Look carefully when watching 1964’s Goldfinger and you might just spy one of the most famous tax discs to take to the road, inside the windscreen of James Bond’s Aston Martin DB5 as 007 evades the bad guys.
Now another paper tax disc once registered to the same DB5 has sold at auction for £25,000 – more than enough to buy a modern-classic Aston Martin DB7.
The astonishing price paid staggered even seasoned classic car collectors and devotees of automobilia, and left an unanswered question hanging over the sales floor: who is the mystery buyer? Bidding was said to have seen two individuals battle it out for ownership of the tax disc.
The tax disc slipped below the radar of many Bond enthusiasts after it was sold during September’s Bonhams Collectors’ Motor Cars and Automobilia auction, held during the Goodwood Revival weekend, last month.
Its sale price of £25,250 (including buyer’s premium) will set tongues wagging amongst velologists – collectors of tax discs. Historic tax discs typically sell for up to £400, but the association with what is arguably the most famous car in the world had a dramatic impact on the value of this one.
It had been estimated to fetch £2500, but in the end James Bond fever swept the sale room and the paper disc sold for 1000 times what it cost in 1970. It expired in October, 1970, but rather than being discarded it was kept safe and logged together with a letter of authentication from David Brown, the then chairman of Aston Martin, confirming that registration mark ‘6633PP’ was later attached to the same DB5 used during filming for Goldfinger. The two items of automobilia were sold together.
The interest in all things Bond-related has intensified in the build up to the release of No Time To Die. The 25th 007 film had been delayed by a total of 18 months due to the ongoing Covid crisis, but finally reached cinemas on September 30.
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