Marek Reichman of Aston Martin Interview: Talking James Bond No Time To Die & the missing DB5

If you head down to Battersea Power Station you’ll find the James Bond DB5 continuation car complete with all the gadgets housed in a Corgi Box. As part of the long running relationship with James Bond, Aston Martin produced 25 continuation cars for private customers and this is one of those 25. To celebrate the upcoming No Time to Die which has its premiere on the 28th September and will be on general release in the UK on the 30th September, my friend Pete Brooker, editor of From Tailors With Love, sat down with Marek Reichman, Executive Vice President and Chief Creative Officer of Aston Martin.

(Peter Brooker): Marek just give us a little introduction to yourself and what it is that you do at Aston Martin, please.

(Marek Reichman): Yes, I'm Marek Reichman, I have a grandiose title of Executive Vice President and Chief Creative Officer. But what it actually means is I'm the designer, so and I've been designing Aston Martin's, and anything associated with the brand in terms of look and feel for 15 years, or probably slightly more than 15 years now. But my daily job is to think about the future of automotive design with respect to Aston Martin, think of our future products, think of the future car line where the brand's going in terms of its look and feel. And obviously, one of the most brilliant parts of that is that we've had a long standing relationship with James Bond, the franchise EON and the movies. And actually, one of the first jobs, when I joined Aston Martin was to design the DBS that obviously went into Casino Royale.

And what’s that relationship like? What’s it like working with EON and who calls who?

We call each other because it is as you describe it, it's a relationship. And I think, you know, Barbara broccoli, Michael Wilson - we're on the Rolodex when they start thinking about the new movie. It's a conversation we have and the way it's worked thus far, and I'm sure it won't change is that Barbara Michael, and previously Daniel have been up to the studio to see what we've been doing. So I allow them into my studio space to see the future. And I always make a joke when I take anyone in there that we only let James Bond in here normally, so royalty and James Bond. And they come and look at what we have in store and in plan for the future and decide whether it's appropriate for the movie if we need to do something special to continue the relationship and you know, we've had some amazing times throughout that.

The DBS obviously for Daniel Craig in Casino Royale then Quantum of Solace. Sam Mendes wanting to create a unique car, which was the first time ever for James Bond in Spectre and doing the DB 10, which only 10 cars made. And we actually gave the moniker DB 10 to that car because obviously, we went DB 9 to DB 11. So the DB 10 is officially James Bond car. And so that kind of gives you an idea of how close and how we value the relationship. The other important factor to say is that you know, I think heroes - the Aston Martin and James Bond movies has become a hero. And for me that was all brought home when Sam Mendes introduced the cast for Spectre and the first cast member he introduced was DB 10. And that's how he introduced the DB 10 onstage before anyone else. So I think it kind of gives you an idea of how really James Bond can't do his job without an Aston Martin.

We’re here at Battersea today outside the power station, and we've just unveiled one of the continuations for the DB5’s in the box so people can come down and see it here. It's down at the jetty Pier. Maybe we can talk a little bit about that. So this is one of the continuations of 25 that were built for private customers I believe. So do you put the feelers out here customers first and say look, we can do this project if you've got an appetite for it.

 Yeah, I think what we typically would do is was talk to our customers know what's happening know what celebrations or milestones are happening in the future and obviously this year we celebrate 50 years of that relationship. We’ve done other continuation cars and you know customers say well what about the DB5 so we decided to make the DB5 continuation car more special and actually recreate the Bond car and do 25 additions of the bond car. They are not road legal cars they are track only cars. You are looking for collectors or serious collectors who want something completely unique and once the 25 are sold, that's it there will never be repeated. And I think therefore you have a highly collectible car. And if you are both Aston Martin collector and Bond memorabilia collector, then you know this is this the perfect car for you.

Out of the 25 one of those in the box right?

