The James Bond Aston Martin V8 from 'The Living Daylights’ is up for sale

It’s not every day you get the opportunity to own one of James Bond’s actual cars. One suspects today’s not that day either. Because while one of the Aston Martins used in the 1987 James Bond film The Living Daylights is going up for auction in Monterey, the reserve price is an eye-popping $1.4 million. And that’s at the low end.

This is a seriously rare car. Apparently Aston couldn’t supply new cars for filming due to a backlog of orders from other customers, according to auctioneer RM Sotheby’s. So this is one of four real Aston Martin V8s bought by the production team for the movie.

Fans of the famous spy will also be delighted to learn that the dummy rocket booster button has been switched out for the real thing so now it shoots actual flames.

Starting life in 1973 in Tudor Green, it was acquired by EON Productions in 1986. Along with its four stablemates, the V8 was modified with fibreglass bodywork, a new bonnet, new wheels and fresh grey paint to appear newer. The Bond script also called for removable skis and a rocket boost function.

Sent downhill during filming, the Aston V8 also had to have its engine and gearbox whipped out to make it lighter. Post-filming, EON Productions kept custody of it until 1995, when it got sold to Peter Nelson, founder of the ‘Cars of the Stars’ museum in Keswick, England.

In 2004, it went to a private collection in America, then onto a new owner in 2021, who restored the V540 V8 Vantage-spec engine and five-speed manual gearbox.

Given how much action this thing's seen, we're surprised it's in such mint condition. With two of the four cars in another private collection in the US and one retained by the production company, this Aston Martin V8 is something special.