On June 19, 1997, the world’s most famous car, the Aston Martin DB5 driven by Sean Connery in the James Bond film Goldfinger, vanished, never to be seen again.
It may have finally been found in the Middle East.
“I believe that this car has been exhibited in the Middle East before. I’m of the impression the current possessor would like to show it off. I’ve had reports that it may have been lent to Bahrain and of it being in Kuwait. We’re focusing on the Middle East – possibly Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain – that general area,” says Christopher A. Marinello of Art Recovery International who specializes in recovering lost treasures.
For Christopher, it’s personal: he has spent over a decade on the trail of the treasure he calls his “white whale”. Christopher also reveals the intriguing new lead he has about the car’s current location, he says.
Now the search for the lost car, along with a $100,000 reward, is to be documented in a new eight-part podcast series entitled The Great James Bond Car Robbery, an extraordinary true heist story featuring rock stars, designers, art detectives and thieves, and it launches today an all podcast apps. It’s being produced by the Spyscape Podcast Network.
The car is today worth in excess of $25 million—probably more, as a McLaren F1 went for $28 million just yesterday—and the iconic vehicle with the chassis tag DP/216/1 was fitted with ejector seats. machine guns, tire-shredders and quickly became known as ‘the most famous car in the world’.
After the film’s release the car was passed from collector to collector, its value and celebrity growing every year. Florida real estate developer Anthony Pugliese III bought the car at a Sotheby’s auction in 1986, had it insured for 16 times what he paid for it, and stashed it away inside a private jet hangar at Boca Raton Airport.
The show is hosted by Elizabeth Hurley, delving into the world of international automobile dealers and collectors to uncover what really happened to the ultimate cultural icon – exploring its remarkable history, its creators, and the obsession it inspires.
The podcast dramatizes the events that allegedly unfolded at the private jet hangar in Florida in 1997 with testimony from the original investigators. How was the robbery staged? How were the alarms not triggered? Why didn’t the guards witness anything? How do you fly a plane full of car into the Florida sky without anyone noticing? We look at evidence, dig into some of the more outlandish theories and re-open the original case file to look for new leads.
The official tease for the pod comes as follows:
“The deafening noise of the airplane’s engines can’t disguise the metallic screech as the chain goes tight and the hook attached to the axle yanks the whole chassis out of the garage. The wheels skid on the tarmac as one-and-a-half tons of beautiful British engineering are dragged up a ramp and into the cargo bay of the plane. Within minutes, the most recognizable car in the world will be 15,000 feet up in the sky above Florida. But, for once in its life, the cameras aren’t rolling….”
The DB5 remains the most frequently featured, instantly recognizable and beloved car in Eon’s James Bond film franchise, appearing in Goldfinger(1964), Thunderball(1965),GoldenEye(1995), Tomorrow Never Dies(1997), Casino Royale(2006), Skyfall(2012) and Spectre(2015). The DB5 returns in 007’s latest adventure, No Time To Die, scheduled for release 30 September in the UK and 8 October in the US.
The podcast can be found here.
