Aston Martin is funding its future by looking to the past

Mark your calendars; come 2020, your James Bond fantasies could finally become a reality—so long as you have a spare £2.75 million ($3.5M) laying around. Aston Martin just announced its plans to produce a limited run of 25 Goldfinger DB5s due for delivery in just under two years.

So what does that many quid actually net you in terms of features? True to form, the car will only be offered in Silver Birch paint and final assembly will occur in Newport Pagnell, birthplace of the original DB5. The only Q-gadget that Aston Martin Works is willing to reveal is a flippable license plate, but rest assured, there’s plenty more where that came from. What it cannot do, however, is kind of a big deal: drive on the road. None of the 25 DB5s will be road-legal.

Now before you get up on your soapbox to decry Aston for preying on buyers’ nostalgia to turn a quick buck, we urge you to consider the following: It’s an expensive proposition to design, engineer, and build limited production luxury GT cars, and Aston Martin’s track record has recently been one of great success. Between the new DB11 and Vantage models, along with a blossoming powertrain partnership with Mercedes-Benz, one could easily argue that the British automaker have their strongest lineup to date.

But it takes more than a robust sports-car offering to stay afloat in today’s marketplace—just ask Porsche. What was once purely a German sports car outfit could now be categorized as a leading luxury SUV producer with an exceptional rear-engined, performance-car byproduct. Needless to say, other manufacturers have taken notice.

Limited-run models, such as this Goldfinger DB5, the oil-barron Lagonda Taraf and the track-only Vulcan, could be just one part of the plan to dominate in the GT market. The other would involve taking a cue from Jaguar, Bentley, and Porsche in offering a DBX SUV for added funding.

If a year and a half seems a bit of a stretch, just last month Lego introduced a much more affordable version of 007’s most famous ride. It’s available now for $149.99 and includes all of your favorite features from the movies. While that might help tide you over, I wouldn’t get your hopes up for machine guns and ejector seats in the full-sized version.