Bond's Aston Martin on the block

Car for Sale: Low Mileage; Radar, Nail Gun, Smoke Screen Standard

Excerpt:

For more than 40 years, Jerry Lee, a Philadelphia-area radio station owner, kept a used car in a downstairs room in his house. He never drove it.

The vehicle had only one previous owner. His name was Bond. James Bond.

Mr. Lee's car, now here in a Canadian auto-restoration shop, was one of the original Aston Martin Silver Birch DB5s used in the early 007 films, "Goldfinger" and "Thunderball." It included "some rather interesting modifications," as the character known as Q explained in Goldfinger: revolving license plates, tire slasher, twin machine guns, rear oil sprayer, smoke screen, nail disperser, radar, retractable bullet-proof screen and, most memorably, a passenger ejector seat.

Mr. Lee, who is 74, bought the car directly from Aston Martin's British factory in 1969 for $12,000. He's now hoping to sell it for millions at a classic-cars auction in London on Oct. 27 and use the proceeds to fund a foundation he runs that focuses on crime prevention.

The last 007 car to go on the market fetched $2.1 million in 2006 from a private buyer. But that Aston Martin never appeared in any Bond film; it was one of two replicas created for publicity purposes; the other is in a museum in Holland.

Mr. Lee's prized possession, which has original gadgets and appeared in the two movies, will be the first authentic Bond car from that time to go on sale in decades. The only other one used in those movies mysteriously vanished from an airport hangar in Boca Raton, Fla., in 1997.

Dave Worrall, British author of "The Most Famous Car in the World: The Complete History of the James Bond Aston Martin DB5," predicts the coming sale will be "a huge deal" because of the other car's disappearance. If "it's gone forever, then that one takes over as the last remaining original one in the film," he says.

Indeed, the history and mystery surrounding the other Aston Martin seems straight out of an Ian Fleming thriller.

Known as the "effects car," it was the first Bond car outfitted with an arsenal and the one Q demonstrated for Sean Connery in Goldfinger. Some experts consider it more original than Mr. Lee's because it was the first to have gadgets. In fact, the debate over which car is the most original has been raging among various Bond car owners for years. The dispute was chronicled in a 1981 article in this newspaper headlined, "Can Three Men All Be Owners of 007's Car?"

Comment: Interesting to anyone who has viewed "Goldfinger" or "Thunderball".

007 and climate change

Carbon Is Forever

Comment: FUNNY!

Excerpt:

"Global warming, James. You know, rising sea levels, the whole catastrophe. That's what I needed your help with. I need to know how many feet the Thames has to rise for London to be flooded. I have to give my boss an analysis of the long-term risk that climate change poses for every city. It's a bit of a hassle. I thought you might be able to tell me off the top of your head. That's why . . ."

"Pull the other one."

"I'm serious. CIA Director Leon Panetta launched a Center on Climate Change and National Security last month. You may have seen the news reports. Director Panetta announced, 'Decision makers need information and analysis on the effects climate change can have on security.' That's my new assignment."

"Climate change? You mean there's something going on with all that unseasonable snowfall? Is some megalomaniac controlling the weather? I've heard that one can cause global cooling by shooting missiles to disperse particulates into the stratosphere. Who could be so fiendishly diabolical—is it Hugo Drax we're after? Maybe it's the work of Dr. No."

"I wish," said Leiter. "Nothing quite that sexy. Just gathering data . . ."

"I get it," Bond said with a sly smile. "You've discovered that the U.N. climatologists are out to destroy the economies of the West, something even the Reds couldn't pull off. Your job is to subvert them. Brilliant."

"No, no. We're not allowed to question the science, James. There's no room for skepticism in intelligence."

"I'm all in favor of science," Bond said. He signaled the waiter for another medium dry Martini, shaken. "You can't very well give Fidel a poisoned scuba get-up if you don't know how to make a properly powdered preparation of Madura foot fungus to dust the inside of a wetsuit with. But climate change? Wouldn't you be better off putting that manpower into more immediate threats—say, Iranian nukes?"

"It's interesting you should bring that up," said Leiter, brightening. "If Iran goes nuclear it might cut its carbon footprint, which would really be great. That's why we're recommending to the president . . ."

"You're barmy." Bond slapped a few bills on the table and stood to go. "Call me when you've got some real work to do."

"James, you have to understand," Leiter said, chasing after him. "It's not really the CIA anymore, it's the CYA. At least no one gets prosecuted for doing his job at the Center on Climate Change and National Security."

The CIA is now the CYA