[quote user="Mtaylo25"]
Hey guys: More than you probably ever wanted to know about Bond/Aston DB-series kits, but here goes:
Aurora: There are 2 completely unrelated kits. One is a stock Aston Martin DB4, a model prior to the "Bond Aston" which has full detail, opening doors, and has been reissued many times by both Aurora, Monogram, and Revell. It is 1/25 scale.
A completely unrelated kit was the "Super Spy Car" which had lots of "working" features like the ejector seat, bumper rams, bulletproof trunk shield, and tire-cutting wheel knock-offs. This kit shares no parts with the DB4 except tires. It is a curbside (no engine/closed doors and trunk). This kit has never been reissued since the original 1960s run, and the tooling was presumably either scrapped or lost with other Aurora tooling when the train carrying molds to Monogram derailed in the 1970s after they bought the Aurora tooling bank.
Airfix (original): The Airfix kit was a full-detail (engine, etc.) kit that in addition to the James Bond version, could easily have been built as a stock DB-5 with a small bit of work. This, in my opinion, is still by far the best kit of the DB-5, Bond or not in 1/24 scale. Also issued by "Craft Master" (an MPC sub-brand for foreign kits) in the USA. The tooling was modified into the Aston Martin DB-6, the successor to the DB-5, and offered in both Airfix and MPC boxes depending on country. The DB-6 tooling, as well as the "Bond" Toyota 2000GT roadster/MPC Non-Bond 2000GT roadster, and England-only Airfix non-bond 2000GT coupe was lost in a 1970s-era warehouse fire and none have, or ever will, be reissued.
Doyusha/Airfix 1990s+ issues: In the 1990s, Doyusha in Japan tooled up a very basic curbside chassis for a vintage DB5 slot car body of unknown origin. When doing so, they also produced a James Bond version with mostly non-functioning options to display the car with some of the trademark "gadgets" deployed. Some worked, like the bulletproof rear panel and the wheel knock-offs, but there was no ejector seat, etc. Airfix reissued the "stock" kit at the same time. The Doyusha Bond kit also came with Bond/Oddjob standing figures which were very nicely done.
It should be noted that the Airfix version has nothing in common to the 1960s/70s DB-5/6 kits.
Revell Germany 2017 issue: Revell Germany announced that it would be issuing a James Bond DB-5 kit in late 2017. It is not clear if this is new tooling or a reissue of the Doyusha kit.
Hope that helps gents!
The Bond DB-5 was released by MPC in 1966. That year MPC was on something of a spy car binge releasing most of their annual kits with guns, tire cutters, rocket belts, dash mounted tracking devices and anti car rockets.
Three years later MPC released the DB-5 as, as noted, a 1/25th scale stock version. The same year they released the Toyota roadster; also stock only. Of course the only major modification made in the real "You only Live Twice" Toyota was it was made into a roadster. Shawn Connery was unable to fit into the available coupe version.