A 2001 Aston Martin V12 Vanquish built to promote the James Bond movie Die Another Day is up for grabs.
The car was originally delivered to Aston Martin Chairman Dr Ulrich Bez, complete with prop machine guns and rocket launchers, although without the invisibility cloak that prompts Q to refer to the car as “the Vanish”. It’s also missing the pop-out tyre spikes that gave it grip during Die Another Day‘s wild frozen lake chase sequence, which is actually more like an arms race between Bond’s ride and his enemy Zao’s Jaguar XKR.
For the movie EON Productions built special stunt vehicles fitted with small block Chevrolet V8 engines, racing transmissions, and all-wheel drive to allow them to put their power down on the Icelandic lake. “With most car chase you’ve got cars burning rubber, running red lights and driving up pavements, you’ve got cars going through shop windows,” explained Action Unit Director Vic Armstrong. “But we didn’t have any of that. We had two cars on a lake. To make it visually interesting it was a challenge, so the cars keep moving, even when Bond’s car is on its roof it keeps sliding and fires back on its wheels.”
The car for sale has spent its whole life right-side-up, thankfully. Finished in metallic Skye silver over chestnut leather, Vanquish chassis number 007 is otherwise standard and fully-road legal. In fact it’s been driven a remarkable 54,700 miles which is all documented in the car’s history file. It’s being sold on Auto Trader with 12 months’ warranty and 12 months’ MOT for £99,950.
