The Aston Martin DB5 was the most popular and
famous of all of Bond’s movie cars. It strongly
identified and was visually associated with Bond. The car’s battleship grey colour complemented
the elegant style, futuristic sleek design and innovative gadgets that made it
special. As part of Bond’s cover, the
Aston Martin DB5 provided Bond with an image of a young adventurous man with
good taste for fast things and success in life. It was a rare car during its limited
production run of 1,023 vehicles from 1963 to 1965. This secret agent’s car was made to perfectly
fit the needs of James Bond.
The Aston Martin DB5 was originally going
to belong to Q, who was Bond’s gadget man, as he needed a replacement car for
his aging Bentley. The car was filled
with gadgetry which Q was famous for designing.
There were about seventeen known gadgets initially installed in the car
and three more were added later on. Some
features included extending front and rear ramming bumpers for safety. A secret drawer was also installed under the
driver’s seat which was a one man arsenal containing a 7.63 mm Mauser, Armalite
rifle, silencers and telescopic sights, a throwing knife and a hand
grenade. In addition, the front driver’s
door contained a radio telephone. An
unseen homer receiver with a range of 150 miles based on radar technology was
contained in the racing mirror so Q could track the location of the car at all
times. There was a moving map system
behind the radio speaker grill which foreshadowed what is known as GPS maps
today. All the windows were bullet proof
and there was a heavier armament screen that could be deployed behind the rear
window for extra protection. Even the
license plates revolved to allow registration in Britain, France or Switzerland. A caltrop dispenser was located behind the
driver’s rear lights and this made it possible to damage the tires of enemy
vehicles following too closely. The
passenger rear wheel hub also had an extendable tire knife. Another feature was that smoke could be
ejected from the tailpipe to create a smoke screen. The passenger side rear lights contained an
oil dispenser to make the road slick behind the vehicle on demand. Wing machine guns were mounted behind the
indicator lights at the front. The Aston
Martin DB5 was the first car fitted with a passenger ejection seat. Later modifications included water cannons, a
Champaign cooler, and a home office printer/fax/communicator which was
installed as part of the upgraded CD radio. Bond discovered the car by chance during a
visit to Q’s lab and talked Q into letting him use the car. Even with all the offense weapons, Q added many
protective and safety features to the car making it a unique secret agent car for
Bond.
Much of the gadgetry of this car ended up
becoming standard equipment on today’s production cars. For example, the moving map system found on
Bond’s DB5, has evolved three decades later in our vehicles, as the commercial
GPS system we use in cars today. The
internal cooler for a wine bottle now shows up as available fridges in many
CUV’s. The radio telephone found in the
driver’s door is now the Blue Tooth radio link to driver cell phones for hands
free communication. Many of the safety
features of the car were actually more advanced than safety features of that
time in cars of the 1960’s. Improvement
in safety features to resemble Bond’s car became standard on new cars within a
decade. Perhaps the other features of
this car have made it to the cars of secret services around the world.
This car showed up in seven Bond films
during 48 years. Sadly, the Aston Martin
DB5 ended up being destroyed along with Bond’s childhood home in the movie
Skyfall in 2012, but not before using its front firing machine gun to save
Bond’s life by taking out a number of men trying to kill Bond. The remaining models of this car are now the
most well-known and sought after Aston Martin ever made. This car defines the Aston Martin brand. Even Ford, who once owned Aston Martin,
adopted the front grill look in the current Ford Fusion to help sell this model
of car. The Aston Martin itself has
become just as famous as its owner James Bond.