The Hunt for the Stolen James Bond Aston Martin ‘Goldfinger car’.

 As many enthusiasts know, the release of the next James Bond film ‘No Time to Die’ was delayed yet again because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The film had already been pushed back twice, but will now hopefully debut globally on 8 October 2021. It had originally been due to hit our screens in April 2020.

007 fans everywhere are clearly waiting to glimpse the new Aston Martin DBS Superleggera, the Valhalla and the V8 Vantage cars driven by Daniel Craig in what is suggested to be his last Bond film including a promised cameo appearance from ‘an’ original DB5 as seen in the film Goldfinger.

It looks however that the film producers have elected to build a replica ‘look alike’ of the original ‘Goldfinger’ car for their film complete with a smoke screen, oil slick, machine gun and bullet shield.

 The original and iconic Aston Martin DB5 chassis number DP/216/1 (DP – development project) registration plate BMT216A seen in various guises, being driven by 007 in several Bond films has however been missing for almost a quarter of a century.

On the 18th June 1997 a silver 1964 Aston Martin DB5 used in the film Goldfinger, owned then by businessman and car collector Anthony Pugliese III, reported to the police that the car had been stolen from an aircraft hangar at Boca Raton airport in Florida, U.S.A.

To date the car valued at between $7 and $10 million dollars has never been found. A six figure sum is still being offered for information leading to its safe return

Police investigators at the time discovered that the thieves had sliced through the flexible moulding of a hangar door, cut a padlock, and disabled the alarm before using they suggest chains or cables to pull the car out of the hangar. Nothing else had been disturbed.

As there was no evidence of broken glass, police assumed the car was removed intact. The few guards on watch saw nothing albeit one had allegedly fallen asleep and was later dismissed.

The DB5 was allegedly so heavy with modifications and gadgets including machine guns, ejector seat, tyre-shredding blades and oil, smoke and water emitters that the evidence of tyre drag marks on the hangar floor leading out of the hangar led police to believe that it was dragged out by its axles and possibly loaded onto a flatbed truck that would have been waiting to take the car away under cover of darkness.

Evidence on vehicle movement at the time of theft showed only a passing Range Rover that was owned by a local person who was interviewed and cleared of any wrong doing.

The police also discovered that just days before the theft, the car had been held in a storage facility in nearby Delray Bay. This had been broken open by thieves but the car had by then moved to the aircraft hangar from where it was stolen. Boca Raton police spokeswoman Lori Croy stated at the time that they believed the thieves had earlier been after the car.

The FBI circulated the cars description and news of the theft was received by the Metropolitan Police Stolen Car Squad at New Scotland Yard.

At the time of theft Pugliese had been in the process of having the car valued and had planned to tour with the car.

The theories of the cars whereabouts were plentiful with suggestions of it being flown over the Florida Quays and dropped in the ocean, or being hidden away in a collection or museum somewhere in the world were dismissed with no evidence. This included information that Anthony Pugliese III had hidden the car in a Newark, New Jersey, warehouse that he owned together with ‘another’ similar Aston Martin DB5.

No evidence however was ever found linking him to the stolen car's disappearance or anything else untoward and shortly afterwards the insurer paid Pugliese the full insured value of the car, $4.2 million.

A six figure sum was offered by the insurers for the safe return of the car and they instructed Christopher Marinello, Art Recovery International chief executive to find it.

In June 2018 he told the press that ‘‘I have been given a specific tip, but we are working on it. There are many Aston Martins and it’s very important that we get a look at the chassis number, DB5/216/1. It is however quite possible the potential in the Middle East is a mere lookalike, which is why it is crucial we retain a close-up of the chassis number.’

This was just prior to the Aston Martin factory announcing their intention to build 25 replicas of the Goldfinger DB5, complete with gadgets, for ￡2.75 million pounds each.

It’s a fact that two silver Aston Martin DB5 cars were loaned to the producers for the filming of Goldfinger; these were numbered DB5/2161/1 and DB5/1486/R.

Chassis DP/2161/1 started life as a Series 5 DB4 and was known as the ‘Gadget ‘car. It sported the famous registration number BMT 216A and was originally painted red, prior to it being kitted out with weaponry and other gadgets. It actually appeared in an episode of ‘The Saint’ with future Bond Roger Moore in 1964 before it was used in the film Goldfinger.

 In 1968, Aston Martin stripped DP/2161/1 of all of its gadgets and sold it to Gavin Keyzar as a used car displaying 50,000 miles on the odometer. It was re-registered with license plate 6633 PP. A year later, Keyzar instructed a company in the south of England to reinstall all the gadgets.

In 1971, Keyzar sold it to Richard Loose of Utah for $12000. Loose retired in 1987 and decided to sell both the DB5 and a 1937 Rolls-Royce Phantom III also used in Goldfinger at a Sotheby’s auction in New York. Anthony Pugliese, a developer from Florida, purchased the car for $275,000.

 Chassis number DB5/1486/R known as the ‘Road’ car was a standard car taken from the production line and was initially kept for the high speed driving scenes. It was later also fitted with all the gadgets and gizmos of a Bond car. After the filming was over DB5/1486/R was returned to Aston Martin and the special equipment was removed. In 1968 it was sold to Jerry Lee, an American collector who retained it until 2010.

