The longstanding partnership between Aston Martin and EON Productions is worth untold millions in advertising and exposure for the car company, even if the deadlines and production challenges suck up huge amounts of resources. It's also a core component of the Bond character (despite as originally written, Fleming's Bond was in a Bentley). However, as Bond got grittier under Daniel Craig, so the Aston element became more and more incongruous.
Aston tried to counter this by trying to become a bit grittier itself (describing the 2019 Vantage model as a 'predator' and hiring Rankin to photograph it with a wolf sitting on the roof, as well as commissioning dark and spiky imagery from Nick Knight, among others). But gritty isn't really what its customers want. They want to be international playboys and playgirls, for whom the car represents the ultimate shortcut signifier of taste and discretion.
It’s also why the company creates things like this, the Aston Martin DB12 Goldfinger Edition, 60 of which are being made to celebrate the marque’s first appearance in a Bond Film, when the DB5 swung into view in 1964’s Goldfinger and the double act was henceforth cemented.
The relatively recent DB12 hasn’t yet made its debut in any film to the best of our knowledge, let alone a Bond one, but here it’s been given the movie star treatment thanks to a thorough – but relatively subtle – overhaul by Q by Aston Martin, the suspiciously cinematic name for the company’s bespoke personalisation service. Limited to 60 cars, the most obvious parallel it makes with Sean Connery’s original DB5 is the paint finish, ‘Silver Birch’.
Under the super tourer’s long, rippling bonnet nothing has changed – a 4.0-litre V8 Twin-Turbo engine putting out 680PS. The original DB5 put out around 282bhp (about 286PS), considered pretty impressive for the time.
What the DB12 definitely has in common with its forebear is an innate, albeit far more muscular, beauty. Just like a shirtless Daniel Craig, the brutish charm of the DB12 presents a ripped and utterly contemporary aesthetic that would have been frankly terrifying to Sixties’ audiences, as if Bond was shown driving a Le Mans car.
Aston Martin has mined this rich seam many times, most notably with a series of Continuation cars – replicas – of the exact prop car DB5 from Goldfinger, complete with a set of (non-lethal) gadgets, and even a pocket-sized version courtesy of the Little Car Company (since re-branded as Hedley Studios).
There have been other special editions too, nodding to the Aston Martin’s twelve appearances in the series (for completists, the list is as follows: Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball (1965), On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969), The Living Daylights (1987), GoldenEye (1995), Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), Die Another Day (2002), Casino Royale (2006), Quantum of Solace (2008), Skyfall (2012), Spectre (2015) and No Time to Die (2021)).
For the DB12 Goldfinger Edition, the key signifiers are relatively subtle and include a unique silver colour on the 21” wheels, bespoke gold side strakes and a unique Aston Martin logo. The interior leather includes an intricate Prince of Wales check perforation pattern, ‘in a nod to a classic James Bond suit,’ while there’s also a polished sill plaque and number of 18k Gold Plated interior accents on the controls. Finally, there’s an ’eight of hearts’ embroidered onto the drivers’ sun visor, a reference to the playing card seen in a pivotal scene in the film.
Mindful that buyers of this kind of steroidal plaything are essentially big kids at heart, Aston has thrown in a worthy goodie bag for each purchaser (actually a Globe-Trotter attaché case). These include a 2007 bottle of Bollinger, a custom car cover, luxury key presentation box, a Speedform scale model of the car and – ‘for something truly unique’ – a snippet from a 35mm print of the film itself, the scene in which Connery’s Bond drives the DB5 over Switzerland’s Furka Pass.
With the current cinematic horizon looking rather Bond-less, could this famous partnership be on the wane? After No Time to Die’s rather pointed full stop, change is afoot. Should the Bond universe be re-booted and started again from scratch, it would be unlikely to re-tread the same locations, sets and props used from the 60s onwards. Regardless, would the carmaker even be interested in a relentless focus on its very distant past with no space for modern product?
However, if the series stays in the present day and the Bond mantle is passed to an entirely different type of character, retaining the same luxurious four-wheeled supporting cast might distract from the new direction. It's a conundrum worthy of the super spy himself. Or even herself?
Aston Martin DB12 Goldfinger Edition, deliveries begin in Q2 2025. Price on application, AstonMartin.com, @AstonMartin
