This engine, producing 282 bhp (210 kW), which propelled the car to 145 mph (233 km/h), was available in the Vantage (high powered) version of the DB4 from March 1962.

[9] Standard equipment on the DB5 included reclining seats, wool pile carpets, electric windows, twin fuel tanks, chrome wire wheels, oil cooler, magnesium-alloy body built to Superleggera patent technique, full leather trim in the cabin and a fire extinguisher.

[10] At the beginning, the original four-speed manual gearbox (with optional overdrive) was standard fitment, but it was dropped in favour of the ZF five-speed box.

A rare factory option (fitted by Works Service prior to customer delivery) was a steel removable hard top.

A prototype DB5 shooting-brake was custom-built by the factory for David Brown, an avid hunter and dog owner, and a further 11 or 12 coupés were custom-modified for Aston Martin by independent coachbuilder Harold Radford.

The Aston Martin DB5 became widely known after special effects expert John Stears modified a DB5 for use by James Bond in the 1964 film Goldfinger.

Author Ian Fleming had placed Bond in a DB Mark III in the novel, but Stears persuaded the company to make its DB5 prototype available.

It was retrofitted by subsequent owners with non-original weaponry and later appeared in the film The Cannonball Run (1981), driven by Roger Moore.

This car was sold at a Christie's auction in 2001 and entered the Guinness Book of Records that year after receiving the highest price paid for an item of Bond memorabilia.

[28] The car is destroyed in the film's climactic finale, although a highly detailed 1/3rd scale model was constructed for the destruction scenes.

[29] It is seen again in Spectre (2015), firstly in Q's underground workshop in various stages of rebuild, and at the film's ending, fully rebuilt, with Bond driving it away.

[33] In 2020, as the next phase of the Continuation programme which had started in 2017 with the reborn DB4GT,[34] Aston Martin began construction of 25 new DB5 Goldfinger-themed cars at the factory in Newport Pagnell, north Buckinghamshire, where the first DB5s were built.

Several of the gadgets were designed to be functional, including smoke screen, simulated oil slick delivery system, revolving number plates, and rear bullet shield.

[34] The engine was a 290bhp 4.0 litre inline six-cylinder with three SU carburettors, mated to a five-speed ZF manual transmission,[34] and the cars were finished in the same Silver Birch colour scheme as the original.

[40] A highly detailed, 1:24 scale die-cast DB5 model with many working features was produced by the Danbury Mint in 2006 as a limited edition for Casino Royale.

In January 2011, a 1/8 scale model was released by part work magazine publisher GE Fabbri in the UK.

[41] In 2015, Hot Wheels Elite released their Cult Classics Goldfinger Aston Martin DB5 in 1/18 and 1/43 scale, the 1/18 model featuring many of the gadgets from the original film.

In July 2018, LEGO unveiled a 1:8 scale 1,290-piece DB5 construction set with front machine guns, hidden telephone, ejector seat, bullet shield, tyre shredders and the homing screen in the cockpit.

[45][46][47] The Little Car Company in Bicester, UK, in partnership with Aston Martin Lagonda, created 'Junior Edition', two-thirds scale, electric-powered replicas of the DB5 convertible, the DB5 Vantage and the No Time to Die DB5, which were priced between £35,000 and £90,000.