In the new James Bond movie Skyfall, the Aston Martin DB5--a
rare but staple race car in the spy fiction series since 1964--explodes into
smithereens. We'll spare you the cinematic details, but take heart, auto
aficionados. The real DB5 is safe.
A Bavarian 3-D printing
company called voxeljet made three meticulously
accurate 1:3 scale models of the classic vehicle, layer-by-layer. Each fake car
(below) is made of 18 transparent plastic parts printed out of PMMA by voxeljet’s high-end VX4000 printer, a machine
that can make objects as large as 13 feet by 6.5 feet by 3 feet.
From there a British
prop-making company called Propshop Modelmakers assembled the models and
applied realistic finishing like paint, chrome polish, and even bullet holes to
match different car chase scenes in Skyfall.
Only 1,021 real Aston
Martin DB5s were manufactured
between 1963 and 1965, and the cameo car in the
James Bond movie Goldfinger was recently valued
at $2.6 million.
The models themselves
aren’t cheap, either. Although one of the models met a fiery end, another sold
for $99,041 at a Christie’s
auction.
WOW they were expensive model cars. But I do admire the beauty held by the earlier cars.. That AM is a beauty. with a hefty price tag..
ReplyDeleteI seem to recall thinking, "Noooo, not the Aston Martin!"
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