Aston Martin DB5 set for another round in upcoming James Bond film
What some consider to be the most famous car in the world, and certainly the most famous movie car ever, is getting another starring role.
Until now, movie fans and critics have been calling the upcoming 25th episode in the James Bond franchise by the working title of Bond 25, as the production team had been keeping the actual title close to its vest. Now the hype is ramping up for Daniel Craig’s fifth, and likely last, go-round as the spy who is licensed to kill, with this week’s release of a critical element of any Bond movie, the title sequence. We now know that the film will be called No Time To Die. We also know that Craig, as Bond, will spend at least part of the film with the most iconic “Bond car” ever, a gadget-filled Aston Martin DB5, first seen in 1965’s Goldfinger, with Sean Connery at the wheel.
Just a few weeks ago, the production team released an Instagram post with a “sneak peek” at the film’s cars, featuring a photo of them in the Aston Martin Lagonda workshop in Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire that presumably has been getting them ready for filming. In addition to three DB8 Vantages, and the new Valhalla hypercar, there are four DB5s in the photo. One has been stripped down, apparently for close-up interior scenes, and there’s a DB5 with roof-mounted controls for a stunt driver to drive it while the actors inside act. Two road-ready DB5s complete the stable; perhaps one will be used for action scenes and the other for static shots.
It’s not clear if the DB5s used in the filming are actual vintage Aston Martins, some of the 25 $3.56 million continuation Bond DB5s that AM is making and selling, or something else entirely. It appears that four of those continuation cars are on lifts in the Lagonda workshop behind the star cars.
It might actually have been less of a risk of a financial risk to use real vintage DB5s. The continuation Bond DB5s cost about double what our price guide says a vintage DB5 is worth. Last week, one of the “original” Bond cars, in this case one of the two promotional Bond DB5s that EON Productions had made following the popularity of the Bond DB5 in Goldfinger, sold for $6.38 million, a record for a DB5.
If I was a betting man, though, I’d put my money on the continuation cars. Aston Martin works very closely with the producers, as can be seen from the location of the photo shoot, and it has some cars to sell.
No Time To Die is scheduled for an April 2020 release.
