The 1964 Aston Martin DB5 carries the tag of 'The Most Iconic Car' in the James Bond franchise with utmost grace, and with its price increasing by almost 790 times from the original number, we'll take a closer look at what a DB5 is worth today.
Updated October 2021: If you're a fan of the classic Aston Martin DB5, you'll be pleased to know that we've updated this article with more information about this stunning classic, uncovering the details behind the sky-high prices they're selling for today.
The Aston Martin DB5 was in production between 1963 and 1965, where the 1,059 units were all handmade. The car made its debut on the silver screen with the Sean Connery starred 'Goldfinger' in 1964. It was an instant hit among car lovers owing to its beautiful chassis and depiction of the car as a top-notch 'spy vehicle'. Unfortunately, the original vehicle used in the movie went missing in 1997 and has not been retrieved ever since.
With DB5s in average condition priced at more than half a million dollars today, let's look at the details and find out what it is that makes this classic Aston Martin so expensive today, and how collectors and enthusiasts justify this extravagant price tag.
The Superior Design And Performance
The 2-door grand tourer was well known for being an ingenious build that demanded an average of 4,500 hours to be produced. The Aston Martin DB5 has a front-engine, rear-wheel-drive design conceptualized by the Italian designer Carrozzeria Touring Superleggera in Milan. The luxurious interiors resemble a fighter jet, and the chassis has a long hood with enclosed headlights. The DB5 also has a central-mounted log-nut with wired wheels, giving it a classic look. This semi-classic look was not the easiest to replicate by other carmakers of that era.
The powerhouse of the DB5 is a DOHC straight-six 4.0-liter engine that delivers a whopping 290–330 hp. It can propel the car to a top speed of 145 mph and take it from 0-60 in merely 8 seconds. The car originally had a 4-speed manual ZF box, but this was replaced with a 5-speed manual ZF system in the later models. In addition, the DB5 could optionally be fitted with a Borg-Warner 3-speed automatic transmission as well.
The Premium Price Chart
The Aston Martin DB5 may not be a car for the masses, and the automaker targeted only a specific category of buyers. A pristine quality (Concours) DB5 can rack in up to $1.3 million, whereas an excellent build will go for $990,000. Even a fair-quality DB5 would cost around $579,000. This price range, averaging at $744,000, is limited to the cars that one can acquire from private owners or the company itself, but there are even more exquisite prices for some iconic builds of the car.
One such example is the Aston Martin DB5, once owned by Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, which the London-based Hexagon Classics fully restored. The car held a price tag of $883,000 and was put on sale in August 2017. The cars which were used in the movies have an even higher price range. One of the DB5s was auctioned on August 15, 2019, for a whopping $6.4 million. Another sale was the one at RM Sotheby's Pebble Beach exhibit, which was estimated to be sold for somewhere between $4-6 million.
Aston Martin decided to rebuild the car in 2020 and made 25 replicas of the exact car used in the Bond films, selling each of these for approximately $4 million.
Prices for these cars have skyrocketed in the last 15-20 years. Back in the early 2000s, it was possible to pick up DB5s for well under $100,000 all day long, but clearly, those days are long gone.
The 2020 Rebuild
If over 6 million dollars seems a bit excessive for a car that's nearly 60 years old, in 2020 Aston Martin built some James Bond Goldfinger Continuation cars for roughly half that amount. The 2020 Aston Martin DB5 might look the same on the outside, but it was completely revamped for much better performance while still radiating the charm of the 1964 original. All the 25 replicas were painted in the iconic Silver Birch tone and were equipped with a host of gadgets and features to emulate the feeling of the actual spy car. These cars each had a horsepower of 330 hp, which was much higher compared to the 286 hp of the original.
All of these cars had bullet-proof chassis, revolving number plates, and under-seat hidden weapon storage, to name a few of the fancy features. It also featured the iconic bullet-proof rear screen, which saved Bond many times in the movies. The exteriors were fitted with battering rams in the front and rear, two fake machine guns behind the headlights, a concealed oil-slick ejector, a rear smoke emitter in the exhaust, and tire slashing retractable rims.
On the inside, these vehicles also had some dummy and some legitimate pieces of tech. All the gadgets on the outside could be ejected and retracted via a remote control ejector on the inside, for starters. The armrest of the car concealed a button panel for controlling the basic functions of the vehicle. Likewise, there was a telephone in the driver's door panel, a concealed dummy radar screen, and a seat-ejector button hidden under the cap of the gearstick. The roof had a passenger-side panel to give the dummy ejector seat a realistic appeal.
Despite having an array of super-cool features underneath its hood, the 2020 Aston Martin DB5 is not considered 'road legal', so buyers would basically only be able to drive it on private property, or sit inside it and play around with the Bond gadgets. Perhaps it's no wonder that they remain a collector's item for wealthy Bond fanatics? They were sold between July and December of 2020.
The 1964 DB5 is not uncommon in several vintage roadshows, regular travel, and the latest Bond movies as special appearances. With its increasing rarity and relevance in popular media, its worth may as well increase even more than its current all-time-high figures.