screen’ and a ‘bulletproof’ screen that comes up behind the back window. It’s even decorated with faux bullet damage.”
The rotating license plate on the back and front of the car are controlled by a knob inside the car, labeled “B-S-F” for, British, Swiss, and French plates, just in case the driver has to take their spy work international. Guns poke out from behind the front turn signals but they don’t fire any real bullets. The guns do, however, make a very real gunfire sound which uses oxygen and acetylene.
“This latest sale is the most that’s ever been paid for one of the Bond movie cars, even though this one never actually appeared onscreen,” the report says. “Thunderball was the Bond movie that came after Goldfinger, in which the DB5 had first caused such a sensation. Two of these fully drivable cars with most of the gadgets actually working were created to tour the United States to drum up attention and ticket sales for Thunderball. The other promotional car is now in the Louwman Museum in the Netherlands.”
$6.4 million is the most money an Aston Martin DB5 has ever sold for. A film-used Bond DB5 sold for $4.6 million in 2010 but the gadgets were not a part of the film during its production.
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