I’ve driven a genuine James Bond Aston Martin DB5, the one in Skyfall that wasn’t a 3D printed model riddled with machine gun bullets. And a lovely thing it was too.

Back in 2013 we insured it for £3 million, which was something like £500,000 for the DB5 element, the rest for the fact that its seat had been occupied by the backside of the world’s least secret agent.

And that £3 million, with a few extras and bit of tax is roughly what customers will pay for each one of 25 new Silver Birch DB5s, officially sanctioned by Eon Productions, the company that owns the rights to allthings Bond. They’ll have an unspecified number of working gadgets but will no more be licensed for road use than their owners are licensed to kill. The question is, what’s the point?

The answer seems clear. I don’t know what cut Eon takes – it will be substantial – but even after that the profit for Aston Martin will clearly be considerable, all of which can be ploughed into improving the cars driven by more normal customers. Which can only be a good thing.

Aston Martin to produce 25 Bond replica Goldfinger DB5s

The way I see it, if Aston Martin has clients who want such cars as ornaments to show to their friends, or even reckon they can be modified in such a way as to allow individuals to register them, good luck to them.

Do they devalue Bond, Aston Martin or the DB5? Not at all, at least not to me. Would I have one if I could afford it? Not for a moment.

Because to me only one Bond DB5 really counts, and it’s not the one I’ve driven. It’s the effects car from Goldfinger, the one with all the gadgets, which was stolen from a hangar at Boca Raton airport in 1997 and not been seen since.

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