James Bond’s Aston Martin sells for nearly $3 million
The James Bond series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming’s death in 1964, eight other authors have written authorised Bond novels or novelisations: Kingsley Amis, Christopher Wood, John Gardner, Raymond Benson, Sebastian Faulks, Jeffery Deaver, William Boyd, and Anthony Horowitz. The latest novel is With a Mind to Kill by Anthony Horowitz, published in May 2022. Additionally Charlie Higson wrote a series on a young James Bond, and Kate Westbrook wrote three novels based on the diaries of a recurring series character, Moneypenny.
The Bond films are renowned for a number of features, including the musical accompaniment, with the theme songs having received Academy Award nominations on several occasions, and three wins. Other important elements which run through most of the films include Bond’s cars, his guns, and the gadgets with which he is supplied by Q Branch. The films are also noted for Bond’s relationships with various women, who are popularly referred to as “Bond girls”.
A replica of an Aston Martin DB5 used for the stunts in James Bond blockbuster No Time to Die sold for nearly $3 million at auction on Wednesday, auction house Christie’s said.
Proceeds from the sale, which fetched £2.92 million ($3.18 million), will be donated to charity, along with receipts from the sale of 24 other lots auctioned at a special sale of items marking 60 years of 007. The replica comes fitted with imitation machine guns behind the headlights. A further 35 lots have been put up for auction online until October 5.
“Externally it looks exactly like the DB5 that we all associate with James Bond, internally [it’s] a completely different beast to be capable of all the incredible stunts and the driving that they did,” Adrian Hume-Sayer, director of private and iconic collections at Christie’s and head of the James Bond sale,
The replica of the iconic Aston, one of eight specially designed and manufactured for the 2021 film, is the only DB5 stunt car put up for sale by Aston Martin and EON productions, according to Christie’s. Other items on sale include a signed No Time to Die clapperboard, with a price estimate of 5,000-7,000 pounds, as well as costumes worn by the film’s cast members such as Rami Malek as villain Safin and Lashana Lynch as 007 agent Nomi.
“Well, right now we’re not thinking about the next chapter yet, we’re just celebrating the release of No Time to Die and our 60th anniversary,” producer Michael G. Wilson told. “And I think when this is over by the end of this year, next year we’ll start to think about where do we go from here.”
