Bond Car going under the Hammer
A car used by Sean Connery in the James Bond films ‘Goldfinger’ and ‘Thunderball’ is to be sold for the first time at a public auction. The Silver Aston Martin DB5, which many fans see as the ultimate Bond car, has been hidden away in a private American collection for the past 40 years, after it was bought for $12000 direct from the manufacturers.
The car comes complete with extras that include twin machineguns, a smokescreen and bullet shield, tyre shredding blades that appear from the hubcaps and revolving personalised number plates. The ejector seat however, is not operational.
Owner Jerry Lee, from Philadelphia, decided to sell the vehicle after discovering it could be worth at least $5 million thanks largely to the unique gadgets that are part of the vehicles make up.
Mr Lee said that Aston Martin had agreed to sell him the car if they could make use of it for promotional purposes now and again. The owner drove it occasionally during the 1970’s but it has been in storage ever since and only clocked up 30,000 miles.
There was no computer-generated imagery when the car was used in the films during the mid 1960’s, so the manufacturer installed all the gadgets, which still work today, although the machineguns do not fire.
The ejector seat was a special effect, but the vehicle does include a removable roof panel over the passenger seat. It is one of two Aston Martins used in the filming of the Bond films that contained the registration number FMP 7B, with this one being the ‘gadget car’.
It was too heavy to use in the fast driving scenes, including the famous Alpine pursuit scene in ‘Goldfinger’. The other DB5 used went missing from an aircraft hanger in 1997.
An RM Auctions spokesperson, Phillip Haynes said, “There isn’t much room in the boot because most of it is taken up by the machinery for the bullet shield.”
The auction is due to take place on October 27th 2010, in the UK.
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