Category:James Bond Aston Martin DB5

Various versions of Corgi 270 from the Glenn Butler Collection (2020) [image info]

1968: Corgi Toys 270: catalogue image [image info]

1970: Corgi Toys 270: catalogue image [image info]

Commonly known as just "The James Bond Car", the gadget-packed Aston Martin DB5 used in Goldfinger (1964) captured the public's imagination as a supremely pretty 1960s high-performance car that was equipped with everything the modern Sixties spy could ask for, from machine guns to an ejector seat.

1965: Corgi 261 James Bond Aston Martin packaging

The real car

The real DB5 was produced between 1963 and 1965, with a little over a thousand made. It was rated as having a top speed of 145 mph, with a 0–60mph acceleration time of 8 seconds.

Practicality

One of the great things about the Bond DB5's gadgets was that they all seemed very practical and possible. it wasn't as if the car could fly, or turn into a submarine, or be unreasonably fast, or change paint colour (which might be feasible in the C21st), or turn invisible. Popout headlamps revealing fixed machineguns were feasible, as were the smokescreen and oil defences, also the rotating numberplates, and the forward overrider rams.

The rear steel plate protecting the rear window was very practical indeed if someone behind you was shooting at you, but unlike the other features, would have been difficult to incorporate into a real car without producing a tell-tale rectangular crack in the rear bodywork, which would have been noticed by any car enthusiast.

Perhaps the least convincing gadget was the ejector seat: not because the components couldn't be lifted from aircraft spares and fitted to a real car, but because of the choice to only fit one ejector seat, and fit it to the passenger seat. Wouldn't two independent ejector seats be better? And if you were only going to fit one, wouldn't you want the driver to be able to eject rather than the passenger? In Goldfinger, Bond does find it useful to be able to eject his unwanted passenger, but the scene feels slightly contrived. An ejection seat is most useful as an emergency escape device, if all one wants to do is to disable someone in the front passenger seat, there would be easier boobytrap mechanisms.

Autumn 1964: Goldfinger: Introduction scene:

Bond: "Where's my Bentley?"

Q: "Oh, it's had it's day, I'm afraid."

Bond: "But it's never let me down."

Q: "M's orders 007. You'll be using this Aston Martin DB5 with modifications. Now pay attention please: windscreen, bulletproof as on the side and the rear windows; revolving number plates, naturally, valid all countries; here's a nice little transmitting device called a homer: you prime it by pressing that back like this you see, the smaller model is now standard field issue to be fitted into the heel of your shoe. Its larger brother is magnetic, right, to be concealed in the car you're trailing while you keep out of sight -- reception on the dashboard here audio-visual, range 150 miles."

...

Bond: "Anything else ..."

Q: "Well i won't keep you for more than an hour so if you give me your undivided attention. We've installed some rather interesting modifications: you see this arm here, now, open the top and inside -- your defence mechanism controls; smoke screen, oil slick, rear bulletproof screen, and left and right front wing machine guns."

Q: "Now this one I'm particularly keen about: you see the gear lever here, now if you take the top off you'll find a little red button. Whatever you do don't touch it."

Bond: "No, why not?"

Q: "Because you'll release this section of the roof and engage and fire the passenger ejector seat."

Bond: "Ejector seat? you're joking!"

Q: "I never joke about my work 007."

Autumn 1965: Corgi 261 launch

The birth of the most popular toy car in history was something of a mess, with Corgi failing to coordinate in advance with the makers of Goldfinger for a coordinated launch.

Only after the film had already gone on general release did it occur to anyone that perhaps there ought to be a Corgi model of the new wonder car, as it was already being featured in the local newspaper (!). The suggestion was made ... and shot down, on the grounds that producing a model would be too fiddly, and anyway, the film was already out. As demand for the non-existent toy grew, and grew, and grew, eventually Corgi decided that they couldn't ignore it any longer, and instituted a crash programme to produce a model of the Bond DB5 for Autumn 1965, basically a year late, but still in time for Christmas '65.

In an act of disrespect to the source material, Corgi's management decided that painting Bond's car in the correct "Silver Birch" colour it had had in the film wasn't going to happen: in their opinion, the silver-painted model looked too much as if it was unpainted bare metal, and they decided to make the colour "better" by painting the car gold, instead.

Rather than start from scratch, the Corgi team decided that they would have to save time by cannibalising and "hacking" an existing earlier Aston Martin DB4 model from their range, and assigning different designers to work on the different individual features of the car. This worked. Unfortunately, the resulting feature-packed model, with its elaborate packaging with fold-out "wings" and a secret envelope hidden in the cardboard plinth with "secret instructions" and a spare "baddie" to replace the one in the car, which would inevitably be lost after being pinged across a room a few times ... was just too good.

The cars disappeared off the shelves immediately, and every time Corgi sent out a new delivery, they were either sold on the spot, or were pre-sold. No matter how strongly Corgi prioritised production of the complex car, they just couldn't keep up. Retailers were not best pleased that they found themselves being constantly pestered by wannabe customers for a toy that they couldn't source, and that Corgi didn't seem able to supply, but everyone wanted. One London retailer complained that they were fielding 2,000 enquiries per week, with angry customers, NEEDING to buy a Bond car for their kid's Christmas refusing to believe that the shops didn't have any of the cars to sell, and that the shops didn't know when the situation would change.

Disgruntled retailers responded by refusing to make the car "Toy of the Year" for 1965. But sales were still so high throughout 1966 and through Christmas 1966 that the car ended up being named "Toy of the Year" for the following year.