One of the 25 is in the box right now. Yeah, so it's not just a toy. The box itself is called a living garage. It's going to protect the car, it's going to be outside for four weeks. And inside is a real car. It's a car that we could drop the back of the box, reverse it out and drive it around. And it's got all the gadgets in it. So that bulletproof shield has a removable roof panel, no ejector seat, but the panel comes out and it has the tracking system in the centre console, it's got the flip up switch on the gear shifter. It has the smoke trails, oil trails, tire slashes, rotating revolving number plates, obviously. So it's got all the gadgets.

So I read that the bullet shield had to be inserted separately, then once we needed to get the oil slicks out, then we take the bullet shield out, and the oil slicks go in. So there's kind of a little bit of chopping and changing, how have you managed to get everything in? And lastly, the kind of tire splitting axles that come out of the wheels, so they were done in close ups and edits, are they involved as well?

We re-engineered the car. Effectively when the original Goldfinger car and all of its gadgets were made it was made as a movie car. So it really had to do maybe 10-15-20 days of filming. And in this instance, we've engineered the car for the period of its life. All of the gadgets have been engineered to last to be usable for the customer. And we engineered and re-packaged the bullet shield and the oil container and the smoke container as well so that everything works. The tire slashes come as a separate item that you order and then you can fit. So obviously to drive around with them always out is going to be a little bit dangerous even for a track based car. So it's something that you do specially fit but they will go on there and I presume they would work.

And with this being such a success as in nearly all 25 being sold. How close are we to saying Well, let's find another 25?

We'd never do that. 25 was the number and 25 it will be.

Maybe you can just talk a little bit about the Aston Martin that was stolen in Florida back in the day. And there's been a recent podcast episode on the spy escape that people can listen to as well. So it's all quite fascinating. But how much do you know about this? Where's the car?

Well, you know. I know as much as I know from our internal experts and obviously, as you would imagine from recognising the car, understanding the car and the kind of chronology of which car what number, what distinguishing marks. We will always want to verify so obviously, you know, come and ask Aston Martin whether it is the actual car because we know and therefore we have as many tails out in the marketplace and the world looking.

I think someone knows where it is and whose it is.

What exactly are the 15 cars that were used for No Time To Die that were flown out to Matera?

All of the stunt cars are obviously built to really ensure the safety of the stunt drivers. So and they have to do some incredible stunts, they jump, they do donuts, they do full on drifts, they're slamming into things. So they had to be built an incredibly robust way. And you wouldn't use an original DB five to do any of that. So they are exact visual copies. So the look of the car, even the feel of the chrome work except etc, is exactly as you'd find it. But underneath that look and feel surface is a carbon fibre body over what is called a spaceframe chassis. So it's a very lightweight chassis that incorporates the roll cage and the safety systems for the driver. And so, you know, all of that was engineered by Aston Martin and the technicians within Aston Martin Lagonda and Newport Pagnell, our work service division. So in theory, they are re-engineered DB fives totally engineered and manufactured and built by Aston Martin, but they have nothing in common with the original DB five apart from the way they look.

And we have the return of the V8 my personal favourite. And Daniel Craig's, what is it about the V8 that you think resonates with everybody?

I think it's probably also one of Cary’s favourite cars as well. Cary Fukunaga, who's the director obviously, I think you know. What resonates it's something fresh it's something different to the DB five. It is still classic and it's incredibly powerful not just powerful in terms of its horsepower, but it's a powerful image that the car has. It has very broad shoulders, it did take inspiration in the day from Americana and the muscle cars of that period. And you can clearly see it so if you like, it's the first true Brut in a Suit and you know, I think that's why it just it looks the part.

What happens after? Do they go into the Bond archives? Or do they come back to Newport Pagnell?

Typically, we get some of the original cars and then the EON franchise get some and some of them are taken out on their road shows etc. But we would typically keep some of the cars and EON will keep some of the cars as well.

NB – The Aston Martin DB5 will be on display throughout September.