Driven To Accuracy

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The appearance of the Aston Martin DB5 in 'Goldfinger' signalled a lifelong partnership between the Bond brand and the British marque. Six decades later we are still celebrating that perfect match, as UK-based Agora Models has launched a series of incredibly detailed one-eighth models of the DB5 and Bond's other exotic vehicles. Their latest announcement was the golden DB5, to celebrate the 60th annivesrary of 007's third screen outing. With only seven produced, this item was a labour of love for its manufacturer. MI6 caught up with Agora Models founder, James Franks to discuss the production of these kit set models.

Can you tell us a bit about the history of Agora Models and the unique way you produce these models?
We started five years ago – a relatively new company – and the ethos really was just to make model kits of things we love. We're all kind of modelers. You grow up making little Airfix kits; I got glue everywhere and couldn’t paint them well but they were really fun to make. So we remove that step. All our kits come pre-painted, which is important for a car. You’ve really got to know what you’re doing to paint a car and get a metallic finish.

To start off we made models of American muscle cars like the Mustang, or a Jaguar E-Type, Lamborghini – all the cars that you would put on your wall as a teenager. But we wanted a way that people would end up with a ‘museum quality’ product at the end. So they're screwed together. There's a tiny bit of gluing where necessary, but we try and avoid that. There are about 500 parts to each one and we try to replicate the materials of the actual car. So the bodywork will be metal, rubbery tires, the insides, the seats we try to replicate in leather. If it's PVC seats, we try to replicate that.

So you’re getting something that’s really enjoyable to make but when it’s built you kind of wouldn’t know that it was a kit set. Put it on the sideboard and you have a fantastic model at the end of it.

We started as a business in the UK and we now sell product in 50 countries. It’s really growing quickly.

How did you get into producing vehicles from the Bond franchise?
I always liked Bond movies growing up and particularly the gadget side of things. He's always got these gadgets that get him out of trouble. When I came of age it was 'Goldfinger' and the car, so making cars with all the gadgets in them and trying to get them to work was a really cool thing to do. We just approached EON and said what we wanted to do, start with one car.

We started with the 'No Time To Die' DB5, which launched a year ago. That was great because we went and had a look at the real car, we scanned it, and they got the machine guns and the lights working for us. We thought ‘How do you replicate that at tiny scale?’ So we incorporated motors, little lights and sound effects. On our models, the machine guns actually work and spin round and just look really cool.

How did the limited edition gold plated DB5 come about?
We had moved on to Wet Nellie from 'The Spy Who Loved Me'. That was when EON started asking us about doing something for the 60^th anniversary of Goldfinger. So, we did two things. One was launch the 'Goldfinger' version of DB5, about a month ago. So that's the standard kit and that's available to all.

Then we thought ‘What can we do that’s really special?’ The obvious thing was well, ‘Could we do a gold one?’ So we looked into it and we worked with a mint, who do a lot of coins, to work out how to gold plate the actual car.

We decided we wouldn't gold plate the whole thing because these are big models. They weigh 15 pounds, seven kilos and they're 50 centimetres long. We decided just to change the main body into gold plate, and so it's gold plated inside and out, but we kept all the chrome finishes, and the Y-spoke wheels.

We decided to only make seven of them. We're doing this as a celebration of the 60th anniversary. So there are only seven available and we won't make any more after that. Seven’s a really cool number. When you think about it, it's like one model per continent or one per billion people can own one.

The prototype is going to be at Burlington Arcade until Christmas. Anyone can go and have a look at it and it does look stunning. Even the mint who made it were astounded about how well it came out – how shiny – because they’re used to making much smaller things. The problem is it's really difficult to photograph because it's just so reflective. So we spent two days on the PR photos, two days getting those done, because it’s like photographing a mirror.

Tell us a little about the development and engineering process behind designing such a model?
We always work with the car manufacturer. So, in this case, Aston Martin, and obviously EON. So we look through all the Bond movies and we think ‘Let’s do that one.’ Then it’s the case of finding the actual vehicle. Aston Martin, they have also a lot of DB5s in their works. So we can go and get prints of the engine, look at the engine blueprints, all that kind of thing.

So, first thing is to 3D scan the whole thing – usually one of the exhibits in the Bond in Motion show. We spend several hours 3D scanning to create a computer model. We merge that together with everything we get from Aston Martin.

Then we look at the screen car, and for instance on the Esprit, the licence plate on the car in the movie is different to the one in the museum. So we make any corrections to make sure it’s identical to the movie.

From there we break down the model, the computer model, to work out how to construct this to one-eighth scale: breaking all the components down resizing to one to eight and then working out how they will then go back together for the user as a model kit, which is an art in its own right. From there we make a prototype to go to EON and Aston Martin to approve.

We worked a lot with the historian at Aston Martin to get even the colour of the cables in the engine right. Then we worked with EON to get all the gadgets and James Bond stuff correct.

When it’s all signed off we go and create around about a hundred or so moulds. There’s plastic, metal, die-cast stuff. Some weight a tonne. Then we work out the best sequence of putting it together for the customer.

If you built a real car you’d build going outwards. So do the chassis and engine, then put the seats in and then the bodywork. That's a sensible way of doing it but it's not so interesting when you're building a model, because when you first start, you actually want to do a bit of bodywork and see the quality of it and everything. So we start work on bits of the body as well. But generally the car grows up over time as you're building it. I'd say the model engine's very intricate and detailed, but then you surround it with the whole of bodywork. You as the builder know all the detail that’s in there. Aston Martin have said that our model are the best that've been made of the DB5. So we strive for accuracy both in terms of the car and the James Bond as well.

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