At this year’s Rétromobile 2017 car expo in Paris, there’ll be 550 exhibitors in attendance, 500 cars on display, and live auto sales from Artcurial. But the main event will be just one car: a silver 1964 Aston Martin DB5, which actor Sean Connery piloted as James Bond in the blockbuster film Goldfinger.
Without question, this DB5 is the most important car in cinematic history, and this copy (just one of two in existence) retains all of the original gadgets it was armed to the teeth with from the original film. These include its 30-caliber Browning machine guns, hidden under the turning headlights (just under the larger ones); bulletproof glass to fend off any stray bullets; an armored metallic sliding shield to ward off any gunfire from behind; extending projectiles from the wheel rims in order to deflate enemy autos’ tires; and smoke generators to disable (or crash) any cars in hot pursuit. As you’ll see below, the film’s car was also able to drop studs on the ground to stop enemy vehicles in their
As you’ll see in the clip at the bottom, the film’s car was also able to drop studs on the ground to stop enemy vehicles in their tracks, and even unleash an oil slick to send them skidding away. And just for good measure, there were three license plates that could be rotated to send enemy scouts down a cold trail.
Interior design quirks like the car phone and GPS were practically futuristic for the day, but have long since become ubiquitous. But one feature that today’s cars still lack is the incredible convenient passenger-side ejection seat, which would be perfect for abruptly ending bad dates or sending poor navigators skyward.
The iconic car will be one of 15 historic DB series autos brought together into a single exhibit, sponsored by the Classic Car Trust, and entitled The Iconic Cars of Sir David Brown: 70 years of Aston Martin DB. These also include the 1963 Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato, 1949 Aston Martin Two-Liter DB1, and the 1966 David Brown 990 (a tractor; that was Brown’s original trade).
If you’re wondering who the “David Brown” (i.e. DB) in question is, he’s the highly intelligent gentleman who bought the Aston Martin brand back in 1947 for just $25,000, and helped close the deal that got the car on the big screen (and into the able hands of Sean Connery). Certainly, it made him a multimillionaire, too.
The Rétromobile 2017 takes place from Feb. 8–12. Find out more about it here. For more on the Classic Car Trust, click here. Below, watch Bond make a blonde passenger giggle as he puts some of the gadgets to use in the first clip; and in the second, run a second femme fatale right off the road.
—RealClearLife Staff
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