It’s one of the great iconic cars of movie history, the Aston Martin DB5 driven by Sean Connery’s James Bond in both Goldfinger and Thunderball and if you’ve ever had dreams of having that car for yourself, those dreams very well could come true — for a price. An original 1965 Aston Martin DB5 built to Bond specifications is headed to auction in August.
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The Aston Martin, one of three surviving “James Bond” cars from that era and specifically one of two which were built for a tour promoting Thunderball, is outfitted with full Bond modifications including a Browning .30 caliber machine gun in each fender, wheel-hub mounted tire-slashers, passenger-seat ejection system, revolving license plates, and more. The vehicle will be offered at the RM Sotheby auction in Monterey this August and is valued between $4 million and $6million.
“No other care in history has played a more important leading role on film and in pop culture,” RM Sotheby’s car specialist Barney Ruprecht said (via USA Today).
The vehicle, which was first offered for sale in 1969, was originally purchased by a collector before later being purchased by The Smokey Mountain Car Museum in Tennessee where it was on display for 35 years. It was last sold in 2006 and underwent a full restoration in 2012 which means that, yes, those Bond modifications are all operable. This specific vehicle never actually appeared on-screen in the Bond films and is the third of four total Goldfinger-specification DB5s created. The first of the four was stolen in 1997 has not been seen since while another of them was auctioned in 2010 and is in private car museum in Ohio.
Ahead of the August auction, the DB5 will be on display giving people an opportunity to see “The Most Famous Car in the World” for themselves. Dates and locations are to be announced. And this authentic Bond DB5 isn’t the only opportunity fans have to get their hands on the same sort of car driven by the super spy. In 2018, Aston Martin announced a limited run of replica Bond DB5s, each one with recreations of the Bond spy gadgets. Those newly-built versions cost approximately $3.5 million each. Unlike the vehicle up for auction with RM Sotheby’s, however, the replica DB5s aren’t street legal and won’t be delivered until 2020.
What is your favorite iconic movie car? Let us know in the comments below.
