Bond references galore as Aston Martin DB6 is restored on Car SOS

Another programme of Bondian interest to report on this week: More4's Car SOS. Each week presenters Tim Shaw and Fuzz Townshend rescue a classic car belonging to an owner unable to restore the car themselves because of straitened or other unfortunate circumstances. In an episode broadcast a few weeks ago, the hosts answered a request from a viewer to restore an Aston Martin DB6, which had mechanical problems and had been sitting and rusting in the garage for some years. The DB6 never appeared in a Bond film, but that didn't stop the presenters from playing on Aston Martin's connection with James Bond.

In the introduction to the car, the DB6 was described as the Bond car that never was; the model is closely based on the DB5, which was of course made famous by its appearance in Goldfinger. Indeed, the introduction as a whole was given a Bondian theme with graphics that recalled the gunbarrel and title sequences of the Bond films.
 

An introduction to the DB6 is given the Bond-film treatment

The presenters collected the car from the owner's wife (the owner was abroad and the restoration was to be a surprise) and got it back to the workshop. There was a lot to do on the car, and Tim wondered whether the car would scare 'the living daylights' out of the team of mechanics. He continued: 'It's time for the whole team to cast a golden eye over the car.' For much of the episode, Tim was wearing a semblance of a dinner suit in the form of a white jacket and bow tie. At another point, we saw a man turn towards the camera while sitting in a swivel chair and stroking a white toy cat.
 

Tim Shaw in 'dinner suit'

Despite the restoration being the team's 'riskiest undercover mission yet', the mechanics did wonders and managed to restore the DB6. An elaborate 'reveal' was planned. The owner was collected from the airport by his wife, who took him to a castle where they watched the filming of a fake spy film, Dr Spyfinger. There the restored car was brought into view to the obvious surprise and joy of the owner.
 

The restored DB6

The whole episode was full of Bond references, and it even included a visit to the Aston Martin Heritage Trust Museum in Drayton St Leonard in Oxfordshire, where, incidentally, there's a very nice display of Bond memorabilia relating to Aston Martin. Interestingly, in the previous episode of Car SOS, the team restored a Sunbeam Alpine, a model that appeared in both the film and book of Dr No. Now there's an idea: how about an entire series of Bond car restorations?