Bond’s Aston Martin Sells For $4.1 Million At Auction

One of cinema’s most famous cars, the tricked-out silver Aston Martin DB5 sports car first driven by Sean Connery in Goldfinger, sold at auction Wednesday in London for $4.1 million.

Used for driving sequences in Goldfinger, the car was used for promotional purposes after the film was released. The car was so popular with fans that it made a return appearance in Thunderball and was for filming modified with machine guns, rotating license plates, bullet-proof shileld, oil slick sprayer and other spy gadgets that aren’t exactly standard in the models that were sold to the public. Its appearances in the Bond films helped popularize the Aston Martin brand among sports car buyers in the early 1960s.

The auctioned car is one of two that the company specially prepared for Eon Productions for the filming of the Bond films. The other Aston Martin was the gadget car for Goldfinger, sporting many of the devices seen in that film. Unfortunately, it was reported stolen in 1997 and is presumed destroyed.

While that amount might sound a bit pricey for a used car, it is still under the $5.5 million that the car was valued at and far short of the $10 million it was expected to bring in. Still, it is quite a bit more than the $12,000 that radio broadcaster Jerry Lee spent to acquire the car in 1969.

Harry Yeaggy, an American classic cars collector, was the winning bidder and stated that the car may go on display in an upscale office complex in Los Angeles or Moscow. Moscow? Those SMERSH agents would just love to get their hands on the car…

Via USA Today.