It was sold by him at auction for $4.6 million on October 10th 2010 to Harry Yeaggy, a well-known classic car collector from Cincinnati, Ohio. He still owns the car which remains the only surviving DB5 of the two cars actually used in the filming of the movies.

For the filming of Goldfinger two additional DB5s were ordered by a Swiss holding company for promotional duties at a reputed cost of $62,500 each (more than five times the list price of a standard DB5). Equipped with near identical gadgetry to the earlier cars, they bore chassis numbers DB5/2008/R and DB5/2017/R.

Chassis number DB5/2008/R, one of only three surviving Bond cars and one of two built from new with Bond gadgetry, was sent to North America for a promotional campaign. After Thunderball it was purchased by Lord Anthony Bamford and sold in 1971 to B.H. Atchley, the owner of the Smokey Mountain Car Museum in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee where it spent 35-years as a centrepiece. In 2006 it was sold at auction for $2.1 million after which it was restored over 4 years by Aston Martin Heritage specialists in Switzerland complete with all of its 13 pieces of Bond special equipment. In was the subject of a feature article on the Bond DB5 cars that was printed in the October 2012 issue of Motor. In 2013 it was offered for sale at $4.7 million dollars by Richard Stewart Williams Ltd of Surrey

Chassis number DB5/2017/R also went to America as a promotional car and after ‘Thunderball’ ended up as a pace car driven by Jacky Stewart at Laguna Seca Speedway. This car was also purchased in 1969 by Lord Bamford who kept the car for himself using his own registration number. He purchased both cars for $3750 each.

In 1970, Bamford swapped DB5/2017/R for a 1964 Ferrari 250GTO,

owned by his friend Sandy Luscombe-Whyte. The Ferrari is worth $40 million today!

In 1971 Luscombe-Whyte gave DB5/2017/R to Frank Baker of Vancouver, British Columbia in exchange for an all-expenses-paid trip aboard the QE2 to New York valued at $21,600.

The car spent the next 13 years with Baker until 1980 and then he sold the car to Alf Spence for $7000 who after having it restored sold it to Ernest Hartz of San Francisco who sold it to racing car driver Bob Bondurant for $80,000.

Bondurant sold it one year later to Robert Pass who 5 months later sold it to a Robert Littman who discovered that DB5/2017/R was not used in Goldfinger nor was it driven by Sean Connery so he sold it to a Jaguar dealership in New Jersey. In 1989 that dealership went into receivership and DB5/2017/R disappeared until it was traced to the Louwman Collection in the National Automobile Museum in Raamsdonksveer, Holland where it is today. 

 In 2012 charges were filed against Anthony Pugliese 111 for creating fake companies and using phony billings to steal from business partner Frederick DeLuca. He was found guilty and sentenced to six months in jail and 10 years of probation. In January 2018, he was ordered to pay $23 million to the estate of Frederick DeLuca.

Whilst speculation, hypothesis, motives and potential resting places for the DB5 continue to this day but the original car to date has not been found.

The original cost of an Aston Martin DB5 back in 1965 was ￡4175. 7 shillings and 6 pence including purchase tax. This would equate back then to the value of a decent semi-detached house.

Only 1,023 Aston Martin DB5 series one cars were made between July 1963 to September 1965 and the cars were apparently designed for the factory by the Italian coachbuilder Carrozzeria as a Touring Superleggera and named after Sir David Brown who owned the company from 1947 to 1972.

Despite many investigations and enquiries the missing James Bond Aston Martin DB5 chassis number DP5/216/1 has not been found.

Its’ stamped in chassis number on a plate attached to its offside wing valance should be obvious to anyone looking for it as will its engine number on the nearside front of the cylinder block. Another traceable number on the top of its gearbox and a back axle number stamped on the pinion nose should also be visible. Any interference to these numbers should be obvious.

It may or may not exist today either as a complete car or even as parts of another but nevertheless both the police and insurance investigation continues and the crime remains open.

Clearly any news on the cars whereabouts, speculative or not will be welcomed by the media particularly as the twice cancelled launch and run up to the launch of ‘No Time to Die’ in October 20201.

By coincidence another 1965 Aston Martin DB5 chassis number, DB5/2058/R was stolen in broad daylight from Wilmslow in Cheshire in July 2020 just after the film’s original launch date in April 2020. This car has not been recovered to date.

 Many police, insurance experts and enthusiasts agree that the case of the missing Goldfinger Aston Martin DB5 is covered in both honest camouflage and dishonest subterfuge and it might be one that even James Bond himself could not unravel.

After making enquiries throughout the UK and in Europe, New Scotland Yard received no useful information on the Aston Martins whereabouts.

The question remains however as to how a famous classic car can remain hidden for almost a quarter of a century without anyone seeing or even hearing anything tangible about its location is more of a mystery than its actual whereabouts.

 Whilst logic dictates that theft, fraud or publicity must be involved in this crime my research such is available into either the whereabouts of the car or who did it has left me more questions than answers.