► Aston Martin DB5 continuation
► With James Bond 007’s gadgets!
► Just 25 will be made at £2.75m
Aston Martin has just finished crafting its first production-spec DB5 Goldfinger continuation model – one of 25 that are set to be made.
The £2.75m-a-pop recreation is built to the specification of James Bond’s Q Branch model with representative gadgets inside and out.
‘Job 1’, as the first car is called, has been completed by Aston Martin Works – Gaydon’s in-house classics department that’s based at the brand’s original home in Newport Pagnell.
Driving the classics: Aston Martin DB5
‘The main challenge has been to recreate the gadgets from the film world and transfer them into a consumer product,’ said Bond film special effects genius Chris Corbould OBE. Essentially, these are cars will be more sophisticated than the ones use in the film, as they’ll have to include every gadget – film cars have a handful of gadgets per chassis.
‘We have licence in the film world to ‘cheat’ different aspects under controlled conditions. For instance, we might have four different cars to accommodate four different gadgets,’ he said. ‘We obviously don’t have that luxury on these DB5’s as all the gadgets have to work in the same car all the time.’
Here’s the full gadget list:
Exterior:
- Rear smoke screen delivery system
- Rear simulated oil slick delivery system
- Revolving number plates front and rear (triple plates)
- Simulated twin front machine guns
- Bullet resistant rear shield
- Battering rams front and rear
- Simulated tyre slasher
- Removable passenger seat roof panel (optional equipment)
Interior:
- Simulated radar screen tracker map
- Telephone in driver’s door
- Gear knob actuator button
- Armrest and centre console-mounted switchgear
- Under-seat hidden weapons/storage tray
- Remote control for gadget activation
Aston sought help from Chris Corbould, the Oscar-winning special effects supervisor from the Bond films, to incorporate the gadgets and has been approved by EON productions.
What the 25 buyers will get is arguably one of Aston’s most memorable cars finished in Silver Birch, just like the 007 car, and complete with a 4.0-litre straight six cranking out 282bhp and 280lb ft for a 0-60mph sprint in 7.1 seconds. The caveat? Just like the DB4 GT continuation project, the Goldfinger-edition DB5s are not road legal.
How much? Yours for £2.75m – all those Q Branch gadgets don’t come cheap. The first ones will be delivered in 2020.
CAR drives a DB5 Goldfinger Continuation
Back before the coronavirus pandemic, CAR was invited to drive Aston’s pre-production spec DB5 Goldfinger continuation model alongside a gorgeous working original. The pre-production model was designed to test the car’s ‘gadgets’, ensuring they all work before restoring and creating each of the 25 customer cars.
Just like the original, the Goldfinger edition is designed to be driven at a purposeful cruise; the enormous, thin-rimmed wooden steering wheel and gearknob the size of a TicTac imply gentle handling of the controls, despite the incredibly heavy steering and notchy gear change.
That is not a complaint, by the way, not least because driving something with so much heritage behind it is naturally going to draw up some personal reverence from whomever gets the chance to steer one. But the DB5’s grand touring intentions are clear from the moment that bassy straight-six fires up and winds on the revs. Once you’re in tune with its quirks, you can relax as much as the DB5 itself is – the engine pulls despite outputting such a tempered aural response, your steering motions requiring muscle but always smoothed out by the weighting. You can just sit back in the thickly padded seat, admire the view of the stretching bonnet and pretend you’re on your way to the Casino Royale.
The gadgets are operated by a heavy-set box with toggle switches and a key – all 60’s Q Branch. The front mounted ‘guns’ recoil and glow orange when they’re being fired, with a speaker emitting a synchronised firing sound. The ‘oil slick’ is a water-based solution that has been designed to look like the multicolours shone when oil really does appear on the road, and the smoke machine really does pump out a significant amount of shroud. And, no, before you ask, the ejector seat doesn’t actually work.
The fact that Aston continues to milk the affiliation with James Bond, and £2.75m for a play thing that can’t go on public roads really does make this no more than a ludicrous ultra-exclusive play thing for the ultra-rich, but there’s no denying the allure the Goldfinger continuation model brings.
Check out our Aston Martin reviews
Check out our Aston Martin reviews