By Aston Martin will make brand new reproductions of James Bond's Aston Martin DB5 from Goldfinger, complete with rotating license plates "and more" from Bond special effects supervisor Chris Corbould.
They'll go for £2.75 million each, or about £3.3 million after tax. James Bond has never given any indication that he has to pay tax.
The British car giants will make 28 exact copies of the Silver Birch DB5 as driven by Bond in Goldfinger, with 25 to be sold and one given to Eon Productions, the Bond franchise owners, one kept by Aston Martin and another sold off for charity.
Though there will be little tweaks made to iron out the original model's internal niggles, everything else will be exactly as it was. These 'continuation' models will be made in the second half of next year at the Newport Pagnell factory where the original DB5s were made between 1963 and 1965.
"To own a Silver Birch DB5, complete with gadgets and built to the highest standards in the very same factory as the original James Bond cars? That is surely the ultimate collectors’ fantasy," said Aston Martin boss Andy Palmer.
While £3.3 million is a bit steep compared to the going rate for any old DB5 - somewhere around £450,000 or so - it's a decent saving compared to one of the actual DB5s used during the filming of Goldfinger. The last one sold went for $4.6 million, or about £2.95 million, in 2010, and the only other one was stolen in 1997 and hasn't been seen since.
One snag: you can't drive these reproduction on public roads, according to Aston Martin. But then again, if you've got £3.3 million kicking around then presumably you've also got your own disused airfield or Scottish glen to burn round.
