BOLD RIDE
Agent 007 encounters his share of ill-fated Jaguar supercars, 550-horsepower Range Rover Sport SVRs, not to mention the stunning made-for-Bond Aston Martin DB10. If you’re looking to bring some of that cinema magic to your own garage…well, you’re in luck.
Meet the 007 Spy Cars, a limited-run series of 50 Aston Martin replicas that celebrated the movie franchise’s 50th anniversary. The car chosen to pay tribute to those five decades of James Bond is an unmistakable one—the techy Aston Martin Vanquish (or “Vanish”) from 2002’s Die Another Day. But there’s a surprise, it’s actually a Ford Mustang.
According to the cars’ creators, Ford Mustangs with Aston Martin body panels were used to reduce costs during the action scenes of Die Another Day. When it came time to replicate Bond’s Aston, the replicas were finished in the same way, using 2000 to 2004 Ford Mustangs as donor vehicles. British Columbia’s Exclusive Motor Cars quarterbacked the project, which took a claimed 45,000 hours to develop with 2,500 hours spent on each car. Yikes.
Under the hood, each Mustang boasts a 4.6-liter V8, four-speed automatic transmission, and Vortech supercharger, which equates to 450 horsepower and 390 lb.-ft. of torque. KW adjustable coilover shocks were fitted to manage the added power.
Impressively all the gizmos work too…as they should, these cars retailed for $249,000 when new! Rockets appear from the front grille, machine guns pop out of the hood (don’t worry, they’re both props), the license plate flips, and Dom Pérignon emerges from the dashboard. Unfortunately the “Vanish” cloaking device didn’t make the cut.
Much like their silver screen progenitors, these 50 cars aren’t an easy group to find nowadays, however one 007 Spy Car (number 17 in the series) did recently turn up at a dealership in Washington. Brace yourself, the price is a steep one: $199,888. Then again, that’s probably cheaper than having the Q branch whip one up.
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