All Photos by Gail

Following author Ian Fleming’s specifications that James Bond drive a gadget-laden, Aston Martin, the Aston Martin DB5 was introduced as James Bond’s first Q Branch-modified vehicle in the film Goldfinger (1964). With its essential, Britishness, bespoke, craftsmanship, and sleek, classic styling, the DB5 was an appropriate fit for the debonair secret agent.

Beneath its stock appearance, the DB5 concealed a plethora of onboard gadgets, which included: a passenger ejector seat, rear bulletproof shield, machine guns behind the headlights, a rear-wheel-hub, tire scythe, a rotating license plate, smoke screen, and oil slick sprayers.

Driven by three actors portraying James Bond throughout eight films, the Aston Martin DB5 has come to be recognized as the quintessential Bond vehicle.

The car chase between James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) and Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen) in the film GoldenEye (1995) marked the first time in 30 years that audiences had seen the iconic Aston Martin DB5 in a Bond film. Since then, this version of the DB5, painted in Silver Birch, has appeared in more Bond films than any other vehicle, returning as the Bond “hero car” in the latest film, No Time To Die (2021).

Photographed as Part of the Exhibit, Bond In Motion, at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, California.