Make a list of some of the most iconic Aston Martins to have ever been made and somewhere on that list, you’re going to find the 1957 Aston Martin MK III, —one of the most famous Aston Martins to have been built, partly because of its involvement in Ian Fleming’s 1957 Goldfinger novel. Yes, we all know that Sean Connery ended up driving an Aston Martin DB5 when the movie adaption was released in 1964, but it was actually a gadget-filled MK III that James Bond drove in the source material.
It’s not that often that you’ll see a MK III on the road these days, and even classic car collector Dave Adams, the subject of the latest Petrolicious episode, doesn’t have an actual MK III. Instead, he has a prototype of the Mk III, which in itself is just as good as owning the real thing. Adams was supposed to get a convertible version of the classic Aston, but when that car was sold, the dealer pointed him to a light blue MK III prototype that actually had an even richer history than any of the production versions that were sold at the time.
Call it fate, destiny, or serendipity. Adams calls it love at first sight, even though he freely admitted that the light blue color wasn’t to his liking. But none of that could’ve prepared him for the mountain of documents that the car came with, as is the case for most prototypes. It had engineering reports and a race history that included being fielded in the Grand Prix Circuit of the Monte Carlo. About the only thing it didn’t have were the gadgets that James Bond had in the Goldfinger novel.
And to think Adams only got the chance to own this MK III prototype because the car he was slated to find a different owner. The automotive world works in mysterious ways sometimes. Just when you think you know what you’re getting, it gives you something you didn’t expect. That’s the story of Dave Adams and his Aston Martin MK III prototype. It’s a story that I’m sure Ian Fleming would be proud of.