Owning a James Bond replica Aston Martin, or any vehicle from the iconic spy series for that matter, is a real bragging right. Pulling up to a hotel concierge in first gear in your DBS, or trying to make your Mustang Mach-1 drive on two wheels is all fun and games, don’t get me wrong, but what’s cooler than being cool? Why, owning the late and great Sean Connery’s Aston Martin DB5, of course.
Arguably the best actor to ever portray 007, this sophisticated, stylish, and handsome gentleman certainly had good taste in automobiles off-screen and on. Having spent hours filming with the DB5 during Goldfinger, Connery felt it was only suitable to acquire one of his own. It would take over fifty years for this acquisition to happen, but we are sure it was worth the wait. Connery purchased the car he was always destined to drive in early 2018.
Now we must admit, we were convinced that the original listing for the car written by the incredibly knowledgeable folks at Broad Arrow Auctions had a mistake in it, claiming the the Bond DB5 was Snow Shadow Grey, not Silver Birch as we all thought we knew. However, we have discovered this incredible piece of movie and automotive trivia thanks to this story, and it’s well and truly blown us away. Notably, the leading film car used in Goldfinger and Thunderball was the prototype DB5, which in reality was a modified DB4 Series V with covered headlamps. Thus, it was painted in the DB4 colour of Snow Shadow Grey. Only when the DB5 went into production after filming did the colour of Silver Birch become available, which has been erroneously labelled as the Bond colour ever since! So, after Connery took delivery of his DB5 in 2018, It was promptly refinished to Snow Shadow Grey - not Silver Birch.
It's been a week of revelations here at Classic Driver. First we found out that BMW’s iconic ‘throwing star’ Style 21 wheels are, in fact, hubcaps. Now, arguably the most famous movie car of all time has had its paint colour incorrectly labelled all along.
Here’s an extra helping of cool to sprinkle on this already impeccable listing. The lucky winner of the car, when it goes to auction at the Monterey Jet Centre on August 18th, will be invited to go for a drive with none other than Sir Jackie Stewart, who was a close personal friend of Connery and would naturally have some excellent stories to tell. Now, where’s my chequebook?
