James Bond’s Aston Martin DB10 is Up for Sale

The latest James Bond film Spectre struck that perfect balance between action and story, and despite Daniel Craig turning in another great performance as Bond, he had company — and we’re not talking about Christolph Waltz. For the first time since Goldfinger, Bond was fighting for the spotlight with his car, an Aston Martin DB10. But unlike Connery’s DB5, Dalton’s Vantage, or Brosnan’s Vanquish, the Spectre DB10 was custom-built for the movie, a move that crushed the dreams of Bond fans around the world.
Well-sorted vintage Astons are fetching astronomical prices in the classic market, and while even newer models remain firmly out of reach of the average gearhead, at least you could take solace in the fact that if you won the lottery tomorrow, you could go out and buy one. Not so with the DB10; Aston made only 10 of them, and they all went to EON Productions, producers of the Bond films. Eight were subjected to the tortures of filming, and two were built for promotion. From the outset, Aston was very clear: The DB10 wasn’t for sale. Period.

But that’s about to change. On February 18, Christie’s will be auctioning one of the DB10s along with 23 other props from Spectre to benefit Doctors without Borders and the United Nations Mine Action Service. So if you love the DB10 as much and the rest of us, but have an estimated 1 to 1.5 million pounds ($1.4 to $2.1 million) to play with, you could soon be the only person on the planet without a license to kill to own one.

Until now, the closest buyers could come to owning a Spectre car was Aston Martin’s DB9 GT Bond Edition, which was little more than an aging DB9 with a special paint job, 007 logos in the cockpit, a set of luggage, and an Omega watch. It bore little resemblance to the DB10, but even at $237,007 (a $40,000 premium over a regular DB9), it’s beginning to look like a bargain compared to the movie car.
When it was unveiled in 2014, the DB10 was largely considered to be the most beautiful Aston Martin in a very long time — and that’s no small feat considering how good looking the company’s lineup already is. Its design was overseen by chief creative officer Marek Reichman, and it was developed while working closely with the Spectre crew. It’s based on the V8 Vantage, but the platform has been specially lengthened and widened to give the car its long, low, and mean look. Its styling is rumored to be a major jumping-off point for the next-generation DB11. Power comes from the Vantage’s 430-horsepower 4.8-liter V8, and it’s mated to a six-speed manual, proving once and for all that Bond prefers driving a stick.

But all of that may be for naught if you end up buying the DB10. For starters, it’s a right-hand drive car that was never intended for sale in the U.S. If the lucky buyer happens to reside stateside, they would have to negotiate with the Feds to get a “Show and Display” exemption if they wanted to avoid a bunch of G-Men seizing their new car and taking it to the crusher. And even if registering the car elsewhere is less of a headache, you’d have to be crazy to subject the DB10 to half of the stuff Bond does. That said, we’d love to be rich (and crazy) enough to put this in our garage and take it out on some twisty back roads.