No Time To Die, Daniel Craig’s 007 swansong, opens in the U.S., this week, but it’s already live in the UK, where the movie has broken box office records, and nearly broken Auto Trader’s servers as Bond wannabees check out the prices of used Astons.
Britain’s Auto Trader registered a 75 percent increase in searches for pre-owned Aston Martins in the weekend following the film’s release, helping make a pair of DB5s and its DB6 successor listed on the site the three most popular classic car adverts.
Searches for more modern Astons were also up, as was traffic looking at Jaguars and Land Rovers, which rose by 13 per cent. One of the key scenes in the new movie sees 007 escaping through a Norwegian Forest pursued by a squad of baddies driving Range Rover Sports.
Related: James Bond’s Original Aston Martin DB5 From Goldfinger Allegedly Found After Almost 25 Years
It’s likely that most of the budding Bonds were dismayed to find the two DB5s listed on the Auto Trader site slightly beyond their means. One is a 1965 car (pictured above )in the same silver birch paint as Bond’s ride that comes with a £985,000 ($1.33 m) price, while the other, a 1964 model recently restored by Aston Martin Works, the company’s classic arm, is priced at an even scarier £1.2 m ($1.62 m).
Neither come with the Bond car’s gadget’s either, and unfortunately the entire 25-unit run of £2.75 m ($3.72 m) Goldfinger DB5 continuation cars currently under construction that do come with the full Q-branch goodies, have all been sold.
From Riches To Rags
Twiddling with Auto Trader’s search functions to see what might be lurking at the extreme opposite end of the used Aston Martin range, we turned up the supercharged six-cylinder DB7 pictured here for £19,980 ($27,000), though a V12-powered DB7 Vantage that’s been in the hands of the same owner for the past six years and is up for £22,950 ($31,000) looks like a better buy to us.
But Bond isn’t afraid to take chances, and if you’re not either, there’s a previously damaged and now-repaired DB9 up for grabs on the same website for £45 more. The pictures don’t show any signs of bullet holes or it having been involved in a seven-car chase through a European city that culminated in a 60-ft jump over a truck. But if you’d prefer peace of mind of buying a clean, never-damaged car, you’ll have to get M to agree to add at least an extra £4000 ($5400) to the mission budget.
Would A Woke Bond Drive A Cygnet?
Really peachy DB9s start at £30,000 ($40,500), which is also the entry point for the DB9’s little brother, the V8 Vantage, and, bizarrely, the Toyota IQ-based Cygnet city car. A DBS like the car Daniel Craig drove in his very first Bond outing, 2006’s Casino Royale, is on the table if you’ve got £64,000 ($86,500) to spend. Or, if you still have a hankering after the Vanquish Pierce Brosnan tooled around in, Auto Trader can help you put one in your garage for £55,000 ($74,000).
Related: Why Aston Martin’s Cygnet City Car Was A Smarter Buy Than Its Toyota Donor (And The DB9)
Rather more expensive, at £200,000 ($270,000) is this Vantage 007, one of 100 built last year to coincide with the launch of No Time to Die, which was unfortunately delayed by the pandemic. That delay seems to have inflated this car’s price: they only cost £161,000 ($210,700) when the order book opened.
Sometimes It’s Good To Be Bad
Exactly how many of those Bond fans that rushed to the site with plans to live out their 007 fantasies actually bought an Aston, or perhaps this £210,000 ($284,000) Bowler-modifed Land Rover Defender built for the 2015 Bond movie, Spectre, isn’t clear. We’re guessing most of them bailed. Which would you buy?