Bond is coming to the rescue again. At least his car is.
An Aston Martin DB5 used during the making of the latest 007 installment, “No Time to Die,” has been auctioned for over $3 million to raise money for charity.
The car is a replica that was built by Aston Martin to be identical to the iconic 1964 car that Bond first drove in “Goldfinger.”
The producers ordered 10 of the vehicles rather than buying or renting and putting originals at risk during the high speed chase scenes featured in the film.
HOW ‘NO TIME TO DIE’ BROUGHT BACK JAMES BOND’S ORIGINAL ASTON MARTIN DB5
This one has a stripped-out interior for stunt work and is one of two that were equipped with gadgets, including fake Gatling guns that emerge from behind the headlights.
It also has a smoke screen and cosmetic scrapes added for a chase through the stone Italian city of Matera, but is not actually street legal.
The sale price of 2,922,000 British pounds was about one million more than expected before the auction, with all the proceeds earmarked for a basket of 45 charities that include several supporting veterans of British intelligence and special forces.
Several other items and cars were sold at the auction, which celebrated the 60th anniversary of the film franchise, with a 1981 Aston Martin V8 that appeared in “No Time to Die” as a callback to the one in “The Living Daylights” selling for nearly $700,000.
Surviving authentic DB5s often sell for $1 million to over $2 million, depending on their condition, including one that Sean Connery bought near the end of his life that was auctioned in August for $2,425,000.
That is far from the record, however, which stands at the $6.4 million that was paid for one of the gadget-filled cars that was used to promote “Thunderball,” but was never used on-screen.
The Holy Grail of Bond cars are the two used for the making of “Goldfinger” and “Thunderball.” The last time one sold in 2010 for $4.6 million and is part of the collection of a private car museum in Ohio today while the other was stolen from a hangar at the Boca Raton, Florida, airport in 1997 and has not been seen since.